Gravesend sea school 1965 memories are made of this

[j.sabourn]

#19 competency ,! For those ex RN officers holding commissions who were in the correct branch of the Navy could on application receive a merchant navy equivilant on retiring from Naval duties this however was a certificate of Service , it covered a masters f.g. Certificate with one exception which was a H.T. Passenger vessel , don’t ask me why as haven’t a clue.
But to my mind how can a naval officer jump the intermediate certificates with all the different subjects such as cargo handling and other topics ? Really is a bit of putting the cart before the horse. JS
PS for some of those I sailed with wouldn’t have even of had the required seatime to gain such certification . JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

PS for some of those I sailed with wouldn’t have even of had the required seatime to gain such certification . JS

Couple (nice blokes but!) I sailed with were completely lost on cargo work and stability, to us it was our bread and butter, to them it was an alien subject, lets face it the displacement on an RN vessel changes very little compared to a MN vessel. They should have been restricted to passenger vessels where their wardroom conduct would have been an asset on the aforementioned vessels

[j.sabourn]

One I sailed with Ivan was a Lt.Commdr. In Submarines . According to him his cert. Of Service did not cover HT passenger vessels , so he asked to sit a Competency cert. he sat and passed. What this consisted of I have no idea, but his words he wished he hadn’t as had trouble in passing and if he had failed would have lost his cert. of Service. So doubt he would have passed a proper 2nd. Mates cert. JS
I sailed with naval officers for nigh on 4 years and one Lieutenant who had taught navigation at Dartmouth asked to come on bridge and take a Sun running fix crossing the Bay on a courtesy visit to Italy , he was on the bridge at 0730 and wanted the printed paperwork to fill in as per naval style, I said we don’t work like that just use the Haversine formulae , don’t think he knew what I was talking about, so I said Hav ZX= Hav.LHA Cos. Lat cos Dec +hav ( Lat diff. Dec ) don’t think he knew what I was talking about , he decided to go and have breakfast instead. JS