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Author Topic: Nautical "Strange but True!"  (Read 214104 times)

BarryM

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #550 on: April 05, 2010, 07:36:42 pm »

I take it you are not expecting your OBE anytime soon?  %)

Barry M
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #551 on: April 06, 2010, 11:36:04 am »

I take it you are not expecting your OBE anytime soon?  %)

Barry M
Barry, to quote the bard; "You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment".
But....if I can find my way back into the "thread", you'll be able to read a few more "opinions" about the behaviour and press coverage of these 2 "minor" royals. It may not sound like it, but I am a royalist! Bryan.
PS....I wonder if doing a "restore" on this machine to an earlier date may help? Back to 2008 (!) perhaps?
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #552 on: April 06, 2010, 08:34:09 pm »

In front of me as I write, I have the previously mentioned newspaper article. It’s headlined Andy flies in to comfort sick wife (all capital letters). Apparently Andy flew to us in his own L y n x helicopter. That must have been when I wasn’t paying attention or something. I think I would have noticed a strange aircraft on my deck. Notwithstanding the fact that Andy was not a flight crew on Edinburgh. Just didn’t happen. It (the article) also goes on to say that the door on her cabin had its lock changed for security purposes. Apart from the fact that her alleyway was avoided like the plague, it again just wasn’t true (my key still fitted!). As an aside, we also had a welcome relief from Captain Speaking pipes.
 
But we managed to find Adelaide OK…probably with the navigational expertise of Edinburgh to guide us. We berthed a few yards astern of Edinburgh. It seemed to us as if most of the local population had turned out for this visit…and the Fergie didn’t disappoint them. As soon as our gangway (the RN call them brows for some arcane reason) was down, off she pranced. By herself. All very odd as she’d been shadowed all her time on board by her policeman. So now, in full public gaze, she walked (stomped, actually) the couple of hundred yards to the Edinburgh. And that was the last we saw of her. Phew!

Once again the friends I’d made in the RAN during the 1986 visit came up with the goodies…this time a 4 litre Nissan that could blow your socks off. More gnashing of tooths from those who felt they were more deserving than me. Sod’em I needed the break, and so thoroughly enjoyed meandering around the local beautiful countryside. I’d arranged a couple of trips for those interested to some of the local vineyards and wine producers….with the expected and inevitable result. But Adelaide is such a nice place and good run-ashore that trips out aren’t really required. Best stop of the trip.

All this while there had been the on-going ruckus about the visit of the Ark and Fort Grange to Melbourne….but they were grown-ups, and could take care of their own problems. For us, the delights of the Great Australian Bight awaited us once again, this time with RAN Perth in company. Batten down everything moveable…Portland training came in a bit useful here, but again, there were always those who wouldn’t listen.

Bryan Young
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #553 on: April 06, 2010, 08:39:04 pm »

Sorted!

For some obscure reason the Forum doesn't like the word L Y N X which is the name of the chopper. Somebody else reported a similar problem.

I just chopped up parts of Bryan's text and submitted it until I found out what was triggering the error message.

Martin, can you remove my Experimental thread from Chit Chat please and clean this one up. Best to leave the warning about L Y N X though.

Nice to know i'm not entirely in my dotage yet!

Colin

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Tug-Kenny RIP

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #554 on: April 06, 2010, 09:05:56 pm »


Phew -----  well done team.   O0

I was hypnotised by the previous exchanges. What a party.    :-)) :-)) :-)) :-))


ken



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Colin Bishop

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #555 on: April 06, 2010, 09:08:19 pm »

Basic problem solving really. Just took 5 minutes once I had the text. (smug! 8))

Colin
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BarryM

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #556 on: April 06, 2010, 09:12:32 pm »

Ach! I thought I would let the old yin get a bit of glory rather than give you the answer; I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out!  %)  %)

Hang on - where's Bryan? Has he gone for a lie down? Has it all got too much for him?  :((

Barry M

PS. If you had the answer, how come Darlek has just posted the name that can't be printed?
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chingdevil

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #557 on: April 06, 2010, 09:18:59 pm »

I actually mentioned that problem in this thread ,http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=23191.0  started by Bryan when he started to get this problem >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-(


Brian
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DARLEK1

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #558 on: April 06, 2010, 09:25:45 pm »

LYNX, sorry guys just doing a bit of testing myself. the difference is I am typing it straight into the posting.
 Paul... :-)
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #559 on: April 06, 2010, 09:31:21 pm »

Yes Brian, you were right. Mysterious things happen when converting text into HTML. No idea why but we do at last have the benefits of Bryan's text!

