# Strange situations



## Ken Wood (Sep 6, 2006)

Paid off my first ship, as deck app in the Gulf in1966 to wait for a home bound ship. I finally joined a ship bound for the UK with a full cargo of white oil. However, due to the imminent sea men's strike we were diverted all over the place to discharge the cargo before arriving in the UK.
The final discharge port was Rotterdam, and we headed for Jarrow to drydock. We ran into fog, and by this time stores were low. We had 1 spare valve left for the radar, and were under orders not to use it until we were approaching Jarrow. Running through fishing fleets, sand banks and the new dangled gas platforms was a nightmare, but we made it, with no thanks from the Old Man who was retiring. Where was HSE then! Good ship though.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

I heard of those Old Men banning the use of the radar because "it won't work when we get to the fog" but banning it when you're actually in fog sounds particularly dumb. 

I wish I'd had the foresight to chuck a couple of valves into my case before I joined a ship. Would have been handy if we ran out.

John T


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## John Briggs (Feb 12, 2006)

Not radar but when I was 2nd mate I had a similar situation with one "strange" old man.
We ran into a quite heavy fog and I rang down slow ahead and called the old man.
He came up on the bridge and bollocked me and said I was not to reduce speed.
He then left the bridge and I rang down slow ahead again.
He was back on the bridge like a rocket and we had words 
I told him if he wanted to take over the watch and stay on the bridge then I would of course follow all his instructions.
If however, he handed the watch over to me and left the bridge I would again reduce to slow ahead. (By the way, we had no radar).
He stayed on the bridge until the fog lifted. Needless to say I didn't get the best of reports from him.


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## Donald McGhee (Apr 5, 2005)

John Briggs said:


> Not radar but when I was 2nd mate I had a similar situation with one "strange" old man.
> We ran into a quite heavy fog and I rang down slow ahead and called the old man.
> He came up on the bridge and bollocked me and said I was not to reduce speed.
> He then left the bridge and I rang down slow ahead again.
> ...


Shades of the Titanic here, except it was ice, not fog, the old man then didn't want to reduce speed either and look what happened!!!


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## Ken Wood (Sep 6, 2006)

Another ship, another skipper. This one would appear on the bridge out of the blue demanding to know why the radar wasn't on. Then he would take me to the bridge wing and point to a rain shower 3 or 4 miles astern and shout "reduced visibility - p,ut the ****ing radar on!"


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## Cutsplice (May 23, 2008)

There was some very weird ideas about radar some years ago with Old Men, I joined a vessel once as 2nd mate where the radar was encassed in a wooden box with a lock on it.
Apparently when the radar was fitted the old man got the chippy to box it in and fit a lock,with him and the mate holding the keys. His theory was that others would be too busy playing with the radar and neglect to keep a good lookout, basically in my opinion he just did not understand anything about radars and could not accept it had any useful purpose.


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## jaydeeare (Feb 5, 2008)

Interesting Thread regarding the use (or none use) of radars.

If my memory serves me right, at College we were warned of the dangers of misreading the radar returns, and then something about 'radar assisted collisions'.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Ken Wood said:


> Another ship, another skipper. This one would appear on the bridge out of the blue demanding to know why the radar wasn't on. Then he would take me to the bridge wing and point to a rain shower 3 or 4 miles astern and shout "reduced visibility - p,ut the ****ing radar on!"


God knows what he would have done if you'd chucked his aspidistra over the wall!

John T


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

I sailed many voyages radarless and its advent often caused problems. Radar assisted collisions was a term often heard and some strange practices existed in various ships.
One, I recall, occurred in Soviet ships I piloted and that was to return to the radar and find it had been switched OFF! A complete mystery why this should happen but I did gather that it was thought that radar caused too high radiation levels-can you believe that!!


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

John Briggs said:


> Not radar but when I was 2nd mate I had a similar situation with one "strange" old man.
> We ran into a quite heavy fog and I rang down slow ahead and called the old man.
> He came up on the bridge and bollocked me and said I was not to reduce speed.
> He then left the bridge and I rang down slow ahead again.
> ...


Sounds like the (Chief Officer) that ran down my uncles ship and killed him (while at the wheel) and several of his shipmates,running full ahead in heavy FOG.


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