Female radio officers at sea mid 70's on tankers before sex disc Act

[John Arton]

Any male, unless you "minced" in your walk, going down fluff alleyway on the Empress of Canada during the night, took his virtue in his own hands. Some of the ladies living down there were aka Amazonian women in there build and appetite. About the first bit of advice I was given on joining was never to venture there alone at night.
rgds
JA

[happy daze john in oz]

Did the other bikes have cross bars John JS

On UCL and others they sure did.

[j.sabourn]

I have just been reading through some of these posts, and it amazes me, how so much avoidable problems existed on some ships. During my time at sea have been involved in fire, pirates boarding, near mutiny, groundings, collissions, attempted murders, various shipboard deaths, Walked off ships, seen Masters walking off ships, been arrested ashore, caught up in riots in the likes of Mogadishu, accidents causing permanent disability, watched other ships founder, received the last will and testament from one high up person, seen bad weather no one could really describe, been in various war zones, there is really too much to describe and worry about. Yet at the end of any particular voyage it was always see you maybe next trip or on some other ship, and all put away as experience. To hear the story of Lucy to me is incredible that so much personal emnity could exist and be allowed to exist on some of these ships, which have every luxury going I should imagine. Is there something wrong with people nowadays, or are we all out of pace with the general public. I have now been ashore 12 years, it was novel the first couple as found time which hadnt had before, would like to go back into shipping I understood, but certainly not what has been described in this post. Would be walking away from a few more for a different reason. Cheers John S

[j.sabourn]

I am only glad that the shipping I was brought up with, were run from the ship. Up until the bitter end I tried to continue this practice. Any personalities like Lucy describes would have been paid off forthwith and sent home. On a foreign flag ship on foreign articles would have been sacked and made to pay their own fare home. I only had one occassion to do this with a Chinese 2nd. mate who was selling the contents of the medicine locker ashore in Singapore. As we spent the best part of 3 months at the Eastern Anchorage in Singapore, I used to get a bum boat ashore every 4 weeks and meet the Agent on the Ferry Jetty, where the money was handed over, Singapore Dollars and US dollars to pay all hands. He was always around asking for his job back, also putting the question to any other master who was doing similar transactions as I was, in the hope of getting a pier head jump. I can only surmise by Lucy"s experiences she must have sailed with a bunch of #ankers. JS

[Colin Wood]

Shame Bulldog Drummond never wrote her life story. For those that don't know, she rose to 2nd Engineer with Blue Funnel and then served as Chief engineer with Mollers of London & Hong Kong

[Lucy Knight]

Her niece Cherry wrote one from her diaries after she died. An ex Marconi R/O who sailed with her on British Monarch (Monarch shipping ) says she was a great person. He had some dealing with engine room as he helped them punch the tubes when they couldn't get enough steam on deck to discharge cargo. She was 2/e . When she joined all they knew was that a V Drummond was joining and he thought it was the district nurse who had walked on board. She was also the 2/e when they lost the 2nd mate overboard after he took the log readings on the graveyard watch and the sparks missed him at breakfast. They found him 8 hrs later. Also she was the 2/e when the B.M lost a cadet in NZ when 2 cadets went to the rescue of 2 girls who were in trouble in the water and one sadly lost their lives. The write up re the 2nd mate's story (he has now crossed the bar) and the account written by the R/O Stan is on the Fort Perch radio museum site, stories one and two, which has now back on line.

Shame Bulldog Drummond never wrote her life story. For those that don't know, she rose to 2nd Engineer with Blue Funnel and then served as Chief engineer with Mollers of London & Hong Kong

[Stevan Harding]

Lucy

Your initial post has raised a number of interesting issues.

Quick background: I was an R/O will Shell from 1977 to 1985; I vaguely recall you at Bristol - I was just starting as you were leaving. The only female Shell R/O I met personally was Jenny (Evans) on a short training course so cannot add much to your story I fear.

I sailed with a female deck cadet and, fair to say, her presence created tensions. Nevertheless, in line with your own experience, this had little to do with her and everything to do with the attitude of the men. Incidentally, she became a senior executive with Microsoft and the CEO of a technology company so I don’t necessarily buy into the ‘glass ceiling for women’ argument. If you have the talent – and a bit of luck – gender is no barrier to climbing the corporate ladder.