Personally I wonder if it is some geek working for Apache and having a down on other types of chopper - but who knows.

Colin
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Tug-Kenny RIP

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #560 on: April 06, 2010, 09:37:35 pm »



The L word typed into "word" and then copied and pasted here ----- ****

My machine just crashed

so I've blanked out the word and I'm back again

Just thought I'd join in the fun    ;)

ken
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #561 on: April 06, 2010, 10:11:03 pm »


No, I haven't gone to sleep yet. But as I've never (as far as I can recall.....except once in the Tidsespring episode yonks ago) mentioned the name that shouldn't be written. We shall see. But I really can't see how one little 4 letter word can "xxxxx" up an entire thread. . I shall say thank you to you all tomorrow, if it works! BY.
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MikeK

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #562 on: April 07, 2010, 09:10:48 am »

Wow ! this has turned into something almost (repeat 'almost') as interesting as Bryan's RFA reminiscences. My respect to all you Mayhem sleuths for the time and trouble finding those little Lynxes  :-))

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #563 on: April 07, 2010, 01:16:31 pm »

To all and sundry:-
I'm so pleased that I appear to have put the "mayhem" bit back in the name of the forum where it rightly belongs. I can't in all honestly say that I've actually enjoyed the last few days, but "interesting times" comes to mind. Thanks to all of you who joined in whether in jest or jokingly. Following the replies, as they all get jumbled up, was a verbal jigsaw. But particularly my thanks must go to BarryM and Colin Bishop. Thank you.
Now, let's see if I can continue. Bryan.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #564 on: April 07, 2010, 01:24:33 pm »

Just a mild "starter" to get me back on track...
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #565 on: April 07, 2010, 01:31:12 pm »

Another one that aapplied to both Adelaide and Melbourne:-
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #566 on: April 07, 2010, 01:36:02 pm »


Olwen-10

Just browsing through the letters home that my wife has kept…don’t half jog the little grey cells. I was chuntering on about how much leave I’d be due when I was finally released from this floating version of the “Scrubs”. I’d be due about 7 months. Sound a lot? Well that’s because the refit time counted towards accrued leave…even though it could technically be argued that I was living at home, albeit not on full refit allowances. So my total time on Olwen was going to be about 11 months (maybe a bit more). The RFA (then, at least) didn’t like giving the full amount of “long” leaves.(I think the Civil Service side of things got a tad jealous). The reason I mention this is because I’d recently discovered that the RFA fleet as a whole was owed a total of 63 years! Sounds daft, doesn’t it. And, although “they” say they are recruiting more people, their “drive” didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Just a bit of info I thought I’d share.
Going back to Adelaide for a minute. I said that when “the happy couple” drove off to parts unknown, that was the last we saw of either of them. It apparently was almost not so. Before we left Hobart it was mooted by some fool (take your pick of the available choices) that thingy and maybe her retinue should come as far as Freemantle with us. Oh, Calamity on a grand scale. Three days in a junior engineers cabin without all my “gear” was bad enough…another couple of weeks? Suicide time again. Mind, the though did cross my little mind that there could be a couple of “upsides” to it. The first was that my “bete-noire” would lose out in the accommodation stakes more than me. The second was that the lady in question would spend most of the “run” across the Bight being both horizontal and “somewhat poorly”. Another chance for the wizened wizard to get a knighthood, if he could brew up a potion that worked, that is.
         
      To tell the truth, I’m getting a bit confused now about where all the ships were. It was 22 years ago! (and my memory, although OK isn’t perfect). I do, however, recall that the “Ark” and “Fort Grange” spent most of their anticipated Melbourne visit time cruising up and down outside the port . Most of the Aussies we met felt very ashamed and couldn’t understand why a visit planned months in advance was now being scuppered by the Prime Minister of South Australia. He had decided that his sympathies lay with the unions, and so agreed that these 2 ships were “blacked”. Some of the local newspapers were questioning why the local businessmen had gone along with it. The “New Jersey” alone spent half a million $A on re-provisioning alone. They also missed the Aussie Grand Prix. Tough.

