Quote Originally Posted by Des Taff Jenkins View Post
I sailed on the Aussie and NZ coasts for around eight years and though the wharfies used to make dam sure they went home to their wife's at night, I never struck to many holdups that wasn't in the best interests of safety al the time I was there.
Des
We can only speak from our personal experiences Des, and I feel sure that a lot of ships did require adjustment upwards and the Masters and crew would have at times welcomed the intervention. The WWF didn't like FOC flagged vessels, no matter how well found, and having a National flag was no immunity from intervention, whether justified or not, and if you'd won a couple of rounds against them, then any ship from the company became a target, again whether justified or not. Any of us who had fallen foul of the WWF on a first visit made sure everything was spot on on the next and subsequent visits and if your ship was perfect they'd still find something wrong. On a new British flag ship, all documents and certificates in order they still found (in their opinion) three hold ladder rungs were in the wrong position, (they had been in the correct position on the first voyage) wanted them taken out and rewelded where they wanted them. It was cheaper to acquiese than delay the vessel by a walk off. I'm sure a book could be written about the WWF demands.