Latest Glen Sannox Delay

#4… John am surprised none of our Scottish members have mentioned the Chain Locker in Aberdeen could be lucky on entry to such establishment with your broom Bissal to fast discover a witch sitting on it ? Cheers JS.

I am indeed a blown away Scotsman John but the last time I was in Aberdeen was for an Oceanroutes conference and that wasn't yesterday .
But perhaps Robert Burns had visited the above mentioned establishment and perhaps that's where his inspiration foe Tam 'O Shanter can from ?.

Pleased to see you’ve spelt Oceanroutes correctly, and not like some might imagine the experience in Oceanroots. Whatever will the weather experts do today with unexplainable weather ? JS.

I do not think shipping companies these day actually own ships/ I know the LNG Carriers BP had were owned by and leased to BP. When BP considered they were no longer suited to there needs they ran the lease down and handed them back to the banks, that is if they could find a branch open lol. It is a rare find here in the UK if you can find a bank that still there and not a Bistro or Reastaurant / Gastro Pub.

James, banks are closing all over, lack of money by the clients may be the reason.

But Gastro restaurants, is that were you get sick with all manner of complaints??

No John, a Gastro Pub is just somewhere that charges you twice the price for what you could buy elsewhere. The cost of a pint or glass of wine not cheap either. One Gastro pub you may have visited on your Irish travels may well have been The Temple Bar in Dublin. To give you an idea, an Irish Coffee from €10.55, Draught beer from €8.95, a glass of wine €10.55. If you just fancy a sandwich €20.00. Maybe at those prices it will add a touch of acid to your Gastro juices. So Gastro a modern word for rip off merchants.

Talking with a friend of mine today not long back from UK holiday.
Said he went to Wetherspoons and got beer for less then 2GBP a pint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes you can get cheap beer in Wheterspoons. They buy in beer that has a short shelf life and the brewery wants rid of it. My local a pint is £4.35, my nearest Wheterspoons I can get a pint of Doom bar for £2.00. For all I drink these days cannot be arsed to get the bus to West Kirby and back for cheap beer, after 2 pints I have to make sure I can make it home before I need to shake hands with me friend. Age is the curse of the oldman and to many pints especially with a walk home at the end of the night.
I prefer to support my local pub, especially if I want to wath football on a big screen TV.

Just found this thread? which brought back memories of my time as an Apprentice on Bowring's ore carrier mv Trinculo. She was the first vessel we had that had anchor pockets, the anchor slotted in flush with the bow, and it was also the last one we had with that design. I asked the Chief Officer the reasoning behind this design and he explained that unlike the standard design where the anchor flukes could come up pointing inwards to the hull and require turning by lowering a wire onto the flukes, running it to another winch, tightening until the anchor turned and then trying to get the wire back off the anchor before it turned back or got jammed in the hawse pipe, this pocket ensured that whichever way the anchor came up it would turn itself or tip the flukes so that the anchor slotted correctly into the pocket. All clever stuff!! Anyway a short time later when leaving another port, I cannot remember where, maybe Bizerta, we had to use the anchor to help swing the vessel. Weighing the anchor was going well until the Chief Officer shouted to "chippy" to slow down, he didn't hear, the anchor kept coming up, jammed itself in the pocket with the stock also jammed at an angle in the hawse pipe. Nothing would clear it so we had to steam home with our port anchor sticking out like a sore thumb. When I suggested to the Chief Officer that he had told me this couldn't happen I was just quick enough to duck and avoid a clip round the ear. If the Administrator reads this it was our friend Reg Pilling.

Standing by as 2nd mate on a new build panamax B+W built bulker, there was a similar problems with the anchor stowage. The standard outfit as built by the yard had each anchor fitted with it's own stand alone windlass and warping drum. C.P, being a penny pinching lot demanded that both windlasses be powered by a single source with a common drive shaft and a dog clutch arrangement at the power source to clutch in whatever anchor was being used. This meant that the windlass alignment had to be altered so as to fit the new arrangement. This meant that the lead from the gypsy over the locking bar and into the hawse pipe was not a straight line. When we joined in Gothenburg they were attempting to fix the problem of one anchor not stowing correctly. Strange that it was only one side but the yard kept perceiving shifting the position and alignment of the locking bar arrangement. Eventually time ran out and they still hadn't solved the problem so they brought a barge around, ran a wire over one of the flukes, led the wire up to the winch on the focsle and used it the heave the anchor into the correct alignment so as the flukes sat snugly against the hul. Voilà, job done, off you go. How do we stow that anchor in the future, do we always have to hire a barge? Don't know, don't care was the answer, you've accepted the ship now off you go so we can get on with our next build, perhaps you shouldn't use that anchor.
Rgds
J.A