     The short hop across to Adelaide knocked Fergies idea on the head, thank goodness. But the experience didn’t stop her from eventually coming out with her “Little Budgie” books. I ask you.
I described the passage across the Bight in the posts from the “Olmeda” run 2 years previously. No need to repeat it, except to say that this time it was worse. We really got thumped around. Although we left Adelaide on time we had a condenser problem that sent us back in again for a couple of days, so we were that couple of days behind the remnants of the “group”…although we still had “Perth” for company.
In the sort of seas and weather we encountered it’s really hard to say whether being in a big ship or a small ship is better. We could see “Perth” with nearly half her hull out of the water….but from her remarks to us, we were doing nearly the same. Catering for a few days tended towards soup in a mug. (A glass one, not the sort that made up the ships company).

One of the nicest things about many Aussie and Kiwi ports is that the quays are open to the public and not locked away behind steel fences that make people on both sides of the fence feel either “locked in” or “locked out”. I much prefer being on an “open” quay. It also means that “the guys” can find their own girl friends (or whatever fancy they may have) without someone like me having to act as a procurer. Albeit something I got better at as the years went by. But even without these “distractions”, just meeting families with their children who have just come along to look at a ship can pay huge dividends. Some people you instinctively like, and others not so much. On more than one occasion (and not just “down under”) a friendly chat at the gangway lead to invitations to dinner and so on. I must admit that the POs and Ratings were better at this than most of the Deck Officers. Perhaps I learnt from them, but I don’t really think so. I’ve never put much store in rank or class divisions (my mining family type upbringing?) so I could never fully understand a mind-set that stayed aloof. Perhaps that’s a god thing in the RN…but I was never in the RN.

Alas, our stop-over in Freemantle was rather curtailed. We were originally supposed to do a lengthy “pump-over” with the “Leaf”, but as she was 2 days ahead of us through the Bight this wasn’t possible…she had to meet other commitments way to the north and in warmer, calmer climes. It may have cocked-up our Freemantle stay, but it would have been a dangerous nightmare to have done a 7 hour pump-over in the conditions we had during that part of the trip. So we left Freemantle early and went down the coast to a refinery/fuel depot (Kilami ring a bell anywhere?) and filled up.
Pity about Freemantle as I like the place. But having topped up we ploughed on again…northwards. Seas got more bearable, the weather got better and the sun-bathers made an appearance. Next stop Colombo. But first we had our final shoot of the Petrels to do. Messy and noisy, but at least there is plenty of space “down there” without other boats/ships clogging up our selected bit of ocean.

 At least, and at last, we were heading roughly in the right direction. Didn’t seem to make life on board much more pleasurable though. Because of “attitudes” emanating from “he who wanted promotion” it once again became the trip from hell.
Colombo an homewards next.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #567 on: April 07, 2010, 06:38:33 pm »

