# MSGs to ship chandlers



## de paor (Apr 14, 2008)

anyone remember the long long QTCs when you had to send the list of stores


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Like these two? [=P]

Cheapo Texaco ones sent as SLTs


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## de paor (Apr 14, 2008)

were you not delighted when the skipper came to the shack just as you finished your watch and a film was beggining.


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## Trevorw (Jun 5, 2006)

When I was in Blue Funnel and bound for Shanghai or Tsingtao we usedto get messages from XSG or XST. The average length was 500+ words, listing in great detail the cargo we would be loading there. It gave it in Space tons and Deadweight tons. The biggest commodity was always tinned eggs for Joe Lyons!!!


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## de paor (Apr 14, 2008)

Marconi Sahib said:


> Like these two? [=P]
> 
> Cheapo Texaco ones sent as SLTs


this really brings back memories. Wheather MSGs or SLTs they were something to remember especially when you were in a hurry


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## de paor (Apr 14, 2008)

Marconi Sahib said:


> Like these two? [=P]
> 
> Cheapo Texaco ones sent as SLTs


IVe just read those lists and they were not PC as far as todays standards as the crew must have been smoking themselves to death


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Who ate the sweetbreads ? in butchers parlance they are testicles ! Popular with Victorian Gentlemen who considered they gave a man vigour ! Euphemistically known as "Prarie Oysters"!!


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

de paor said:


> were you not delighted when the skipper came to the shack just as you finished your watch and a film was beggining.


Yep - the message form would go in the pending tray ready for sending next watch. [=P] 

I fondly remember those stores lists - it was the first time I had ever come across 'bell peppers' 'capsi***s' 'egg plant' etc.

(Thumb)


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

That stores order looks like pretty good feeding to me, Kris. Maybe Texaxo used SLTs because they were preparing for "Peak Oil" which none of us had heard of in those halcyon days.

Gareth, Prairie Oysters are indeed a load of b*ll**ks, but "sweetbreads" are actually the pancreas or the thymus glands of lambs or calves. 

To paraphrase the late great Dick Emery: "They are "offal" but I like them!"

John T.


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## Tai Pan (Mar 24, 2006)

Trevorw said:


> When I was in Blue Funnel and bound for Shanghai or Tsingtao we usedto get messages from XSG or XST. The average length was 500+ words, listing in great detail the cargo we would be loading there. It gave it in Space tons and Deadweight tons. The biggest commodity was always tinned eggs for Joe Lyons!!!



Remember in Shanghai, when nicly pi**** trying to work out the hight of the egg sheel mountain.


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

trotterdotpom said:


> That stores order looks like pretty good feeding to me, Kris. Maybe Texaxo used SLTs because they were preparing for "Peak Oil" which none of us had heard of in those halcyon days.
> 
> Gareth, Prairie Oysters are indeed a load of b*ll**ks, but "sweetbreads" are actually the pancreas or the thymus glands of lambs or calves.
> 
> ...


 trotterdotpm you are quite right - a quick glance at google shows me so - like many others I laboured under the misaprehension ! 
Interesting to note that prarie oysters are still eaten in parts of the USA at calf castration time ! they look like chicken nuggets apparently ! but I don't think I would be too interested to try them !


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Although the 500 worders were a pain in the neck (or the wrist), I observed that when I first sailed with HF texlex, in 1979, the messages suddenly grew to about 1,000 words. At that time, I was sending about 30 telexes per two month trip. After a few years (I spent 11 years in the same ship!), the telexes absolutely soared & the general idea seemed to me to be "why send a couple of hundred words when a couple of thousand would do just as well?)

Then, the ship was sold & we all transferred to the new one that had Fax as well. The messages escalated. I became increasingly aware that the content of most of them was entirely unnecessary & a simple letter from the next port would have achieved the same result. As the age of the R/O moved inexorably on towards its end, the traffic grew even heavier. During this time, a number of juniot officers were forever telling me "my days were numbered!" I "jumped" before I was "pushed" in late 1992. After the demise of R/Os, my wife & I visited the ship & found that the loss of the R/0 was putting a great strain on the remaining officers who had to share out the tasks that we had performed. I must admit, I didn't have a great deal of sympathy. I especially hated the "going off watch telexes." Because of the high traffic, I usually worked from 0800 to 1300 rather than finishing at 1200. Even so, it was quite normal as I was coming off that someone would come along with another "sheaf of rubbish" to be sent. 


Amazing. Aboard the WINDSOR CASTLE with 850 passengers & 400 crew, they used to have a Captain's conference to decide whether to send a 10 word msg! The long passenger bookings & stores lists were sent to the next ship on the route to pass "under the table" free of charge to the agent in the next port!

