Scary moments

[Gulliver]

I must be lucky .In 20 years I had nothing major happen on any of my ships,-apart from weathering the occasional typhoon,dockers falling down the holds,the odd fire in the cargo,a badly injured Chief Mate washed all the way down the foredeck in heavy weather off the Cape,piracy attacks off Lagos, a grounding for two days in the lower Mississippi,two wars (1971 Bangladesh , and the beginning of the 1973 Yom Kippur. Arab-Israeli War whilst I was in an Israeli port.)…
Seriously, I am not making light of these incidents,there must have been a few heart-stopping moments in there somewhere,but we all pulled together and just got on with it and sorted them out as seamen do in those circumstances-and I survived them.Hence how lucky I have been.

　
　
For something a bit more light-hearted -here’s an apocryphal (or is it? ) tale of escalating woe that could have happened to some poor Captain and his Pilot.
My apologies to those who have seen it before,but it was several years ago since I originally posted it in the Humorous Pilots thread-and there will be some who will not have seen it before.

　
　
　
“Pilot Aboard,Sir ! “- and wishing He Wasn’t !
　
The following report, from a ship's master, was printed in the August 1987 edition of The Log journal - its exact history is unclear.

(Reproduced with permission.)


'It is with regret and haste that I write this letter to you; regret that such a small misunderstanding could lead to the following circumstances, and haste in order that you will get this report before you form your own pre-conceived opinions from reports in the world press, for I am sure that they will tend to overdramatise the affair.

We had just picked up the Pilot, and the Apprentice had returned from changing the 'G' flag for the 'H' and, it being his first trip, was having difficulty rolling the 'G' flag up, I therefore proceeded to show him how. Coming to the last part, I told him to "let go," the lad although willing is not too bright, necessitating my having to repeat the order in a sharper tone.
At this moment the Chief officer appeared from the chart room, having been plotting the vessel's progress and, thinking that it was the anchors that were being referred to, repeated the "let go" to the Third Officer on the fo'cstle. The port anchor having been cleared away but not walked out, was promptly let go. The effect of letting the anchor drop from the "pipe" while the vessel was proceeding at full harbour speed proved too much for the windlass brake, and the entire length of the port cable was pulled out "by the roots." I fear that the damage to the chain locker may be extensive. The braking effect of the port anchor naturally caused the vessel to sheer in that direction, right towards the swing bridge that spans the tributary to the river up which we were proceeding.
The swing bridge operator showed great presence of mind by opening the bridge for my vessel. Unfortunately, he did not think to stop vehicular traffic, the result being that the bridge partly opened and deposited a cattle truck, two cyclists and a Volkswagen on the foredeck. My ship's company are at present rounding up the contents of the truck, which from the noise I would say were pigs.
In his efforts to stop the progress of the vessel, the Third Officer dropped the starboard anchor, too late to be of practical use, for it fell on the swing bridge operator's control cabin.
After the port anchor was let go and the vessel started to sheer, I gave a double ring full astern on the engine room telegraph and personally rang the engine room to order maximum astern revolutions. I was informed by the Duty Engineer that the sea temperature was 53 degrees and asked if there was a film tonight. My reply would not add constructively to this report.
Up to now I have confined my report to the activities at the forward end of the vessel. Down aft they were having their own problems.
At the moment the port anchor was let go, the Second Officer was supervising the making fast of the after tug and was lowering the ship's towing spring down onto the tug. The sudden braking effect on the port anchor caused the tug to run in under the stern of my vessel just at the moment when the propellers was answering my double ring full astern. The prompt action of the Second Officer in securing the inboard end of the towing spring delayed the sinking of the tug by some minutes, and thereby the safe abandoning of that vessel.
It is strange but at the very same moment of letting go the port anchor there was a power cut ashore. The fact that we were passing over a Cable Area at that time might suggest we may have touched something on the river bed. It is perhaps lucky that the high tension cables brought down by the foremast were not live, possibly being replaced by the underwater cable, but owing to the shore blackout, it is impossible to say where the pylon fell.

