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Article: Ringbolting

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    Ringbolting

    89 Comments by Paul Johnson Published on 20th June 2020 09:30 PM
    Hi All,
    Having been badgered incessantly by Des Taff Jenkins (once), to submit this article, I shall now do so.
    For those of you who are too young, or have never come across this practice, an explanation may prove useful; 'Green's Dictionary of Slang' defines 'ringbolt' as, '(NZ) a free voyage obtained by posing as a ship's crew member'. Now, I have never come across anybody ringbolting who wished to 'pose' as a crew member; there were a number of number of people who, for disparate reasons, wished to go from A to B, and we helped them out; they could always kip on somebody's daybed. However, when we speak of ringbolting we usually think of girls as being the 'passengers', my own experiences relate to the NZSCo., but I am sure the same would apply to Blue Star, Port Line and Shaw Saville etc.
    There were a number of reasons for this; a girl may need a lift to meet her boyfriend, in say Lyttleton, or a new girlfriend decided she would like to accompany you for a week or two, or a long term fiancee would spend your whole time in Kiwi onboard with you, this last happened twice with me for example. I was once 'phoned by an irate mother, (ship's shore 'phone), who informed me her daughter had a job to go to and how long would we be in NZ, my answer of another couple of weeks did not go down well!

    I am now going to relate to you an episode that happened on the 'Hauraki', we were in transit to Wellington, from where I am unsure, and we all knew there were a few girls onboard, the normal practice was that, at sea, the girls stayed in your cabin, and other than the usual ablutions, that was it; we were sure most people, including the Captain, knew of this arrangement, but one did not wish to be too obvious. Now, a good friend of mine was John Grey, an AB from Lerwick in the Shetland Is., Shelty to his mates, he was a large lad that looked like a Viking; long blonde beard, built like a brick you know what, with a sheepskin waistcoat and Wranglers, whatever the weather, and his girlfriend, Ryder, was a lovely Maori girl that was not exactly slight. The thought of those two in that small top bunk is best dispensed with, at nearly seventy I do not think my heart could take it.
    After Ryder had had her dinner, readily and happily supplied by the galley, she decided to have a shower, everything fine so far; she then decided to go for a walk aft, as it was such a lovely evening, and it was, but unbeknownst to her, she was spotted by the Chief Officer. Now, this was not 'our' Chief Officer, he was on leave, being domiciled in NZ, no, this was somebody we did not know, or particularly like. What I do know is that he 'phoned the authorities in Wellington! I am a little unsure whether we knew of this before we got to Wellington, I think we may have been as we put all the girls in the crew Pig before arrival, to 'hide' them, thinking it may just be a cursory search.
    I think it is fortuitous to come clean with you at this point, in the past I have inflated the number of girls present to somewhere in the region of twenty, depending how far I am in my cups, and how gullible the listeners; but in all honestly I think there were between 7 and 10 girls there, one being Lorraine Wright, my own girl; she was known as Dinky because she was a small delicate person, a little like yours truly!

    As we approached the wharf we were concerned to see not one or two of the Old Bill but around half a dozen, and a couple of cars; there may have been a 'Paddy' wagon, but that may have been an aberration of my over active memory. Most of the boyfriends of the girls were either in the engine room or on deck duties, Shelty was on the wheel, and so it may fall to me to do something; but what!!

    It may prove helpful to describe the nomenclature of the Hauraki's galley at this point; The galley was situated athwartship, with a door on to the deck at either side, there were two further doors from the crew accommodation on the Port and Starboard sides. On the Port side was my domain, the Baker's shop, just outside was the companionway to the Fridge Flat, Freezers, chillers and handling room, mirroring this on the Starboard side was the Butcher's shop, outside of which was a companionway to the Second Steward's Dry store flat.

    We docked on the Starboard side, and very soon the Wellington Police turned up, they were met by the Chief Officer, almost immediately they insisted on searching the Second Stewards Dry store, nothing there, they then entered the crew accommodation by the Starboard crew accommodation door. It was then, dear reader, that a moment of illumination sparked in my brain; it does not often happen! I would go and get the girls and put them in the handling room of the Fridge Flat, so I went to the crew bar and ushered them out, telling them to be as silent as possible, fat chance! Most had cans of beer, and wanted to give me a kiss, Dinky was not too pleased, but I eventually got them down into the Fridge Flat; Wally Smith, the Chief Cook, was smiling, they were saying thankyou for their food etc.

    I then had a major decision to make, to ask a Second Steward for the key to his Dry store, anybody that has ever contemplated such an aberration will know the enormity of such an action. Looking deeply into my eyes, George just handed the key over, normally his ilk would ask what i wanted, he would get it; but no, looking deeply into my eyes he just handed it over.

