Career At Sea

John I remember when the de-manning of ships started. After the seamans strike in 66. I was mate on the Ravensworth in Cardiff this BOT bloke came down and asked to be shown how the ship tied up when berthing re manpower. At the time I suppose I was a bit naïve, going forward I said who was on the focsle working headlines and Breastlines and Chippy driving the winch, 3 men on the backspring which was a heavy wire with a heavy rope tail. The same as aft, and away he went and I thought nothing of it. Months later we were told to do away with the present set up as per backsprings , and a few more advisory words. Ropes were always after were used as backsprings and one man could handle. Previous to this the 3 watchkeepers had been cut down to 2 with the excuse if a bell was provided from the bridge to the messroom this was ok. The Chippie was done away with and an AB/Handyman appeared in his place which was just one of the ABs with the title and a pound a month or whatever extra. I went Foreign Flag at least if was cutting back with crews I might as well go and get better money for it. On coming back in the very early 70"s the rot was well established, with one man on a watch, ( automatic Helmsman) the whole feeling on board was one of waiting for the firing squad, I decided rather than wait for the chopper to go offshore, money was as good, conditions much harder but seemed more secure. How wrong can one be. No where in British shipping was job security. The shipowner will not be forgotten by a lot of people who are still alive, good company servants who were discarded with no scruples whether they had been with a company all their lives. With exceptions like the big tanker companies such as BP who did give good payments and redundancies the average owner was cheeseparing. Now they have shipping down to the lowest legally they can get at the moment, however it will come even down more with time. I also remember the promises made in the very early days about ship maintainance and berthing about employing Riggers and shore gangs on arrival, some better companies may have done, the average did not. The British MN was dismantled with the aid of glib tongued people assisted by politicians and the use of mirrors. JS

Just bumped into an old shipmate I sailed with out here offshore. He is still at sea on the coast here and I asked him who he was working for and he said Gardline. If remember correctly that was a Lowestoft company and one of the not very well paid ones at that however out here they have to pay the going rate, the same lad when with me was doing the cooking, he was sent for one of these modern certs. it must have been a class 3 or 4 but didn't ask him, these would be State certs. and is sailing as mate. I did have the effrontery to ask him the going wage for such and is 140.000 dollars year on a one on one off basis or 6 months a year. Gardline in the UK would of had a heart attack if had to pay such salaries, unless they have changed an awful lot over the past 30 years or so. I wont say what the ships work is as might cause an argument re illegal immigrants, and might cause him embarrassment also as well as the big brains in Canberra. Cheers JS

Hi HD John,
No tours on Holland America, bridge or engine room, If there was a daft passenger slipping down below they could sue the company.
They are also very strict on security, so no one on the bridge.
HAL seem to be a well run company and I think are far superior to Cunard.
The ship I have just been on , STATENDAM and the RYNDAM have been sold to Princess Australia, They are both sailing to Singapore in September, they will be cut in half and lengthened.

As regards Navigation, I asked the Third Mate , what time is Noon, he said `12. O`clock of course. `
I then saw the Mate and told him, he said they do not use the sextant anymore, easier to use the Sat Nav.
So I guess that is another way of life disappearing.
Brian.

Brian had to chuckle. Bet the third mate thought who is this senile old bloke, must have alzheimers cant remember what time noon is. Maybe you should have given him a lecture on navigation. Should have asked him if they had a Chronometer, would then have shown you his wristwatch. Cheers JS

Terry, ref 18, i also did 3 months in Gravesend, and came out with the grand title of deck boy and spent the next couple of months as *peggy*, nowadays as i have read after training they come out with an EDH ticket,and zilch experience KT

In 1990 they were coming out of Gravesend after TWO WEEKS with an ABs certificate.
I had one, a first tripper, he didn't even know what Starboard or Port was.
On a tight turn on a dogs leg in a channel with another ship approaching at the same time. I put him on the wheel and told him to ease her over to starboard a little to give the other ship a bit more space between the buoys. He went hard a port and right across the other ships bows and out of the Channel on the other side. After knocking him down I swung her back into the Channel with a load of abuse on Channel 16 off the other ship.
The lad then told me he had never been on a ship before and didn't know what to do. He had an ABs Certificate from Gravesend.
So what use is an ABs cert today. Might as well employ a window cleaner or milk man.
I had to do three months on The Vindi, a few months as Deck boy then JOS, then SOS, EDH and Boat ticket at 18 and then wait for Four Years before getting an ABs Cert. Six Years apprenticeship to be an AB, now all in two weeks without setting a foot on any ship.

