Customs Dodges

[Keith at Tregenna]

Would appear so, fishing industry in the UK are not going to be happy.

Added for information only.

K.

Brexit: UK ministers warned not to 'betray' UK fishermen

Brexit: UK ministers warned not to 'betray' UK fishermen - BBC News

[j.sabourn]

I replied to your #98 Ivan and agree. However the post has not materialised, so whether I have a haunted iPad or forgot to push send will never know. Anything to do with shipping takes time and as said in previous post that disappeared the different types of charter and time starting 24 hours after entering ship in during working hours, and the various clauses in charter party, are only a scratch on the surface of what the PM has to go through to enter the uk in and clear out free and uninhibited due to the stupidity of various previous politicians on signing away almost the sovereignty of the uk. There will be politicians of all party’s out with the long knifes to try and enhance their own advancement in various ways. I don’t envy her , her job. Maybe the other disappeared post was a bit more explicit. Cheers JWS.

[Peter F Chard]

I sailed on "DELPHIC '' as Second engineer in the mid sixties. The third mate had a lucrative business going smuggling luxury items between the UK and Australia. It was simplicity itself in its operation. He would take orders in the UK for luxury goods etc and at the time of sailing from the UK he would telegraph the orders to a contact in Aden. On arrival there a container would be loaded as general cargo and off we would go, on arrival at Sydney the container would be lifted ashore onto a truck and disappear. The same truck would then return later the same day with the same container, now empty but swapped in Aden for a second container loaded with luxury goods for distribution in the UK. The third mate live somewhere close to Belgravia Square in a mansion that he owned outright thanks to his profits from the smuggling !! Regards Peter in NZ.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Think it is more a myth, read somewhere a chap everyday went out with a wheel barrow, contents sand, covered with tarpaulin.

Officers made him empty out the sand, to be sure.

Turned out he was stealing wheel barrows.

K.


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[j.sabourn]

Sailed for a short time with a chief steward from liverpoool in 1967.he was only filling in for the regular one for a passage from Port of Spain to Montreal. He was from Liverpool and was a bit of an uncut doiamond , he had been working on the ore boats running from the MacKenzie river ( Georgetown) to Chageramus Trinidad. He was also an ex prisoner off war in Singapore and no doubt Lou would have known him if I had remembered his name . Anyhow he told me it was common practice to smuggle gold nuggets between the two ports, this was for a racket the actual customs ran themselves. JWS.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
Best laugh; one that I have posted before. We had Arab fire men on one ship, came back from Canada with a load of logs. Customs came aboard and did their search, they found a packet hidden under the stern fairleads, called one of the Arabs over and said ,"We just fond your cigarettes under those fairleads," the Arab said, "no boss their not mine , mine are under that one," pointing to the other side. Nowadays I like to think he could have let him off for being stupid.
Cheers Des

[j.sabourn]

As I said Des I was in their little black book after they found my mistake by sticking in safe and not declaring. It was found by a one ringer the actual workers of the rummage squads. The 2 two ringers sitting in my cabin drinking my booze when they said they were going to fine me, I took their glasses out of their hands, and told them if they were finished In my cabin , then I was busy and had other things to do. I don’t know how long I was on their bad boys book but must have been for sometime as a couple of years later I was stopped going ashore in Aberdeen and body searched on the quayside, that may have been an isolated case though when I carried them around the harbour and discharged them a couple of miles from their cars. You get good and bad the same as every walk of life, cheers JWS.

[John Arton]

Used to run into Workington with product that was used in the production of photo paper.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the place at on time it was reputed to have the highest proportion of licensed premises per head of population anywhere in the U.K. and even when I was running there, there seemed to be a heck of a lot of pubs, the ones overlooking the harbour seeming to open 24 hours a day and populated by some very strange characters who came from all over the country.
Getting in you had to swing in the outer basin and back down through the dock gates, only open 1hr. each side of high water, and onto the berth. Steel rail tracks was the main export and at one time they reckoned that a fair percentage of U.K. rail track and other countries world wide, were manufactured there.
Every month a Moroccan registered ship would bring a cargo of phosphoric acid up from Morocco for a local chemical plant and the Captain of that ship obviously had a deal going with one of the local bar owners as he would always been seen trotting off the ship shortly after docking with a couple of carrier bags full of spirits and fags. As it was such a small out port there were no customs stationed there, think the nearest was somewhere down Fleetwood way, so all arrival papers were just faxed/emailed by the agent to the nearest customs house, so we never aw any boarding officers.
One night I was in the pub overlooking the harbour and in the corner were a gang of men and women drinking soft drinks, all dressed the same, dark trousers and blue woolly pullies but with no markings on them.
The Moroccan ship was in the process of berthing and shortly its Captain arrived with his swag only to be warned off by the bar staff, nodding their heads in the direction of the gang in the corner. The Moroccan Captain disappeared like a rabbit down its burrow and when I followed him out there were bottles of whiskey and cartons of cigarettes lying in the bushes alongside the path and on arriving back on board we could see frantic activity on the Moroccan ship opposite us as the crew were throwing black plastic wrapped parcels into the dock and watching them sink. Shortly after the gang from the pub boarded and proceeded to tear the ship apart searching for drugs. They were a customs black gang sent up to search the ship after a tip off that a large consignment of cannabis resin was being smuggled in. By the time they eventually decided to leave the warmth of the pub and actually carry out the raid, the crew had got rid of the evidence so that was a waste of their time.
They did have a successful raid the next time the ship came in, again with a consignment of cannabis resin, only this time they were hiding in the dock sheds and swarmed aboard as soon as she was alongside, catching the crew red handed with one of the largest cannabis haul ever in the U.K. Local rumour had it that a local diver went down into the dock at night and retrieved a number of those packages that had been thrown over and managed to make a tidy sum for himself selling off the contents.
Rgds
J.A.

[j.sabourn]

Took a cargo of iron ore one time there from Sfax in North Africa. After sailing found one of the ballast tanks had rather a lot of ballast remaining, so was worried about the tonnage out turn on discharge. Foertuanetly it was all discharged straight onto the Quay and not weighed . Never made the mistake again of not checking the soundings myself. JWS.

[Ron B Manderson]

The Customs Man once told me that the elect dept had the most places to hide stuff.
Place a carton of cigs on top of an elect motor and paint it the same as the motor. They would think it was part of the control App.
They are not permitted to open a running motor. or even stop it , so bottles could be placed between the motor coils.
Followed by " and I never told you that did I " No Mr Customs
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