    Now, from the Fridge Flat there was a locked door to the Supply Flat, this extended from one side of the ship to the other, serviced by the Gunport doors in the ship's side, this was not just for the dry and chilled stores but also for Engineroom stores, the engine room had access to this flat. I went down to the Fridge flat, opened the the connecting door and ushered the girls through, trying to get these girls to the other side of the ship was like trying to herd cats, at the opening to the engine room there was blown kisses, waves and what we would now call twerking, and that was just from the engineers!
    Now, for those of you paying attention, you will know there is a door from the supply flat into the Second Steward's dry store, I let the girls into the store, exhorting them not to touch anything, and retraced my steps. In getting back to the handling room I had to clear up, a few empty cans was okay, but they had 'feasted' on my spare loaves and cake! At sea I was more than happy to do eclairs etc., but on the Coast they had to make do with slab cherry cake and light fruit cake for their Tab Nabs.. I just had time to cover any obvious habitation and went back to the Baker's shop. Within minutes Mr. and Mrs. Bill and their offspring appeared and went down to the Fridge Flat, a circular inspection if you will, tout suite, they were up again. After a conflab they started to disembark; happy days! I thought I would wait for them to drive away, and then release the girls.

    It was about this time that I was revelling in the success of the operation when the Second Steward appeared, oh, dear reader, one must not revel too soon; looking deep into my eyes he said he needed his Dry Store keys, the shoreside Catering Superintendent wanted to inspect the Dry stores. If one can imagine a Guppy, soundlessly opening and closing their mouth, then that was me; wordlessly I handed them over. Within a very short time the gaggle of girls appeared, all chewing biscuits, some with packets in their hands, followed by the Catering Superintendent, he made a bee-line for me. He informed me that if the police had still been on board he would have notified them of the situation, drawing myself up to my impressive 5' 8" (a tad over in fact), I looked askance at him, wordlessly. As he toddled off I recognised him as the Purser that sacked me off the 'Rangitoto', and that his was a pyrrhic victory.

    As anybody that reads my posts will know that I hold anybody who has sailed on the wet green choppy stuff in high regard, and so when Dinky and I went to the pig later I was prepared to be embarrassed by an embarrassing display of gratitude; as one would expect Shelty and Ryder 'shouted' Dinky and I drinks, (Shelty ran the Pig), but from all the others, with their girlfriends, nothing, nada, zilch.

    I am not a bitter man, and there must be at least one or two days a week when I do not give this a thought, even now; but come on, what an ungrateful bunch of f!@#$%^ barstewards.

    Cheers, Paul.

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  3. #21
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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    When on the Port Huon (Manz) ,we used to have the normal telephone by the gangway on the coast ,we would answer it and nine times out of ten it was an officers girlfriend ,Hello could I speak to the 2nd officer please ,just a minute I will get him for you, give it a minute ,then say sorry he cant come at the minute he's in bed with his girlfriend .the phone usually went dead all the deck crew used to play this game , another thing does anyone remember the urns of milk left on the gangway early in the morning in NZ ,great relief to get a drink to make your hangover a bit better .

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Hi Bob.
    When I was on the NZ coast we always had the fresh milk churn at the gangway every morning. On the gangway phone may a time it rang and a girl would say I'm coming into town for the weekend is there anybody on board who's free, I often wondered where they got the number from.
    Des
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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Yes Des the milk urns were really a life saver to sooth your throat after turning in at about 3 am most nights on the coast ,you had to be early though to beat the cook or the 2nd cook and faker .On the phone I think the officers had built up a system where they got in touch with nurses quarters Hospitals and places like that to keep it all officer like .I never saw the likes of Shirley the shore bosun (Sydney)or Sea Boots (Melbourne) or The Major her mate Lucky (Auckland) frequenting the officers bar .correct me If I'm wrong.

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Hi Bob,
    Was your '2nd cook and faker' a typo or a reflection of the standard of baking on that ship?
    In my story I do not mention the Officers accommodation, I do not think their cabins were searched.
    Cheers, Paul.

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Hope this is not off topic.
    When the Iberia was in Sydney, I used to phone the nurses quarters.Told them we were having a dance on board, and could a dozen or so nurses come down. I would meet them on the gangway.That way I got first pick.Happy times.

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Den you are now talking about the number 1 topic at sea , JS
    R575129

  9. Thanks Dennis McGuckin thanked for this post
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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    #25 Ah! Dennis, you only thought you had the first pick, those hungry for men nurses from mid-Oz made sure that they got the ones they wanted, a lot of them were looking for husbands, instead of someone who said, 'hey Sheila bring me bloody cold one from the box' whilst sat there in his sweaty singlet and boxers

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Johnson View Post
    Hi Bob,
    Was your '2nd cook and faker' a typo or a reflection of the standard of baking on that ship?
    In my story I do not mention the Officers accommodation, I do not think their cabins were searched.
    Cheers, Paul.
    Hi Paul no it wasn't a typo we referred to 2nd cook and faker on a lot of ships on the Aussie & Kiwi coasts ,even if the 2nd cook was the best Baker ever .Just a phrase we used I guess ,about the searches I remember on one ship we would follow the search squad around with the girls in tow they searched an area and the girls moved into that area it did work on that ship .

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Hi Bob,
    I suppose most bakers would wish to be regarded as good bakers; bread, tab nabs, desserts, pastry, but one cook said to me that as long as you can bake decent bread they will forgive you almost anything. I was a good baker of bread.
    As regards following the search team, I have heard of this; like a ringbolting Conga!
    Cheers, Paul.

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    Default Re: Ringbolting

    Believe it or not but Dunedin had the best nurses home and the best looking nurses.
    des
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