Olwen-11
For some reason or other that probably escapes me on purpose, it took us 24 days to get from the Freemantle area to Colombo. Perhaps we got lost. It can’t all have been due to us trying to rival N.A.S.A. All the talk seemed to be about getting home and putting “Outback 88” out of mind. To be honest, the actual deployment to this part of the world wasn’t all that much different to “Global 86”. Both deployments had been long and both “Olmeda” and “Olwen” had been worked pretty hard. But there’s a huge difference between working hard on a happy ship and working hard on an unhappy one. Amazing really the difference one person can make to a ships morale, but again, if you’re sycophantic to your “superior”, a pure sod to all “under” and the “superior superior” turns a blind eye, what can you expect. I may have mentioned this before, but being under a boss who’s favourite saying seemed to be “make it so” and expecting it (whatever hair brained idea it was) to actually happen was living in a real Ivory Tower.
Our eventual arrival at Colombo was a killer. For those who have never been there I’ll try to explain. Colombo has a huge harbour. More or less a big bay. Wharfage is not great, so most ships have to go to buoys. The rest of the group had arrived ahead of us (naturally) and had alongside berths…we went to the buoys, one at each end of the ship. Nothing really unusual about that, but normally a single screw ship would expect some tug assistance. I guess they must have been either busy elsewhere or on strike or something. Not joking there, because of great civil unrest the groups visit had again been in doubt. We arrived around 8am and the temperature was already in the high 80s. I was fo’cs’le officer. Due to a wonderful exhibition of incompetent ship-handling it took us over 4 hours to tie up. By then the temp was up in the 90s. But the killer for me was being able to look up at the bridge windows and see other deck officers standing in air-conditioned comfort. Of course, by the time the tying up job was completed I’d missed lunch (bridge team hadn’t). The group had been split into 2 parts, the other was going (hopefully) to Karachi for re-provisioning. Due to various political issues, for some reason the USN got all they needed but the RN/RFA didn’t. Shades of ’86 again. Colombo couldn’t supply all our needs, but in the expectation that they could (as promised ) our pursers hadn’t asked the Grange to get anything for us in Karachi.
During our stay in Colombo the bosun received a copy of the Daily Mail carrying the “story” about the fergie being with us. I don’t know how much the “blabber” was paid, but apparently the “Sun” was offering quite a lot. I wonder how the Sun would have handled the story. Probably a bit more risqué…but who knows.
Almost immediately after taking on the “fresh” stuff like salads and tomatoes etc. most of the ships company seemed to come down with Dehli-Belly (me too) and there was no chance of getting any more from here, even if we wanted to.
So it looked as if we were going to be on some sort of rationing until we got to the Suez Canal. Charming.
Although we were only there for a long weekend (4 days) I was “tasked” by HWMBO to go ashore and buy a photograph album suitable for presentation to Royalty. The codicil to the fergie thingy. Actually, I quite relished this even though it was one of the “make it so” instructions. Ever been to Colombo (as a tourist, not as a working matelot)? Unless it’s changed drastically since 1988 (and I bet it hasn’t), then don’t. The poverty was certainly on a par with Bombay (last seen in 1964!). I hadn’t a clue where to start looking for this grail, so I went to the local Hilton hotel and had a beer. The hotel staff were both intrigued by my quest and considered it to be a challenge. After about an hour I was told that a “car” had been ordered for me (I’d been given a wad of ships cash to assist me in this venture) to take me to a “place”. I guess I should have known that the “car” would be a “tuk-tuk”  (motorised rickshaw) and not the Morris Oxford I’d been anticipating. An interesting drive. But really, the guy doing the driving had been well briefed and about a year later we arrived at this store front in a back alley. Store front? OK, it had a door, and that was it. The driver insisted that he came in with me. Nice of him. This place was in no way a “shop”. But things are done differently in foreign parts. I managed to explain exactly what I wanted. Haven’t really told you that yet, have I, (and this was my own idea…not “his”). I wanted a fairly large photo-album with plastic insert sleeves clad in good dark green leather with gold piping and an inscription in gold that I won’t bore you with….but I was doing it officially, so it had to be “right”. “OK, come back in two hours”. Wow. Back to the Hilton, had lunch and a couple of beers (thank you HMG), and return. What a beautiful object awaited me! And cheap as chips. (about £10), although the whole escapade had cost somewhere nearer £50….but you don’t get receipts in Colombo. As expected, after a rather unusual and interesting day, when I got back to the ship, gave the “thing” to Capt Speaking and never again heard a word about it. Not that I thought for a moment that I’d get as much as a “thank you”, but it would have been “nice” (not his style, alas). But the Album WAS fit for royalty. Perhaps that’s why he got his CBE.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #568 on: April 07, 2010, 06:43:18 pm »

The food shortage
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MikeK

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #569 on: April 08, 2010, 08:06:52 am »

I wonder if your esteemed 'make it so person' had an offspring, as one of my more forgettable couple of hours was spent at the Colombo anchorage chasing a couple of pirate speedboats around in circles (they were deliberately playing with us) in the middle of the night in a full size ship, albeit a tiddler. This after his nibs (another m.i.s disciple ) having been informed by myself when he joined that the practise was to proceed to sea overnight to avoid just such incidents. Mistake on my part as any advice was taken as an affront and something totally the opposite was usually the reaction. Once this behavior was reluctantly accepted (no choice in the matter !) it could be used to advantage by suggesting one thing so he would go for the other that you wanted in the first place !
Needless to say we didn't catch the baddies and more by luck we didn't run aground twirling around just off the beach ! The pirates didn't exactly make a killing either as the container they broke into had wet hides inside and anyone who has carried that cargo will know what sweet scented things they are !  :o

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #570 on: April 09, 2010, 02:46:47 pm »

Mike, I've only been on one ship that carried "wet hides", and that was my first one (Bardic) in 1956. Even now, just your mention of the things reminded me in full 3 dimensional stink what they were like. So please, in future, refrain.....otherwise I'll remind you of Copra Beetles!. Bryan.
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MikeK