Brian that is really disgraceful. Then they have the cheek to talk about Safety. That must have been passed by the then Minister of Transport or whatever government was the Ruling body then. Although judging by the one who was in power in December 1990 I have severe misgivings on their own educational standards. I have a letter from the one then in the chair and I would doubt if anyone could read his signature as a 6 year old could write better, either that or is his disdain for the general public. I see by the news in the not too distant past him and another now sitting in the Lords was charged with misdemeanours re his public position. To be made a Lord baffles me in the first place. I wouldn't employ some of them for ballast. Cheers JS

Brian on the other side of the coin I sometimes wonder what one means by navigation cadet. Navigation what we knew of it has changed a 100 per cent from the 1950"s to what it is today. In the 50"s was practically the same as it had been in Nelsons day. In my days commencing in 1957 after 4 years at sea and restarting as 3rd. mate with a brand new 2nd. Mates certificate which wasn't given for good attendance at some Nautical establishment, one carried ones own sextant, Nories tables, usually the owners supplied the Almanac, think some of them like Browns may of even been free. A lot of masters even carried their own chronometer. The same as all seamen supplied their own working and heavy weather gear. One got from A to B by ones own initiative the same as had been done for the previous 100 years. Ask any modern ships officer to do the same, and believe the ship would never leave the quay. This title Navigation officer bears as much resemblance to proper navigation as bananas do to pineapples. A sprat to catch a mackerel, no matter how they dress it up in shipping nowadays one is just a glorified watchman sitting at the end of a big mass of steel. We were never pampered like some today, things only got better at face value when the owner had to put out bait to catch more people. To appear politically correct when it was and still is the rage to alter accommodation to suit the needs of the female of the species, he went out of his way to prove how considerate he was, which he would never do for an all male crew. Conditions re a lot of shipping appears good on paper, in practice however still with a lot of companies does not match up to the true facts. JS

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Originally Posted by j.sabourn

To be honest I would say a career at sea today as against what was there in our era is certainly not the same. We came from an era where British Shipping was the biggest in the world. Ships were run mostly on peoples integrity and skills. One made ones own decisions. Good bad or indifferent was how one kept a job if one wanted to keep it. The basic training was different and one first learned to be a seaman first last and foremost. I particularly don't agree with the basic requirements for the present day mariner, but there again I am not fully aware of the requirements and don't particularly want to know. However I saw nothing wrong with the old ways and think it produced well and adjusted people with a lot of knowledge, which today is considered par for the course and unnecessary, I fail to agree with that. What I see is a bunch of zombies being produced on the factory roll on roll off system, with a piece of paper which tells them they are trained to the required level. The sea like some other dangerous jobs one is never finished learning and this goes on right up to the day one retires. No one knows it all and never will. However if one gets job satisfaction out of going to sea one is sitting pretty. Of course there are jobs there at the moment but to assume they are always going to be there is a bit presumptuous, the present shipowners can see a decline in applicants nowadays, but will have no compunction in getting rid of when it suits them as they have done in the past. JS

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Very good point you raise there John, Everything these days seems to be in the ship owners interest, I signed on the M.V.Piako here in L,Pool back in 1975. We soon found out the true skipper we were sailing with and a few of the deck hands and stewards walked off her after we were all logged a days pay while working bye. We went ashore to celebrate one of the lads birthday at 3pm on a Monday afternoon the only duty we could have carried out while she was loading cargo was to soogie we were not even loaded to the tween decks. That ship ended up being ready to sail with everything loaded secured and battened down for 2 days awaiting the arrival of a full compliment of crew to work her, Needless to say when they did arrive they had come from Glasgow pool know one in L,Pool once the word went out would go any where near her. will never forget the skippers name one captain Blyth ex R.N. I ended up along with a few more only working her around the land and getting out. I think any seaman these days would have second thoughts as to whether he would ever be employed again if he done the same, I was ashore 2 days after getting out and sailed on a container ship Regards Terry.;)

I started my sea career in 1953 on the Isle of Wight ferries including paddle steamers namely Princess Elizabeth, Lord Elgin and Bournemouth Queen, ending up on the M.V. Balmoral doing cruises and tendering jobs throughout the Solent. After 18 months, deck boys were considered experienced enough to join the MN without going to sea training school. I joined in 1954 and ended up on a skin boat as peggy on the Nicoya run by Fyffes down to Tiko and Port Victoria in West Africa. I did the same six years apprenticeship and served as a top rate A/B on many ships out of Southampton, Avonmouth and Liverpool. The ship owners always had a strong lobby in the House of Commons and several years later in the 1960's brought in DHU'S, (deck hands uncertificated) which in my opinion started the rot in our once proud industry. Union Castle Line were the worst offenders signing on far too many to make up the short fall of AB's. on weekly sailings from the port.
Steady she goes.