Things did improve, a little. A former work colleague, and good friend, was until relatively recently a 2nd mate with the RFA. At forty, she’s a generation behind. Although her life at sea had more than a few moments, she does not appear to have suffered the abject sexism – and misogyny – of the 1970s. Maybe the RFA (Royal Navy in disguise) is better equipped to manage women.

For my sins I’m still working in shipping. Other than passenger ships, however, I cannot recall seeing a woman amongst the crew on a ship I’ve visited for some time. Given that the supply of seafarers is dominated by nations without sex equality legislation – indeed any legislation to protect seafarers’ rights – perhaps it’s not surprising that women have largely turned their backs on the industry although they are to be found in specialist shore-based engineering roles, for example, with classification societies.

Regarding the status of the R/O / ETO, I recall representatives from Cunard and P&O Cruises camped outside the Surveyor General’s Organization (SGO) HQ on the 1st February 1992. At the time I was the nominal acting head of the SGO’s maritime radio department; sounds grand, but it wasn’t. Whatever, the aforementioned were demanding we issue GMDSS Safety Radio Certificates for their ships there and then.

‘What’s the rush?’ I inquired.

‘We need to get those lazy, worthless *$&@s out their cabins and into the fo’c’sle head where they belong!’, or words to that effect.

Under GMDSS the technicians R/Os became enjoyed no officer privileges. (Unlike Shell, and a few others, the majority of British ship owners had a very low opinion of the R/O and their value, and rejoiced with their demise.)

The first few years of the GMDSS were the nadir for the R/O / ETO. Most everyone in the industry expected extinction to be swift and absolute.

Move the clock forward and IT began to have its first significant impact on shipping. Around STCW 95 I think, I attended a conference considering the industry’s future training needs with the Chief Examiner and Head of Seafarer Standards. He was a good guy, who has since sadly passed, but a dyed-in-the-wool steam queen.

To keep it short, a speaker highlighted the extent to which marine engineering was becoming dependent on IT expressing the opinion that, on the future ship, the ETO would be the Senior Engineer and, likely, the highest paid individual onboard other than the Master.

‘Not as long as I draw breath!’ the immediate retort from my colleague.

A certain irony, then, twenty years on he’s sadly no longer with us and I’m on the Committee of the UAE branch of the Institute of Marine Engineers considering, amongst other things, the training needs for today’s engineering cadets; which have rather more in common with what you and I were studying in Bristol nearly forty years ago rather than securing dexterity in the use of the Geordie screwdriver. Moreover, as the speaker predicted, specialist ETOs are now increasingly valued by the shipping industry. Maybe the suggested film star wages are not being paid, but a good living can be had; I’m not an ETO – I work in the ports sector, primarily in regulation and risk management, and have done so for many years.

Final point: in my humble experience all R/Os were agony Aunts. It came with the job.

Hope the book goes well.

[Evan Lewis]

The famous ,Horse and Groom, Eh ! Doesn't ,BEAR, thinking about, John.

[happy daze john in oz]

The famous ,Horse and Groom, Eh ! Doesn't ,BEAR, thinking about, John.

Now there was a place where sex discrimination was never a problem

[j.sabourn]

Ref. 157... I can aquaint with certain sections re. the advent of technology in the shipping world and the knowledge at the time of certain individuals. At the turn of the century 2000-2001 I was asked to fill in for one of the mates on a Norwegian Seismic state of the art vessel, computerised E.R. and all the things appertaining to, Vessels name was the Ramform Challenger, more than likely now outdated by several years and more than probably gone to its maker. The mate in question had had an accident and couldn't get a replacement out fast enough. The vessel was shooting at the upper end of the Singapore straits and apart from anything else had 3 Indonesian army riflemen on for pirates. Anyhow come midnight no one knew if the computers would still be going when going into the new century, we had tugs standing by and towlines flaked out ready and carried on shooting. Come midnight and nothing happened was a bit of an anti-climax. I asked my son a few years ago who works in computers and he said anyone with a proper knowledge of same would or should have known. Cheers John S.