Changed days.

Bob


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## G4UMW (May 30, 2007)

The greatest compliment I ever received was from GKA after sending a long stores request MSG from the OBO Norvegia Team/GREZ (Denholms). It went; "Nice sending OM, that'll rattle the office at coffee time."

I was floating several feet above the deck for quite a while afterwards!


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

*Long Messages*

When the 'Regent Pembroke' left on her maiden voyage to the Gulf we had so many problems with essential systems that we carried a whole team of engineers and technicians from the various equipment suppliers. Of course these people had to send the results of their daily activities and findings to their employers and sometimes, also (in edited form) to the builders or the shipowners. Messages in excess of 600 words were commonplace but what, over and above their length, made them worse was the content. Loads of technical terms and abbreviations plus all manner of part numbers and reference codes. Then of course there were all the replies and suggestions arriving from their employers ashore.

In amongst this there were all the interruptions from blackouts (the generators were using SCR excitation technology, which was in its infancy at sea) and other breakdowns resulting from the transfer of power station solid state control of the boilers and turbine over to the marine environment. No air-con engine control rooms on board the 'Pembroke' so the printed boards stuffed with transistors were unhappy with the heat and humidity and the vibration was greater than I ever experienced on any motor ship, let alone a steam tubine vessel. Boards fell out of sockets, cables unplugged themselves and everything in the engine room was steadily shaking to pieces. That included the deckhead in the engineers' changing/locker room, which fell down in one piece and landed on the central table. Since it completely filled the room, at a level about 3 feet from the deck, the inward-opening doors into the room could not be opened.

Thank goodness the Marconi gear worked without problems because I was already doing 16-hour days clearing Morse traffic to and from the vessel. Then there were the HF R/T calls which had to be booked, on Morse, via Portishead 24 hours in advance. Any more work and I would have gone under.
That went on for about the first 5 or 6 months. So much for my idea of taking a brand new ship to sea and having a cushy time because all the radio and radar gear would be brand new and so I would have nothing to do!


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## Robinj (Jul 20, 2005)

Never sent a list of stores, but when on the Frenulina (shell) after visiting Balikpapan (Borneo Indonesian bit) we had to send how much capacity the refinery was holding. Something to do with politics way back in the early 1960's. Had to stop every so often to make sure Portishead (and I) had got it right.


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## IanSpiden (Jul 18, 2008)

Shipbuilder said:


> Although the 500 worders were a pain in the neck (or the wrist), I observed that when I first sailed with HF texlex, in 1979, the messages suddenly grew to about 1,000 words. At that time, I was sending about 30 telexes per two month trip. After a few years (I spent 11 years in the same ship!), the telexes absolutely soared & the general idea seemed to me to be "why send a couple of hundred words when a couple of thousand would do just as well?)
> 
> Then, the ship was sold & we all transferred to the new one that had Fax as well. The messages escalated. I became increasingly aware that the content of most of them was entirely unnecessary & a simple letter from the next port would have achieved the same result. As the age of the R/O moved inexorably on towards its end, the traffic grew even heavier. During this time, a number of juniot officers were forever telling me "my days were numbered!" I "jumped" before I was "pushed" in late 1992. After the demise of R/Os, my wife & I visited the ship & found that the loss of the R/0 was putting a great strain on the remaining officers who had to share out the tasks that we had performed. I must admit, I didn't have a great deal of sympathy. I especially hated the "going off watch telexes." Because of the high traffic, I usually worked from 0800 to 1300 rather than finishing at 1200. Even so, it was quite normal as I was coming off that someone would come along with another "sheaf of rubbish" to be sent.
> 
> ...


never a truer word said Bob , I sailed initially in Canberra and Oriana where we had 8 R/Os and very little of the traffic was " ships business" the majority was all pax , then towards the late 70's early 80's I used Telex on Gas ships where it seems a lot more needed to be said however I just finished 10 years on modern cruise ships as a comms\IT officer , it beggars belief how much traffic the ship generates with a 24 hour C band satellite communications service, they still manage to foul up though , I did a cruise across the pacific from chile to NZ stopping at various places like Easter island, Bora Bora and the like , the only C band satel;ite two days out from Chile ison the other side of the Pacific and guess what , the satellite dish looks straight through the mast so there is no signal, the captain had to do a zig zag twice a day to get the system locked up so we could dump all this stuff 99% of which was nonsense and replies to nonsense , we had sat A and B of course but they would not spend the money on those rates 

Ian


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