Scary moments

[Graham Evans]

Whist towing a loaded oilfield barge, abt.4000T, in the Altlantic, in 1980, we had perfect weather, calm, doing about 3kts. on 900 metres of 2" wire, she suddenly blacked out ! Engines stopped, no power on deck so couldn't shorten the tow. The way on the barge kept her slowly creeping towards us, whilst a bight of tow wire hanging down got bigger. I was stood on the bridge whilst all kinds of worst case scenarios went through my brain. I got everyone on deck and broke out the Zodiac ready to get out of her if this damned barge came aboard aft and through the wheelhouse windows! The barge kept ploughing on, and started to overtake us, fortunately on the stbd side, a couple of feet off. To my disgust, the wire went over the starbd quarter and we began to swing to port, with the wire now underneath and hanging down around the screws.If she had fouled the CP screws in the tow wire, in the middle of the Atlantic - what the hell to do? Just then the Chief came up and said the gennies were fixed and wanted to start up. Fortunately I managed to delay this, and managed to heave up the tow until I could see it was clear, and then managed to kick her from under the barge and carried on. I still can't figure out how I managed it, nearly 35 years later. If the weather had been bad, I wouldn't be writing this now.

[j.sabourn]

Graham one of the skippers in the same company I was with, was towing a rig to a different location in the North sea about a days tow. Was towing on the brake and didnt have the chocks in on the Big Towing Winch. Started to run away and once started no stopping as you know. The end being secured to the drum makes no difference as just carried away, and end went over the stern roller. Of course the OIM on the rig sacked the ship on the spot and was sent off charter. Dont know how they recovered as would be a big job at the best of times. Was always a dodgy business towing on the brake without the securings in place dont know why the winch was in gear at least, as is normal practice to refresh the wire every 3 or 4 hours by walking out 3 or 4 feet of towline. Regards John Sabourn.

[j.sabourn]

Graham, my towing experience was mainly by being thrown in at the deep end. One of the first tows I had was towing an empty barge from Invergordon to Sweden just before the time of the disaster the Russians had with their power station nearby. Towing in shallow water initially the tow line had to be short due to the cantilever on the wire and depth of water. Managed this ok and then in deep water lengthened of course. All the way across we had fog. It was the early eighties and the Sat Nav system as such was one of these yachtsmans things which if you were lucky gave you a position (if could be believed) every 5 hours or so. Anyhow managed that and made a reasonable landfall. Had been told harbour tugs would take the barge off us on arrival. No such luck. The pilot on coming on board had no idea of towing even less than I did at the time and just said carry on. I put the mate on the barge to take the lines etc. Came alongside the 500 foot barge and tied up with her putting plenty of springs out. Then put the ship alongside as ordinary, and just thought of the barge as a fender. The berth was right next to a drydock and had visions of going into same, however turned out alright. The company was going to leave the vessel there for any work towing barges back etc. however were informed at the time of dangerous fall out from the Russian Plant so brought us back to Aberdeen. Coming from Deep sea into the oil and gas industry was quite a steep learning curve, and as usual had to learn fast. Since then did quite a lot of rig shifts in UK and Australia, but will never forget the early ones by trial and error. Best Regards John Sabourn.

[Tony Wilding]

A scary moment i had was not caused by the elements, but by the thought of forgetting what i had been told, when i was deep sea my Brother changed to the Coasters, encouraged me to, so i wrote a letter to GSNC For Donkey-mans Position on any Ship available, up to that time i was a Donkey/Greaser, well i had not long come back on MV Tuscany and was going back next trip, had forgotten about my job application some months befor, had just signed my name on Articles for second trip when a Telegram Boy appeared with orders to join MV Corncrake at Dagenham Dock immediately, showed it to Chief Engineer, he signed me off in the BOT Office, got a cab from KG5 to Dagenham Dock, nearl died of shock when i saw her , 640 tons, got aboard and sailed immediately to St Catherine's Wharf, only one Engineer on board , the Chief, was Polish, very broken English and quite inebriated, got to our berth, then he showed me how to shut the job down, and told me once how to start up and put her on the Board at 6am, only once he told me and disappeared, was more complicated than shutting down, aux Gennie to start up . we ran on batteries at night, air bottles to top , up, he was ashore in less than 5 minutes, night watchman called me at 5 30 am, batteries dead by then, so down i go with a torch trying to remember everything, got the aux gennie going, hand start, was a pig to start, next job to go to switchboard and connect up, adjusted the Volts pulled the breaker down and prayed, what a relief, no bangs or flashes and the Ship was alive again, after a week i could do it all automatically.

[Ivan Cloherty]

That's about it Tony, nothing like a coaster to make a seaman or an engineer out of you. Remember joining one of Fred's as 2/m, innocently asking when the pilot was coming aboard, to be told 'you are the pilot' the captain's way of testing his new subordinates abilities (or lack there-of) guess I must have done it okay as sailed together for months, but certainly different from deep-sea and bowel contemplating

[Tony Wilding]

It taught me a lot about Engine Room Operation, was more interesting than deep sea, on a Coaster you seemed to get involved in everything.GSNC Ships were good, apart from MV Shelldrake, an ex Manchester Liner, Engine Room was YUK. Rolls Royce Generators, noise was deafening. unusual ME arrangement, 2 ME, Single Screw, Hydraulic coupling.

