Worst job at sea.

[Chris Allman]

Needle through the nose Brian, just to make sure .............

[Captain Kong]

Our 2nd mate was killed after falling off the bridge one night, must have been sat on the bulwark and landed on the boat deck. His widow wanted his body home for burial, It was HOT, just out of the Gulf so we had him for over a week, we put him in his cabin wrapped in several sheets, His body became very swollen and the smell was atrocious and then we carried him down the gangway to a boat just outside Colombo Harbour. That smell lingered for weeks after. his cabin was next to mine.
Brian.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Having read posts 1 - 12, the question is would we do it again? you can better your bottom dollar we would

[j.sabourn]

#13... Probably would Ivan. But may have made a few different decisions. With age comes wisdom and experience. May have crawled a bit more to retain the half way decent jobs a bit longer. JWS

[j.sabourn]

I was asked by a certain group of business people if I would attend one of their meetings and give a talk on past experiences at sea. I knocked back the last meeting they had on the excuse I was not prepared to talk about things which they wouldnt understand unless they had been at sea themselves. However may appear at one of their meetings this month. However I have no doubt they will be asking questions about the past, is there anything that members on the site should think be brought to their attention, such as casualty figures on convoys and such. The decline of the British Merchant service etc. The numbers of British and maybe Australian seafarers today and yesteryear. Or any answers to possible questions that may be thrown at me. To talk to non seafarers and try to put it in easy terms is very hard to do. If they offer to donate any money to a Seafaring Charity, what would be the best one to recommend apart for the one for Cappys journeys to the eastern Med. JWS

[happy daze john in oz]

Reading some of the posts makes me realize being in catering was so easy, very few bad jobs there.
But I do recall one incident when officers steward. One of the officers had spewed all over the floor of the heads in their accommodation.
Chuckles Charnley saw it and declared it was blood and that one of the officers must be seriously injured.
No one was prepared to tell him it was red wine.
Cleaning the heads was not part of my section so my mate Ginger had to do it. he was not a happy chappy.

[Ivan Cloherty]

John you could start by telling them that 'ships' are not 'boats' the definition of a ship is something that carries commercial cargo, a boat is used purely for pleasure, (although a submarine in the RN is called a boat, but they get enough publicity) and that ships are carrying circa US$5 trillions worth of goods equating to over two billion freight tonnes, around the globe on any one given day, there are circa 500,000 merchant seamen traversing the globe ensuring that they (the audience) can buy the goods that they think grow on supermarket shelves. These men of all creeds and colours face danger on a daily basis not only from mother nature but from pirates who wish to steal their cargoes and personal possessions, so you hope they enjoy what they are drinking, eating, wearing, driving etc etc. Charity fee, forget Syria, give it to the local lifeboat or air ambulance

Anyway John, you have far more experience of life at sea than most of us on here, so I feel sure that you will not be stumped for words, also tell them they should invest in a Merchant Navy to transport goods around their own coastline, as just north of your country China is expanding seven atolls into naval bases, has 400 merchant ships currently anchored there as well as armed Coastguard vessels (circa 5 - 15,000 tonnes), has equipped three with runways and intercontinental rockets and SAM guided missiles, so it may be a good idea to learn various Chinese languages

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
Worst job ashore, just before I retired from the Sydney water board [I was a carpenter] I had block off a huge two meter wide sewer pipe crossing a river, I went down the manhole and had to measure for the timber, came out did all the prep work; went back down very awkward job as with the smooth sides had to wedge the whole thing in, Then we would be sending a big reinforced plastic tube down from the other side under tremendous hot water pressure, eventually when this cooled it would leave a new lining inside the pipe which had been leaking, it all went well until I had to go down and dismantle the form-work, I didn't have much room so I grabbed one piece of timber and was pulling at it when my feet slipped, next thing I was lying there hanging on to the timber with my feet down a big hole, what we hadn't been told just behind me was a drop of about thirty feet into main sewer heading out to Malabar and the sea. Who knows I might have been just in time to join a passing tanker.
Cheers Des

[j.sabourn]

Des, Talking about sewers. On the recent discussion on Vernons what I say was a sistership I was on his K74. The passenger cabins all opened up directly onto the ships passenger saloon. They all had en-suites and all started to overflow. The Danish Chief Engineer and myself baled them out, and the chief then got his drawings out and we traced the possibility of the cause to 2 small vent holes one on each side of the ship just under the bridge wings on Vernons K74. These had been plugged at some time with wooden plugs and painted over and over again over the years and apparently no problem. We removed these and system appeared to be and was ok again. We had at the time as passengers the President of Alcoa and his family so finding a quick solution was imperative. I would never have realized that every sanitary system on a ship has to have access to being vented. A qualified plumber would probably have seen the problem right away. Cheers JWS