Worst job at sea.

[joseph connor]

The worst job I ever did was on my first deep sea trip on Automedon as deck boy in the far east somewhere , scorching hot day, the other deck boy and me were taken forward and down into one of the deep tanks and watched the bosun and a couple of engineers undo some bolts on a metal plate in the deck, then we were given a small hand brush and shovel and told to remove all the oily smelly muck out of the void below, which if I remember right was about eighteen inch's square going to port and starboard , we were stripped down to our underpants and had to make our way out, every time we took a shovel full we had to crawl backwards to the opening and pass the shovel up then back again ,my strongest recollection is of the heat its a wonder we did,nt cook in there ! Then when it was clean we were taken back up on deck into blinding sunlight , standing there black head to foot we were washed down with a hose , I remember hearing some of the lads ,voicing their disagreement at what we had done .
Funny but I felt a bit proud of it after , what does,not kill you makes you stronger , Joe .

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Joe.
Bilge diving was one of the worst jobs I did when I was a deck boy, but it got worse when I was AB cleaning the wax and oil down in the tanks on tankers wearing that useless big headpiece , especially when at times the the bloke with his foot on the air pump on deck got yarning and stopped pumping.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Oh yes, Dunny divers. On one voyage a first class blood lost his dentures in the dunny, flushed away like a good 'un. He requested the skipper send someoen down into the bilge to retrive them. Unfortunately the skipper coulod not find a volunteer, who knows where thye are now.

[Ivan Cloherty]

The worst job I ever did was on my first deep sea trip on Automedon as deck boy in the far east somewhere , scorching hot day, the other deck boy and me were taken forward and down into one of the deep tanks and watched the bosun and a couple of engineers undo some bolts on a metal plate in the deck, then we were given a small hand brush and shovel and told to remove all the oily smelly muck out of the void below, which if I remember right was about eighteen inch's square going to port and starboard , we were stripped down to our underpants and had to make our way out, every time we took a shovel full we had to crawl backwards to the opening and pass the shovel up then back again ,my strongest recollection is of the heat its a wonder we did,nt cook in there ! Then when it was clean we were taken back up on deck into blinding sunlight , standing there black head to foot we were washed down with a hose , I remember hearing some of the lads ,voicing their disagreement at what we had done .
Funny but I felt a bit proud of it after , what does,not kill you makes you stronger , Joe .

Joe, sounds like the everyday story of a Marine superintendent, except instead of a shovel we had a rivet hammer (chisel edge one end, point at the other end) looking for dead rivets, they sound different to good rivets and you had to do the whole tank/DB fore and aft and P to S, sometimes on a Waalhaven slipway or drydock with temps down to -20c, (again in 'Y' fronts and a vest, as boiler suits got to heavy when wet with sludge) didn't mind doing them in drydock, didn't like it when the ship floating as always the chance that some silly barsteward would run into you and you would never stand a chance. Sometimes took about 16 hours to do about three holds double bottoms, depending on the ship..................happy days, how some of my bigger (more rotund) colleagues managed I do not know as I was a lithesome nine and half stones and I found it difficult

[John Arton]

Worst jobs at sea:
1. 1st trip cadet, digging crude oil sludge out rom cargo tanks on a 66,000 ton tanker, breathing in the fumes released and being dizzy from them, coming out of the tanks after two hours covered in crude oil sludge and with your sense of taste and smell ruined for days.
2. Crawling round double bottoms on Cape sized Japanese built bulkers where all the lightening holes seemed to be built to fit Japanese sized humans, not Northern European bodies.
3. Doing a 25 year special survey in a freezing cold Grangemouth as Master on a 74 metre LOA double hulled ex. Buries Markes chemical tanker with 760mm wide double hulled side tanks and 1 metre high double bottoms, bloody difficult for a 6 foot 14 stone body.
4. Definitely the worst though was actually virtually living in the duct keel of an 105,000 ton OBO that despite having spent two months in dry dock being welded up, having bilge valves remote operating system being repaired, main engine and generators overhauled, lifeboats and davits being completely stripped and overhauled, even after that finding that not only due to the previous practises of its previous Norwegian owners and operators (to make oil discharge quicker and to enable greater carrying capacity they had cut openings in every transverse hold bulkheads so that at one time you could stand in no 10 hold and see all the way through to no. 1 hold) as soon as we sailed from the yard due to its misconstruction, cracks appeared all the time in not only the topside wing tanks but also between the double bottom ballast tanks and the duct keel thus knocking out all the electro/hydraulic bilge valve system, meaning that these valves could only be operated manually at the local position, such that when attempting to clean holds going from Dunkerque to New Orleans in preparation for loading grain, as Mate it was easier for me to just stay down in the duct keel operating the bilge and ballast valves as and when necessary in order to remove the washing from the high pressure hoses being used by the bosun and the boys doing the hold cleaning. A system of banging on the tank top to indicate which way the wanted the list to be and which side bilge valve they wanted opening was used. This went on for 12 hours per day and rather than having to keep clambering out of the duct keel through a small hatch in the engine room, climbing out of the engine room and making my way up the deck to check on progress it was easier for me just to stay down in the duct keel waiting for the next signal. Problem was that as cracks were appearing between ballast tanks and the duct keel, ballast water wa constantly filling into the duct keel so a salvage pump was in constant operation pumping this water into the engine room bilge where the engineers were keep busy discharging it to sea. Any stoppage of that salvage pump meant that with the trim the after bays of the duct keel, where the entrance to the duct keel was, quite rapidly filled with water almost trapping me there and one a couple of occasions I actually had to hold my breath and dive into the water in order to exit the duct keel.
This went on for 12 days starting 0800 and ending 2000 and although I had my wife with me I cannot recall ever spending any time with her as at the end of the day I was knackered and just had a shower before turning in. Only meal I had all the time was breakfast, after that it was coffee and sarnies passed down to me in the duct keel.
rgds
JA

[joseph connor]

Puts my job to shame don't it , just finished my lunch, humble pie , again .
Reminds me of the monty python sketch , were the new prisoner in a jail cell complains about being spat at , the other occupant , an old man with a long beard and chained to wall says , "he spat at you ? you lucky bastard , what I wouldn't give to be spat at ,iv been here for twenty years , they only turned me the right way up yesterday ,".