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #571 on: April 09, 2010, 03:09:56 pm »

Ok, ok I give in Bryan it's a deal ! My lips are sealed..........................but they did whiff a bit didn't they   %) :}

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #572 on: April 09, 2010, 06:35:58 pm »

Olwen-11
For some reason or other that probably escapes me on purpose, it took us 24 days to get from the Freemantle area to Colombo. Perhaps we got lost. It can’t all have been due to us trying to rival N.A.S.A. All the talk seemed to be about getting home and putting “Outback 88” out of mind. To be honest, the actual deployment to this part of the world wasn’t all that much different to “Global 86”. Both deployments had been long and both “Olmeda” and “Olwen” had been worked pretty hard. But there’s a huge difference between working hard on a happy ship and working hard on an unhappy one. Amazing really the difference two people can make to a ships morale, but again, if you’re sycophantic to your “superior”, a pure sod to all “under” and the “superior superior” turns a blind eye, what can you expect. I may have mentioned this before, but being under a boss who’s favourite saying seemed to be “make it so” and expecting it (whatever hair brained idea it was) to actually happen was living in a real Ivory Tower.
Our eventual arrival at Colombo was a killer. For those who have never been there I’ll try to explain. Colombo has a huge harbour. More or less a big bay. Wharfage is not great, so most ships have to go to buoys. The rest of the group had arrived ahead of us (naturally) and had alongside berths…we went to the buoys, one at each end of the ship. Nothing really unusual about that, but normally a single screw ship would expect some tug assistance. I guess they must have been either busy elsewhere or on strike or something. Not joking there, because of great civil unrest the groups visit had again been in doubt. We arrived around 8am and the temperature was already in the high 80s. I was fo’cs’le officer. Due to a wonderful exhibition of incompetent ship-handling it took us over 4 hours to tie up. By then the temp was up in the 90s. But the killer for me was being able to look up at the bridge windows and see other deck officers standing in air-conditioned comfort. Of course, by the time the tying up job was completed I’d missed lunch (bridge team hadn’t). The group had been split into 2 parts, the other was going (hopefully) to Karachi for re-provisioning. Due to various political issues, for some reason the USN got all they needed but the RN/RFA didn’t. Shades of ’86 again. Colombo couldn’t supply all our needs, but in the expectation that they could (as promised ) our pursers hadn’t asked the Grange to get anything for us in Karachi.
During our stay in Colombo the bosun received a copy of the Daily Mail carrying the “story” about the fergie being with us. I don’t know how much the “blabber” was paid, but apparently the “Sun” was offering quite a lot. I wonder how the Sun would have handled the story. Probably a bit more risqué…but who knows.
Almost immediately after taking on the “fresh” stuff like salads and tomatoes etc. most of the ships company seemed to come down with Dehli-Belly (me too) and there was no chance of getting any more from here, even if we wanted to.
So it looked as if we were going to be on some sort of rationing until we got to the Suez Canal. Charming.
Although we were only there for a long weekend (4 days) I was “tasked” by HWMBO to go ashore and buy a photograph album suitable for presentation to Royalty. The codicil to the fergie thingy. Actually, I quite relished this even though it was one of the “make it so” instructions. Ever been to Colombo (as a tourist, not as a working matelot)? Unless it’s changed drastically since 1988 (and I bet it hasn’t), then don’t. The poverty was certainly on a par with Bombay (last seen in 1964!). I hadn’t a clue where to start looking for this grail, so I went to the local Hilton hotel and had a beer. The hotel staff were both intrigued by my quest and considered it to be a challenge. After about an hour I was told that a “car” had been ordered for me (I’d been given a wad of ships cash to assist me in this venture) to take me to a “place”. I guess I should have known that the “car” would be a “tuk-tuk”  (motorised rickshaw) and not the Morris Oxford I’d been anticipating. An interesting drive. But really, the guy doing the driving had been well briefed and about a year later we arrived at this store front in a back alley. Store front? OK, it had a door, and that was it. The driver insisted that he came in with me. Nice of him. This place was in no way a “shop”. But things are done differently in foreign parts. I managed to explain exactly what I wanted. Haven’t really told you that yet, have I, (and this was my own idea…not “his”). I wanted a fairly large photo-album with plastic insert sleeves clad in good dark green leather with gold piping and an inscription in gold that I won’t bore you with….but I was doing it officially, so it had to be “right”. “OK, come back in two hours”. Wow. Back to the Hilton, had lunch and a couple of beers (thank you HMG), and return. What a beautiful object awaited me! And cheap as chips. (about £10), although the whole escapade had cost somewhere nearer £50….but you don’t get receipts in Colombo. As expected, after a rather unusual and interesting day, I got back to the ship, gave the “thing” to Capt Speaking and never again heard a word about it. Not that I thought for a moment that I’d get as much as a “thank you”, but it would have been “nice” (not his style, alas). But the Album WAS fit for royalty. Perhaps that’s why he got his CBE.