[Don Rafferty]

Couple for me, same ship, same big, drunken, Polish Bosun!

White-leading the stays from a chair, heaved up on the drum end 'cept the drunken bastard didn't stop heaving and the gantline parted, luckily I hadn't started and my hands were clean, just rode the stay down hand over hand until I got to the deck, bit of a 's h i t happens' expression from the bosun, end-for-ended the gantline and carried on - but very wary of him now.

Next occasion was greasing the lower block on the topping lift, whilst standing outboard of the rails on the mast table, hanging on with one leg around the stanchion, you needed two hands to work the grease gun. The derrick had to be in just the right position, too low and you couldn't reach, too high and you were crushed between the derrick and mast table. The inevitable happened but I was ready for it, and moved out of the way, this time I didn't stay so calm. Once I reached the deck - I was raging, all 5'-7" and 8 stone of me. He seemed unconcerned to start with but when I threatened to go to the bridge to tell them what had happened, he seemed to become much more conciliatory after that.

[j.sabourn]

1970 on the clapped out ship mentioned in previous posts were trying to get into Saigon as a port of refuge, ship had a 15 degreee list was not unusual due to the incompetency of some of those on board. More traffic coming out with sampans and all sorts of craft. What I initially thought as fireworks realized was trazer. Turned around and made for Hong Kong as a refuge. Ship was capable of about 4 knots as part of blade of propellor missing among other faults with vessel. I was mate and the master called me at 0200 saying there was a ship calling us up on lamp and he couldnt read. Going on bridge a ship was calling saying retreat retreat last warning I fire. Was a Chinese gunboat, we were on the wrong track into H.K. I put the wheel hard over knowing it would take some time to get around praying it was not too late. However we got round on to a reciprocal course and out of chinese terratorial waters. It took us another 2 months with a few more near disasters before reaching Japan via H.K. and Kaoshung (Taiwan) as ports of refuge, before I walked off in disgust. Was there 10 and a half months on a 12 month contract, but had reached my limit every day you could say was a scary moment on this vessel. I spent the first week in bed when finally getting home, must have been very close to going over the top. Cheers John Sabourn

[leratty]

JC John I must say your sea time was seriously exciting at times what with that 'underwater explosion' which would have had me in the funny farm! Loved the perpetual 15 degree list, was it as they were hooched most of the time & did not realise as that was the way they walked? (: In some instances though such as the Chinese one mentioned above maybe a tad traumatic? I was from the old time pilots I knew in HK of the opinion they, the Chinese, were not always prone to be so polite, generally, i.e. shoot first then ask questions? They, the pilots told us of some pretty scary experiences off Hainan Island where they suddenly saw tracer hurtling past. Was HK not a wee bit further to go that on into Saigon? You saw possibly the dying days of old time tramping-shipping in the east & no doubt met some truly memorable characters-rogues & naire do wells too sadly life is the more bland without them though would you not agree?
I felt that my time in Asia was at the closing stages of the real western old timers in biz. Certainly in HK-Shanghai but the old time characters were still there in Laos Cambodia Burma though. I used to stay in this wonderfully old French built hotel in Vientiane very run down & Graeme Green like with just his type of aura, it was owned by an old reprobate Frenchman (still is) who had been in the forces in Asia. It had a bar with the most eclectic collection of throwbacks to the colonial -Vietnam war era who seemed to be there 24/7, just to sit & observe along with listen was enough. One very old Dutch guy had two or three small ships + some barges, much smaller than coasters that ran up & down the mighty Mekong from Thailand he was full of terrific tales of his time especially during the Vietnam war. Another East German with his crazy US partner had been flying there for more than forty years still did, he took me to the Plain of Jars the first time. They were from most parts not of this world, doubt all I suggest of them were dead straight, all had murky pasts I am sure. Anyway it reminded me of that bar in the first Star Wars movie, do you recall it? I took my wife there in 2003 so she could see it as I spoke of it often, she loved it & they loved her always very polite made for an incongruous situation with her sitting there. Their stories of their lives were unreal none I suggest horseradish either. Someone should have got-get it all down on tape or in writing before they are part of history. Oh the hotel was US$10 per night 'cash'when I first went there & a superb meal US$1 a beer 25c whisky not much more. Room there US$50 last year, if you wanted refill of toilet paper you asked at the desk & picked it up on the way back to your room at end of day, if you remembered (: Unfortunately it is on the tourist trail now has been for a few years so shortly they will have past into history & the country cleaned up to western standards once the quasi communist government has moved on.
Richard

[cappy]

in the mv riseley off osaka 1961 typhoon winds over 200 mph she i believe was one of the first all accom aft and she could bend like a banana about 6000 grt brown trowsers on during typhoon cant remember its name but it was a biggy
of cause when we got ashore in happy palace bar soon forgot it all and enjoyed the carnal delight of japan at about 1000 yen to the pound wish i was young again regards cappy from shields