Euohoria

[j.sabourn]

Euphoria comes in many guises and is often soon quelled by misjudgements made when you were an onlooker . To anyone in the lower ranks of shipboard life one always wanted to be that next step up regardless for a deck boy it was JOS , for an apprentice it was to get the hell of 4 years behind you and cut the chains. On being cast adrift at the end of 4 years and told to come back when you had something to offer did somewhat dampen the euphoria , and many gave the job away. However if you went to the expense of struggling on and in the 50/50 chance of success , there was another feeling of the working class can kiss my ass , this notion was soon dispelled as one found out on obtaining the 3 mates job and the bottom of the heap once more. Once again however ships do get into ones bloodstream and many carried on. There were good parts and bad parts to every job as you went through them , however the 3 mates to me was the one with biggest draw backs and this was because of nights on board , as the 3 mate always did the first one, so when you did finally get ashore if lucky on the second night in Kobe and the delights of the Rose Bar , one was always put off by the thought of maybe the second mate had. known the delights previously of the delightful creature sitting at your table , and regardless of if he had or not ,he was always going to say he
had. There was no privacy on a ship and very little ashore either in most cases . So nights on board are my crib at the moment . JS
PS Ive misspelt euphoria among other things . JS

[j.sabourn]

I suppose different companies different yardarms , but what I was brought up with was basically it was the third mates job apart from the 8/12 watch to look after and maintain all LSA gear and equipment, update the corrections from Notices to Mariners of the Light Lists, cargo loading and discharge when working normal daylight working hours in charge of the fore deck. Plus other items that cropped up.
2nd. Mate you were the navigator and responsible for all the reports on same for all the paperwork required for the Owners as to fuel and usage and routing reports to the owners. Responsible for all chart corrections, a never ending job, responsibe for the cleaning and maintainance of the Gyro compass, and Radar if you had one , it was a bonus if it was a Marconi radar and you had a sparks from the same company as was then his job. Responsible also for the paperwork as to laydays Weather working days . demurrage, times lost due to various incidents, plus again to all the odds and sods you couldnt talk your way out of , like saying , thats not my job.
The mates job well what can one say, you were responsible for everything of a deck nature stability, maintainance, the occassional needle job, keeping the master informed if he was interested, and keeping the other two reprobates in hand. The first law I changed if it was ever there that is, was, that the mate didnt do a Night on Board , and the other two could argue amongst themselves who was doing what, and made sure I was the first one in the Rose Bar no more second hand goods. JS