It never fails to amaze me the actions and behaviour of foreigners during moments of minor crisis. The Pilot for instance is at this moment huddled in the corner of my day cabin alternately crooning to himself and crying after having consumed a bottle of gin in a time that is worthy of inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records.
The Tug Master on the other hand reacted violently and had to be forcibly restrained by the Chief Steward, who has him handcuffed in the ship's hospital, where he is telling me to do impossible things with my ship and my crew.
I enclose the names and addresses of the drivers and insurance companies of the vehicles on my foredeck, which the Third Officer collected after his somewhat hurried evacuation of the fo'cstle. These particulars will enable us to claim for the extensive damage that they did to the coamings of #'s 2 and 3 holds
.
I am enclosing this preliminary report for I am finding it difficult to concentrate with the sound of police sirens and their flashing lights.
It is sad to think that had the Apprentice realised that there is no need to fly pilot flags after dark, none of this would have happened.

For my weekly accountability report I will assign the following casualty numbers T/750101 to T750119 inclusive.

Yours truly
__________________
The Master

Scribe.gif　

[Frederick Lacey]

Trying to think back I think one of the hair raising moments we had was during a north atlantic storm in the 50s, it was like being in the film
Perfect Storm we saw this swell coming towards us and next moment the ship was literally balancing on it with both the bow and stern out
of the water, it started shuddering and then there was this terrific bang, as the ship appeared to bend in the midddle, I've never seen so many
crew members with white faces and brown trousers, on checking afterwards it was found that the bang was all the tiles in the heads, bathrooms etc
had all shot up in the air from the decks as the ship had literally bent, as near as damit to a broken back, scarey.


Fred.

[Captain Kong]

I guess we all had a few /many scary moments during our Seafaring days.
I know I had a lot of them and often wondered if I would still be alive in five minutes time.
Fortunately I am still here while a lot of my mates arent.
Like crashing in the Southern Ocean in a helicopter in Heavy seas,
Fighting an engine room fire without BA sets, cos the Africans had cut the air tubes from the BA sets.
Seeing my mate Ken Hignett, drown in South Africa after trying so hard to save him.
Trying to lash down hundreds of barrels of oil that were bouncing and bursting all around us in a mighty sea, and a lad swept over the wall.
Running out of air in a BA set and sucking on a vacuum at the bottom of a Tank full of gas.
Falling off the mast while rigging a Jumbo.
Being bombed in Sumatra during the civil war there. and many many other events.
Dedeh in Tanjong Priok with a huge knife threatening to kill me cos I was Number Ten Boy after she caught me dancing with another mic mac in the wrong bar. Then she took me to the Cemetery to show me graves of Number Ten Boys. Wet my knickers then.
I guess I really enjoyed it all , looking back. Life was one big adventure then.
Cheers
Brian.

[Chris Allman]

Talking of falling off the mast when rigging the Jumbo, Myself and an AB were nearly shaken off a mast when rigging the Jumbo. A drunken Bosun, pulled it out of its mast housing by heaving on the runner without telling us up on the table. How we managed to hold on to the table I will never know, needless to say the Bosun saw stars when we got down on the deck and it wasn't me who hit him, I was just too late thank goodness.

[Ivan Cloherty]

I must be lucky .In 20 years I had nothing major happen on any of my ships,-apart from weathering the occasional typhoon,dockers falling down the holds,the odd fire in the cargo,a badly injured Chief Mate washed all the way down the foredeck in heavy weather off the Cape,piracy attacks off Lagos, a grounding for two days in the lower Mississippi,two wars (1971 Bangladesh , and the beginning of the 1973 Yom Kippur. Arab-Israeli War whilst I was in an Israeli port.)…

All sounds very familiar Davey, but in different parts of the world and a previous time. Worst thing probably fighting a fire in the paint locker, took hours, somehow you just got on with it, all part of the job, looking back on it surrounded by tonnes of paint, oils, paraffin and other inflammables, perhaps wasn't too healthy a place to be. The other one was in Suez '56 with 6000 tons high explosives, plus tank and aviation fuel in about 60,000 jerry cans when we got a signal warning of possible imminent E-Boat attack, not all Egyptians ran away!

I think on cargo ships (including tankers) with our often minimum freeboard we experienced more wave washing than passenger ships, on one six hatch ship when fully loaded the first two or three hatches would disappear under a wall of water and you're on the bridge saying to yourself, "come on girl you can do it" hoping that another rogue wave does'nt follow the one your in.

But would we have swopped those experiences for something more mundane in a shore life, I know I wouldn't, from my first trip at 13 years old into the Barents Sea and Arctic, I was hooked.

