First trip memories

[Doc Vernon]

http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/i...tml#post141946

Post #6 John is this it!?
Cheers

[Doc Vernon]

Did the same Trip (not 55 haha) Dennis on the Warwick,and the Dunnottar,great trips i thought,and as you say all those lovely Ports!
Loved the Canaries! No not Birds LOL!
Cheers when do we ship out again Den?
haha!

[happy daze john in oz]

Did the same Trip (not 55 haha) Dennis on the Warwick,and the Dunnottar,great trips i thought,and as you say all those lovely Ports!
Loved the Canaries! No not Birds LOL!
Cheers when do we ship out again Den?
haha!

Ah the canaries Vernon, Las Palmas and the lovely ladies all so generous. I know a dozen or so guys who all got a present from them, so magnanamous those good souls of the canaries.

[leratty]

Capt. Gordon, interesting what you say re some deck officers as that had a large bearing on me after 18 months to go on deck rather than stay an App. Their, those types imagined self importance was mind blowing & without any foundation too as most were from not so crash hot backgrounds nor education. It amused me that they would not consider talking with anyone below their purported station, laughable really. That was not the case on my 1st trip. My first trip was pretty good all the officers were very kind to a immature 16yr old, especially as I was sea sick for the first 2 possibly 3 days as we hit the Bay of Biscay. The Capt. would even come & check on me each day insisting I ate dry crackers with water. It was a Gt trip where I matured a lot grew substantially in height & weight, what with Curacao then Panama where I got the taste for naughty ladies & sleazy bars. From there to NZ which was a revelation as to those this time younger fresher ladies & the bars not sleazy, just bars. The crew were great & allowed me to mix with them as sole App so a great trip with many fond memories. I spent a further 12 months as an App where I encountered the officer type you mention. So then switched to the deck as JOS & quickly an EDH, best decision I made though had decided the sea was not my ultimate career. Sadly still met one or two 'I'm so special' why one would ask themselves, deck officers but not too many as went tramping.

[leratty]

Bev, that was what made me sea sick. We had old copper or brass oil lamps as I guess back up for the riding lights & I had to haul them out of their places on the wings then polish them each morning + any other brass on the bridge. Then to finish clean the wheel house windows, the smell of Brasso even today causes me to have flash back ): God the retching almost killed me as went of for so long.

[j.sabourn]

#65 You've missed the steam whistle and the bell on forecastle and Bridge, Polishing the paraffin lamps did you never see Genii. ? Regards John Sabourn

[Keith Tindell]

I remember well, Capetown,Stirling Castle, and me bridge boy, being sent up to clean the whistle. A sign was put on the lanyard that cleaning was in progress, but that bloody thing was still hissing and spitting a bit, i remember getting down out of there as fast as i could, sh***** myself, the joys of being bridge boy.

[John Gill]

After reading these posts on their first trip to sea i think my time at sea was a picnic

Picnic Lou? i'll bet not too many cucumber sandwiches were served to POW's.

[casso]

Wish I could remember it. I seem to recall going down to King George dock in Hull to join the MV Trentino as a deckboy. It was 18-7-59 and I was wearing a black leather motor cycle jacket that in the infinite wisdom of a 17 year old I had put my name on the back of. I heard some one shout Joe so I turned round and found no-one in sight, it must have been some smart assed docker, I was thinking who the hell knows me around here. Anyway off I went up the gangway of what seemed a deserted ship, having never been aboard a merchant ship nor been to a training ship, I had spent 6 months on the E.P. Hutchinson a Humber Conservancy Board survey vessel as deck boy/dogs body/cabin boy, I wandered up for'ard thinking my accommodation was in the fo'c'sle somehow before I got passed number 2 hatch I twigged it must be down aft so off I went to the aft accommodation and found my crew mates. I think it was 2 other deckboys or 1 deckboy and 1 Jos, we shared a cabin and I being the newest member was Peggy but I also was on the 8-12 watch. I remember steaming down the Humber and slinging all kinds of rubbish over the wall into the river anything we didn't want went over the wall before we even got to the sea. Even at that time I was surprise at what was jettisoned. I seem to remember taking the wheel in the North Sea which was scary as I had never been on the wheel before maybe I was farmer so only was on the wheel for 2 15min spells. I don't remember what I did in London but we docked in West India Dock and I obviously went to Charlie Browns, The Blue Posts. alamo? Opporto the only one still there, and the Great Eastern. After London it was Ceuta for bunkers, no shore leave. Malta I think was next, it took a couple of runs ashore to find I didn't like the beer and screech was not to my liking by the time Friday night came I was trying the top shelf, everything from Banana brandy? through the rainbow of different distillations. Damn it must have been cheap cos I started at one end and worked my way to the other and was on my way back again when someone said I was drunk and should try a tomato juice, this probably saved my life because no sooner had I drank the tomato juice than I was in the bog hooping up, Then I staggered/was carried around for the rest of the night till finally we reached the ship and my pit, I think I threw up every time we stopped and possibly at many points in between. The next day was Saturday and the day I was supposed to scrub the messdeck out I felt so bad it took me all day to do a half hearted job and I could not get out of bed on the Sunday I was still hung over.
Which reminds me of my first Sunday at sea. My cabin mates convinced me that being the newest member I had to get the ships Bible and memorize a passage to read at Sunday service held by the old man. So off I went to see the mate who sent me to the bosun but by this time I was getting the drift of it and did not go to see the chief steward. If they had sent me for a bucket of steam or a long stand I would have cottoned on straight away but taking a religious tack had me, I was unwilling to question religious shipboard traditions.
I'm not sure of the order of the next ports but I think it was Famagusta, maybe Limassol, Tel-Aviv anchored off, Haifa, Messina for bunkers then back to London could have been Butler's Warf just below Tower bridge on the south bank. Then pay off in Hull. I do remember swimming in Famagusta and going to the Palm bar? were we left what ever we could not spend be hind the bar for the next trip. I went back on the Sicillian and found I had been beaten by 3 days but I can't remember if it was someone on the Trentino or if it was one of our crew on another ship. The only names I remember from that trip was Keith Hewlett who also sailed with me on the Sicillian and John (Blackie) Meekin both were AB'S and excellent seamen, I wish I'd turned out to be half the seaman they were. John used to post on this site but I no longer see his posts and fear the worst.
I was not invited back after that trip nor any other trip I did except 1 which I refused. In truth I think the only vessel I would have sailed on again was an Athel tanker running up and down Brazil and to Venezuela.

Casso.

[happy daze john in oz]

Bev, that was what made me sea sick. We had old copper or brass oil lamps as I guess back up for the riding lights & I had to haul them out of their places on the wings then polish them each morning + any other brass on the bridge. Then to finish clean the wheel house windows, the smell of Brasso even today causes me to have flash back ): God the retching almost killed me as went of for so long.

Brasso, you clean brass with it not drink it, unless of course you are a first officer I knew on UCL.