[Ivan Cloherty]

Puts my job to shame don't it , just finished my lunch, humble pie , again .
,".

No need for humble pie Joe, you may not have realised it the time but you were learning about ship construction at close (probably very close) quarters and that will have stuck with you, may also not have seemed an important job at the time, but if the DB's and Deep tanks blocked by sludge you wouldn't be able to pump in or out which may have been necessary in an emergency at some time. Automedon, sounds like a Blue Flue ship, so if it did carry cadets (or midshipmen in BF terms) then it would have beneath them to bilge dive, whereas any other company cadets were the nominated bilge divers as it was immaterial whether they liked it or not, but I always considered every job at sea a learning curve, even chipping and painting and the windy hammer taught you not to be careless and also taught ingenuity by jamming he head under a cleat and watch the machine go round instead!, just make sure no one was watching, except perhaps another cadet. Mnd you did enjoy using it outside the Ch Stewards cabin when he was having a nap when the barsteward wouldn't let us have beers because we were too young, beers were soon re-instated, if they weren't he didn't get his porthole closed or dogged down correctly on morning washdown.............happy days!

[vic mcclymont]

One of the worst jobs that I had to at sea was change the scavenge fire wire, after a fire.
All burnt carbonised fuel had been removed from the scavenge space by the crew after opening up the inspection hatch.
The scavenge space is directly below the piston and at its entrance is wide enough to lie flat on ones back, it tapers towards the back dropping to about 6-8 inches high.
Firstly, before entering the space you had to don a canvas scavenge space boiler suit over your normal overalls, secondly replacing the wire was trick and fiddly due to the lack of space.
After the work was completed and removing the scavenge suit, you still stunk of carbonised heavy fuel, you could spend hours in the shower trying to remove the stench and failing. Once you thought you were cleaned up the slightest bit of sweat released the aroma of burnt heavy fuel oil, the smell would last for days.
Regards
Vic

[Chris Allman]

Worst job ever as a Cadet, working in the duct keel for four days with Chippy, dismantling bilge pipes and cleaning the inside of them with a man help with a chisel tied to it. We had been caught in a bad dusting on the way through the Bay of Biscay on route to South America. Practically everything in number 1 hold got damaged. We had drums of creosote in the upper tween deck with drums of some kind of light machine oil. various stuff in the lower tween deck and steel in the lower hold. On top of the steel were cardboard cylindrical drums of Lamp black. In the storm, the drums of creosote and machine oil broke free, rolled round the decks smashing into each other and leaking everywhere. The mixture then leaked down below somehow and soaked the cardboard drums of lamp black which promptly burst, you can imagine the mess.

When we got to B.A. they had to make special arrangements to have the hold discharged which cost the company dear. The Cadets and the crew then had to clean No 1 hatch from top to bottom. There we were shoveling this awful mixture into buckets for them to be heaved up on deck, we were covered in lamp black and the other stuff in liberal quantities and there was broken dunnage, soggy cardboard and quite a few dead and dying rats. The creosote stung like hell on your bare skin, so you tried not to get splashed with the black liquid mud but did anyway. Finally when it was deemed we had got as much of the debris and sludge out, the hoses were brought into play.

When we got about three or four feet of water in the lower hold the bilge pumps were switched on to pump it out. After about ten minutes the pumps stopped and the engineers on checking them found what looked like bits of rubber clogging them up.These were cleaned out and the pumps started but the same thing happened again. It was then decided that there must be something in the bilge pipes so the first section of pipe from the pump to No 1 hold was removed and low and behold it was clogged up with the same bits of what looked very like rubber. The Chief Engineer then remembered an incident some year or so ago when the ship had carried liquid latex in 50 gallon drums in No 1 hatch and that some had burst and the resultant mess and cleaning fluid had been pumped out via the bilge pump.

It was then decided that each section of bilge pipe would have to be removed and cleaned right back to the hatch, some 100 foot plus of piping. Guess who was nominated to assist Chippy, moi. So then began four days of hell, Bent double on hands and knees, in sweltering heat and with the creosote, lamp black and machine oil mixture dripping all over the place, disconnecting each approx 8 foot length of pipe and cleaning it with a bamboo helper with a coal chisel tied to it and then reconnecting it with new rubber flange washers. Apparently the creosote had lifted a thin coating of latex left attached to the inside of the bilge pipework causing the blockages for its full 100 odd foot length and also damaged all the flange washers.

It took Chippy and I some days to recover from the effects the smell and fumes had on us and for our arms and knees to heal from the burning effect of the creosote. Apart from a grudging ' well done ' from the Chief Officer, nobody else said a dicky bird. Chippy very kindly gave me a few cans of beer as a thank you, which I had to hide and drink in secret in case the other Cadets found out as they would have expected me to share them. No Chance whatsoever, certainly not, after what I had been through.

[Captain Kong]

One of the worst jobs was sewing up stiffs ready for burial specially the smelly ones in hot weather, that smell stayed in the throat for days after.
Even the Rum didn't take it away
Brian.