Ballast

[John Arton]

On bulk carriers it's important to keep ballast tanks as clear of mud and sediment as possible as many cargoes are loaded on draft surveys to determine quantity loaded and build up of mud etc can affect the ships constant. On one cape sized bulkers I was mate on mud and sediment in ballast tanks had built up to such an extent that the original constant of 350 tons was up to 1200 tons, meaning around 900 tons of cargo was lost each voyage.
Rgds
J.A

[j.sabourn]

The same thing happened when I was on leave and the relieving mate assumed the ballast tanks were empty as the sounding tape was showing dry. However this was in Russia and in the cool period or should say cooler and he had pumped out tanks or dropped them to the sea and tanks were slack,and more liable to freeze .which some did , plus the Russians insisted that the ore we loaded had the allowed water content and had running water going in with the cargo , I didn’t follow the result of the loss but if had been me I would have blamed the Russians with insisting on loading their estimated cargo water content I always insisted log book entries that this was being done and informed the Russians I had done so . She was a 26000 ton deadweight ship don’t know what came out but think it was about the 20,000 mark.. Sea water not mud but the same principle with any ship down to its marks. JS.

[Des Jenkins]

Hi John
I was feeding them on seed but it was to expensive so changed to porridge oats which they can't get enough of never leave a scrap, no local farms around the Cooma so they wont be going for the wheat.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

James, those birds you have in UK are not Sea Gulls they are flying terrorists.
Our Sea Gulls are half the size.
But food for wild life is important and with the current drought we are in, may well last up to ten years, we need to think of the wild life, real ones not the polis.
Too may dead Roos on the road side looking for fresh food, feed the birds and supply water for them, have to help where we can.

[j.sabourn]

I used to live opposite an ornamental freshwater lake , on the opposite side of the lake was a school .On the lake were ducks and the occasional swan used to fly in. The council removed all the wild life off the Lake due to the kids and others feeding the birds and causing them distress was the answer I got when asked , apparently bread is bad for them , anyone know if this is true or not.Or were the birds removed for protection at Christmas time and other times when certain people got hungry. ? JS

[James Curry]

Bread when eaten swells up in the tummy making the bird feel full and therefore no need to eat, there is not a lot of goodness in a bread alone diet.

John Oz we are in a drought here in the UK certainly in my area Wirral North West England it has not rained for 24 days and no substancial rainfall since Early March. Farmers are getting very concerned as the ground is rock hard and fear a lot of early planted crops will fail also planned sowing has been delayed due to the very dry conditions. The Herring Gulls are the big buggers weighing in at just under 2kgs. Landfill sites are there play ground and in the towns they find plenty of disgarded food because some lazy bastards cannot be arsed to use a bin..

Always remember watching the Albatross following us for days in the Southern Atlantic hardly flapping a wing just gliding along for days , then get up one morning and not one in view, bugger that heading North malarky.
We had one crash landed on the wing of the bridge on one trip. Huge it was no one would go near it . The Bosun got a sack threw it over it and picked it up. He quickly removed the sack and gave the Albatross a gentle poke with a stick and knocked it off the rail. It headed for the water and then just opened it's wing and soared upwards again and resumed station for a day or so. Graceful creatures unlike these bastard herring gulls.
Always freshen up the water in the bird bath in the garden, great to watch the birds having a drink and a splash.