[j.sabourn]

Looking through this thread it is obvious that as seafarers we have all had different but similar experiences. I have always said that a shoreworker if he experienced a fraction of some of them would be a talking point for the rest of his lfe. I consider myself extremely lucky to have attained retiring age in one piece physically, when so many I knew in earlier days died at various times be it through normal or abnormal circumstances. If some of the incidents had happened outside of the shipping world, it would have been snapped up by the media, but as the UK seems still to have this fixation about seamen being second class citizens it is not so. I can remember going into my local pub where a group of old time mariners used to stick together, I was considered too young to join this group, who obviously considered anyone they didnt know as outsiders, this was probably due to the suspicions even then of shore people. Seamen of our generation grew up with this attitude that there was safety in numbers of your own kind, I still adhere to this in a certain manner. However as seamen as we know it will cease to exist in another generation or so, it is another reason why the controversy such as the Arctic Medal should be solved, so that future generations should be aware through their history books or tablets as they call them now should also know. As said at start lucky to have reached retirement age physically normal, I have my doubts about the mental condition at times. Regards John Sabourn

[Red Lead Ted]

Small Container Ship, We had a gantry crane that ran fore and aft on her gunwales we would as in the deck crew discharge are own cargo in Jeddah. Engines stopped Bay o Biscay on a bad day she was a very unstable ship because of her design she would roll on wet grass. This was in 1977, Billy M,Gee done some research on the ship for me i couldnt find a pic of her anywhere on the net to complete my picture library of all 26 ships in my book,s. I remember the 2nd mate as we were rolling around dead in the water very worried indeed i have never experienced a ship roll like that we were convinced she was going to turn turtle with every roll. Billy informed me a few trips later she went down all hands lost at sea. Same scenario. Very lucky escape for me the lads who went down on her were her regular crew they would do 3 trips on one off i was relieving one of the deck crew. R.I.P. Them all. Terry.

[John Arton]

Changing masthead steaming light bulb atop of the jumbo mast when stecevores decided to start using the jumbo. Mast whipping back and forth with me clinging on for dear life.
Doing a taster trip round the coast with Blue Star when I was 14 and been threatened twice with a huge knife by the Chinese bosun for being late by 5 mins. unlocking the booby hatches for the cargo holds and also for not getting all the 10 chinese crew that I had been tasked with taking to the dentist, not getting all their dental work completed. One of them only had one tooth anyway and he wanted that one out and a set of falsies made. Dentist was samped so told him to come back next day and he would fix him up. Only problem being non us spoke Chinese and the only english speaker amongst the crew not come with us to the dentist, so the story got a bit twisted by the time we got back to the ship and it turns out that this guy had told the bosun that I had stopped the dentist from fixing him up as it was late, hence the knife attack.
Chippy washed overboard on a forest product ship homeward bound in the Atlantic storms. Swells that big that to have turned round and searched for him would have meant the ship broaching too and us all being in the oggy oggy. Some of the spanish crew did not understand this and we all ended locked in the wheelhouse whilst 4 irate spaniards attacked the doors with fire axes. Fortunatley the rest of the crew saw sense and over powered them.
First trip to sea proper and taking cargo tank temps. by manual thermometers whilst coming down off the S. African Coast.
Up at 1 centre looking back towards the bridge and seeing the mate waving at me. What a nice chap, thinks I. Next thing having to cling on for dear life as a rogue wave hit us and came over the focsle, completley covering me and threatening to wash me overboard. Apparentley the mate was not waving at me because he was a nice guy, he was trying to alert me to the approaching danger. After I emerged from under the deluge and made my way aft, the mate ordered me straight back on deck to finish taking the temps. and bollocked me for not shutting the ullage port in time to stop any sea water getting into the tanks!!!
rgds
JA

[Dennis McGuckin]

Have had a few scary moments while at sea.
Recall in Cyprus during the Eoka terrorist conflict, a ship anchored next to us blowing up after a bomb was left in the hold.
A pencil bomb,hidden in the handle of a shovel,was also discovered on board our ship, but was defused in time.
Another scary time was in Salford docks.
While working-by, I was 'dating' this 'lady', when without warning her husbands ship arrive home.
I of course did a disappearing act.Somehow or other he found out about me, but didn't know which ship I was on.
Heard that he and his mates were searching the bars armed with deck knives.
I was forced to a life of celibacy and sobriety.
Better that than losing a body part that I was quite fond of!
Took off on an eight month trip, so all was quiet when we got back.
Never did see the lady again. Nor did I have the desire too do so.
Den.[still alive and healthy]

[Captain Kong]

So Den, it was you tampering with my wife,
I know where you live, Look over your shoulder. I may be there one dark night.
I was planning a trip to Vancouver so this will make it worth while.
Cheers
Brian.