The Health and Safety can be alittle strange at times

Rams..Rob to many people different significations, to Louis in NZ is sheep, to Australians is a Mortgage Lending Society, to Greenpeace is Mr. Watson with his angle iron welded to the side of his ship as a weapon. Pleased to know what the real meaning is. Your job sounds like that of Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. Must have been very frustrating at times. Its a pity our armed forces did not get the same privileges of risk assessment before being thrown into an assault. I remember doing a weeks Safety Officer Course at Leith in the early 80"s and came away with the same knowledge as I went in with, to take the appropriate action as you saw fit. I have refused in the past to do jobs which I thought were too dangerous and not worth the risk and for which I have been reprimanded for at a later date. I personally don't care what higher authority thinks as long as my conscience is clear. Best Regards John Sabourn.

A lot of the time you carry on as normal , using common sense , but you are aware of the risks that you are taking an the measures that you need to reduce or eliminate the risk . The lake could have been crossed to reach the man simply by using a walking stick or a tree branch that told you the depth in front of you . The risk is a deep hole , you eliminate that being a sudden risk by taking prods at the lake bottom giving you depth and bottom mud . There are reduced risks in Gosport that the lake contains Alligators , but may contain used hypodermic needles . A lot of Bull is talked about RAMS , but normally when the person who wrote then does not understand the job . A lot I do are for confined space entry , for guys who have been trained in it , they are the worst in the World for forgetting to carry their escape respirators . The Method statement is like a check list , to make sure they don't become another victim

Rob, have you lost control of your sences? Using common sence, good grief that went out with the ark, now you must have a work study done first with a sub commitee and working party to respond to the corporate affairs amnager who must then report to the CEO who must consult with the gov before even considering to act on any matter.

That is where the common sense is lost John ,a good example is PAT. Testing for portable appliances . This is the tested sticker you find on drills , toasters ,kettles , computer monitors . Firstly you don't need to be an electrician to do this . You removed the plug top check the correct fuse is in place , check. The power cord is not nicked or damaged , and we had a plug in safety tester which cost around £1000 to buy . I trained the depot. Managers to do this in half a day , with no on cost ,just. The machine rotating around them . We were taken over and had an household idiot as a group safety advisor , he put this job out to an insurance company at over £10,000! A year . He was not skilled but he was trained in Safety and held a NEBOSH safety advisors certificate . A lot of these Health and Safety men suffer from the old saying of a little knowledge being dangerous

Sounds a bit like the whale watcher required on seismic vessels in this part of the world, shows the intelligence of such people who went to bed when it got dark and he couldn't see them. Nobody had told him that ships went 24 hours a day. Cheers John Sabourn

Hi shipmates, World-wide between 2002-2011 Over 250 Cargo vessels founded, result =the death of more than 800 of our seafarers' why? no health or safety laws in place= tax dodging, cost cutting owners, kill..... and get away with it !!!!!

Louis as regards your post of ships foundering, I should imagine the bulk of those that did were older tonnage sold to third world flag states, there is a moral here somewhere where the seller must take some blame in selling unsafe ships to others. I doubt apart from the Classification Societys such as Lloyds or Norske Veritas would be involved as such owners buying old tonnage are not concerned with. As regards other losses at sea some I believe must be attributed to the experience of the crews. I have sailed a number of years on foreign vessels and all are not bad, some in fact in line with and sometimes better than the British ships of yesteryear. However as John Arton says movement is afoot to make better the rules concerning such tonnage This is good if I believe a little unpracticable as some member states such as North Korea and others around the world would I believe take umbrage at being forced to accept ship inspections at another countries demand. Time will tell, but in the meantime the loss of shipping will still go on, a piece of paper legislation is not going to stop that. What is required is another like Samuel Plimsoll in the Halls of Westminster. Regards John Sabourn

Not knowing anything about Whales , except my mother claimed they taste revolting , from some war time experience she had eating Whale Meat , I would have thought that a creature that can talk to his or her Buddies over hundreds of miles would have noticed when Seismologists are banging their way across the Ocean , and if it did not like it , it would have gone to another feeding ground . We do spend an inordinate of time and money being fluffy , led by personalities who have their causes . I see Brian May , has rescued a meadow from the developer to grow trees , much to the applause of the ;local villagers who did not want a development affecting their house prices . I think trees are good too, but so are houses . We have our native wildlife devastated by foxes and Badgers because they are fluffy , predators busily munching hedgehogs down to a very low level , the non native Minks and grey squirrels are eating us out of our own nature , but we pay heed to the love of animals , when we spend millions of taxpayers cash because cows die because of Bovine TB . I love animals too especially the rump part of an Aberdeen Angus steer , cooked blue , with watercress , and mushrooms . The so called experts have taken over this asylum we live in , the consultants are running this mad house , rest in peace common sense , you are a pale memory

Well said Rob. Being around during the last war Whale meat as well as Horse meat was considered a luxury. The only thing I couldn't eat was potted meat and still cant, they must have put something in it apart from what should have been there, was nearly all jelly anyway. All these so called animal rights and wellfare movements go to the trouble of attracting well known personalities to their cause the same as tv advertising whether they pay them or not I wouldn't know, however the PR people they employ must advise them to do this as draws the publics attention to, this is probably what the present shipping industry requires to give it a boost in peoples minds. Cheers John Sabourn

Hi shipmates, Hi Rob Page you forgot the bees brought in by growers for the supermarkets, factory farming all types of crops in the U.K with bees from abroad {disease has spread which has killed many of our bees} the price of many crops will go up? Hi J Seabourn I agree with your post, but am not sure that british seaman , would go on the foreign ships today? unless you are a major risk taker with a devil may care approach , the sea has enough danger with out faulty ships.