I mentioned that the rocketeers left us from here. Obviously they couldn’t take all their gear with them. I don’t mean the launch tubes, they stayed (dismantled) in the hangar. When they originally loaded their “stuff”, they had 2 x 20’ containers stowed on what was originally the aircraft “parking deck” before the hangar was extended….so depriving the ships company the use of the “swimming” pool. They were still there. Bear with me, the plot will thicken. I guess it must have been during our visit to Sydney that Capt. Speaking agreed to take on board £4000 of “good” Aussie wine (remember that this is in 1988 and the £ is not what it used to be) as a favour to a new RN “chum” he’d met somewhere. I haven’t a clue where this was stowed, but I suspect it was in one of the Pursers rapidly emptying spaces. When the rocket guys finally departed all this “plonk” was transferred to one of the now “empty” containers. Both of the containers were of the “can be kept cold” variety. Understandably so, seeing what they had been originally carrying. See where this is going? When the rocket men departed they’d left instructions with our Ch.Engineer that the containers had to be maintained at a specific temperature (cold) to protect the electronics and such. Although I was the OIC for all things pertaining to the Flight Deck (including all the explosive gizmos we stowed up there) I was refused a key to either of the containers…only Capt. “S” and his sycophant had access.This also applied to the Engineering staff, who were told that their only task was to monitor the temps inside the containers and ensure that the power supply was up and running.

For another reason that escapes me now, it was going to take us 17 days to reach the Suez Canal . There must have been another air battle with the Saudis or something.
But about half way up the Red Sea the 3/E who kept an eye on the container temps came to me and said that one of them was leaking some “red stuff”. Interesting. The C/E and I went to Capt “S” to report…..and were fascinated to observe a verbal “wall of death” take place. A key was thrown (literally) at me with orders to “investigate”. You must realise that the C/E was NOT officially called “Chief”, but Captain(E), a four ringer with equal status as Captain(X) (the deck one). But Capt(E) and I had always got along, both of us fed up, and so with private chuckles went to “investigate”. The sight was “intriguing” when we opened the container door. It actually looked like a bloodbath. Except it was very expensive Aussie wine.
The idiot who had supervised the stowage of this “cellar” had had the cases piled up against the containers cooling coils, and the inevitable had happened. The wine had frozen, the bottles had burst and frozen wine lollypops were everywhere. I think both of us laughed, but not for long. When I turned around to face the door again I saw a “live” rocket still in its harness. A bit of “shock”..but no awe. It didn’t take a genius to realise why the rocket men had left instructions with the C/E. But nor did they know that some bright spark would decide that a “cool” place would be good for £4000 of wine. Obviously if me or the C/E (or both of us) had had a key then this wouldn’t have happened. But the rocket guys didn’t want us to know that they’d deliberately left a “shootable” item behind. Hence the key business I suppose. I recalled from some chats with these boffins that they were also interested in studying the effects of vibration on the rocket propellant….so they left one. Securely locked up. Or so they thought. First I was blamed. Then the C/E and his staff. None of that worked. And (I think) that because all of this had been done, shall we say, quietly, nothing more was heard. But although the sycophant was in his first appointment it was only about 3 years before his dream of command became true.
You read it here first, folks!
Of course, this is all fiction, and no resemblance to anyone living or dead or still serving is purely coincidental.
The final chapter of this sorry voyage will appear soon. Promise! BY
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Notes from a simple seaman

Bryan Young

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #573 on: April 09, 2010, 06:43:06 pm »

This could go in later, but it still applies.
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Notes from a simple seaman

Colin Bishop

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Re: Nautical "Strange but True!"
« Reply #574 on: April 09, 2010, 07:35:43 pm »

Incredible Bryan!

Colin
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