New Certificates

[Capt Bill Davies]

.................... Myself personally do not like women on a ship, .....................

I have very little experience of women on ships and even that was limited to wives on board. Probably half a dozen and all when sailing foreign flag. Four Ch.Eng wives and two Ch.Mates and in each case from the Far East and kept themselves to themselves and had no aspiration in usurping their husbands positions. Two of the Japanese wives were medical practitioners and an absolute pleasure to engage in conversation. This of course was a far cry from what I had hear of the goings on in British ships from around the 70s onwards when every officer was entitled to to carry his wife. I'll not belabour what has already been said in this area on the site. As for woman working as officers?. I have no experience save to say I was never put in a position where one was offered by the owners and and I can say that I would probably have declined. Woman shipmasters have been around for some time and I have met quite a few, all Scandinavian, and they seem more than able enough. I heard that back in the 80s little coasters like Arklow shipping had one or two.

Brgds

Bill

[Captain Kong]

The Captainess of the Queen Victoria , Cunard, is a female.
A friend of mine, Chief Engineer in ESSO met her at a cocktail party on board, he was introduced to her by the cruise Director, as Chief Engineer, `Tod Sloan`, he held his hand out to shake hands, she said ,"I do not shake hands with Engineers. "
So arrogant with it.
Brian.

[Chris Allman]

Oh dear oh dear, why on earth do they make matters worse for themselves. I just do not see where they think it gets them.They just make themselves look rude and stupid and then wonder why they have the reputation that they do. We all know that their is a rivalry between deck and engine room but this is taking it too far. He should have made a complaint against her. She forgets that without them her ship could end up like a certain Italian one, lying on its side on some rocks.

Chris.

[Captain Kong]

She is Danish from the Faroe Islands Chris,
She started on fishing boats and then went onto Ferries before joining Cunard. Not as good a career patern as the rest of us.
Cheers
Brian.

[Rocky]

,"I do not shake hands with Engineers. "

Now that is the sort of attitude that would have got me in trouble similar sort of attitude was a new skipper joining as he is getting out of his cab i was staggering into mine (yep drunken teenager) he then shouted out are you crew on this ship and i said yes he then said carry my bags on board not knowing who he was not really caring either see brackets above the reply was carry your own bags not exact words i think i may have used some you don't find in any translating books but you get the idea anyway lets just say i was not the most popular crew member on the bridge after that

[John Arton]

I must have been very lucky when I was sailing as I can honestley say I never came across anyone who thought he was superior to any other, no oil and water sects on board etc. One of the most important things I was taught by my first ever Chief Officer (ex. Royal Marine) was to respect all and everyone on board and treat them as equals. This stuck with me throughout and I always tried to apply that rule with all the various nationalities of crew I sailed with in later years. Yes it was nice when one of the Filipino A.B.'s would greet you at the gangway on re-joing and insist on carrying your bags but that was out of frienship and I would certainly never have ordered anyone to carry my bags and would have expected all others on board to to the same.
rgds
JA
p.s can you see the halo round my head haha!

[happy daze john in oz]

We have a number of captaisn with the national airline here. Yesterday one of them was stood down just before the flight as a number of cabing crew saiud she had been on the grog just before boarding.

[j.sabourn]

The same person if she was brought up in fishing vessels would be speaking out of tune with her background as there was no such animosity on such, as the mechanics or whatever they used to call them also worked on deck as necessary so I am told. As to not mixing with engineers she was obviously trying to emulate a bygone era, to what purpose is anyones guess. Some of my best friends were engineers, there was of course rivalry at times which was used in a jokingly fashion, but nothing like the bitterness of some of our bygone seafarers. She obviously had been listening to the wrong people in her informative years. Cheers John Sabourn.

[Samlander]

Nothing so heady as command, but there must have been at least one BofT Cooks ticket when Buries-Marks signed a full female complement of catering staff aboard their La Cordillera in either 1947 or 48. All ex-WRNS, they did not last too long, mostly because they were snapped up as suitable wives for the male crew.

[happy daze john in oz]

Way back in the 60's UCL dabbled with the concept of female wingers for a while, think it was on the Pendennis. These were the real macoy, not the usual make believe ones. Not sure how it all worked out though.