# Doing what you're actually paid for



## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

During 1950/53 I was R/O on the Cape Hawke. The run was Glasgow to Liverpool then Curacao for bunkers, Panama Canal, San Pedro, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver carrying Booze in wooden cases of 12 bottles to the case. It was a very happy ship. 

Port Alberni for a cargo of paper and wood and then the reverse run of ports to the home port of Glasgow.

The wireless room (Ocean Span/CR300) was on the rear end of the bridge and I had a spacious and comfortable cabin next door to the wireless room.

On one return trip we were half way back to San Francisco when I as wakend by a very loud noise and a thump. Jumped out of bed and found that a vessel had rammed us on the startboard side of the bow. It was the "William Luchenbach".

Efforts to contact her by radio, speaker horn or flags (Me doing my boy scout flag semaphore) of no avail, there was no speaking contact. 

Without prior warning she suddenly went astern backing off from our bow and leaving the hole totally unplugged. She appeared to have no visible damage and left us heading north.

We were taking a great deal of water and the crew were rigging a makeshift patch. I was given our position by the master and told to send a distress signal, he also gave me a message to the owners and asked me to try to get it off before the SOS. 

It was about 4am and a non watch period so I sent the auto alarm signal then whipped up to find Portishead radio on 8mc/s, sent the message then returned to 500khz and send the the distress message. It was acknowledged by KPS (Bolinas Radio) and several distant ships. 

In due course the local watchkeeping time arrived and it became very obvious who HAD NOT HAD THEIR AUTO ALARM UNIT ON. I entered them all in the log.

The usual bedlam occurred,"Blah Blah" "QRT distress" "Where distress??" and so on. I turned on the 50 watt emergency spark unit, screwed the key down and went into the chart room and got a cup of tea. When I came back I unscrewed the key, all was quiet, I then resent the distress details and asked KPH to take over, he replied with a laconic, "Your doing great keep it".

We made it to Bethlehem Steel dry dock in San Francisco and when the water had been drained out, our bow fell off. The people of San Francisco made us very welcome and most of the crew were offered (Illegal) part time jobs. I did the odd watch at KPH when someone theoretically wanted an afternoon off. All very illegal, but being "nice" appeared to take precedent.

I have always wanted to read the official report but have never been able to get a copy.

So there you have it, what happens when you have to do what you are actually being paid for...............Ahhh - the smell of the ozone from that spark transmitter, 

I can still remember it.
de chas


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

A scary time, Chas, and all's well that ends well, but it does seem odd that the Captain gave you a message to send to the owners prior to sending the distress message - "distress" was supposed to be the number one priority.

John T.


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

.... and odder still that you cleared traffic with Portishead before sending the distress message. Did Portishead not ask if they could send details of your predicament to Lloyds? That was quite a common occurrence when sending any traffic content that indicated the vessels' insurance status might be affected.

Steve. (Thumb)


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## Larry Bennett (Aug 28, 2005)

Too right. If we received any telegram which indicated the possibility of a distress situation (shifting cargo, taking water etc.) we had a standard reply entitled "May We Report Lloyds" which formally requested the Master to authorise us to send a copy of the telegram to Lloyds. In addition, all of these requests were held in a logbook in the Duty Overseer's office which gave details of date/time/nature of incident and also if the Master gave authority or not.

Keeping a record covered ourselves in case of possible investigations and claims. I am sure the actual logbook is now held in the BT Archives in London.

Larry +


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

*comments*



trotterdotpom said:


> A scary time, Chas, and all's well that ends well, but it does seem odd that the Captain gave you a message to send to the owners prior to sending the distress message - "distress" was supposed to be the number one priority.
> 
> John T.


The instructions were not to SEND IT FIRST but IF POSSIBLE GET IT OFF FIRST which I did. I saw nothing odd about letting the owners know the situation and there were no queries from Portishead Radio.
Dont remember the actual text but it was probably "bland" on a read between the lines basis.
Long time ago.
Find it interesting that there are no comments on my logging of those who didnt have the auto alarm on...

chas


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

I'd be very surprised if most ships did not have their auto alarm on. It's so ingrained in R/O's (or should be) that after each watch to test and set the auto alarm and at the beginning of a watch to confirm its still satisfactory.

After hearing lurid tales about battery lockers I'm beginning to wonder about other things that were disregarded. Chas I still feel sure that 99.9% of R/O's were totally dedicated and took their responsibilities seriously but there is always a bad apple in any profession.


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

charles henry said:


> *The instructions were not to SEND IT FIRST but IF POSSIBLE GET IT OFF FIRST *which I did. I saw nothing odd about letting the owners know the situation and there were no queries from Portishead Radio.
> Dont remember the actual text but it was probably "bland" on a read between the lines basis.
> Long time ago.
> Find it interesting that there are no comments on my logging of those who didnt have the auto alarm on...
> ...


Hi all, 
I am sure that Chas knows the priority of communications and requires no instruction from us. However, it is up to the Master to determine the severity of the ships prediciment and as he is in charge of the radio department, the r/o will follow the instructions given.
The master would be well aware that once an SOS is sent, the R/O would probably be embroiled continuously of 500kHz and would have little chance for H.F. communications home to the owners.
Sounds to me the Master made the judgement that if H.F. comms were good and the message could be got away quickly, then the r/o was to do so followed by the SOS. I'm sure that if H.F. conditions were poor, Chas would have got straight on with the SOS.
Also remember the definition of "Grave & Imminent Danger" covers a range of possible scenarios. The situation was obviously considered worse that an "Urgency" but, in the Masters mind, the vessel, whilst in serious difficulties, was not going to founder in the next few minutes. This would have determined the nature of the intructions he gave the r/o. 

Best Wishes

Alan


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

M29 said:


> Hi all,
> The situation was obviously considered worse that an "Urgency" but, in the Masters mind, the vessel, whilst in serious difficulties, was not going to founder in the next few minutes. This would have determined the nature of the intructions he gave the r/o.
> 
> Best Wishes
> ...


Very well put and the bottom line was - it was his decision to make
de chas


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

mikeg said:


> I'd be very surprised if most ships did not have their auto alarm on. It's so ingrained in R/O's (or should be) that after each watch to test and set the auto alarm and at the beginning of a watch to confirm its still satisfactory.
> 
> After hearing lurid tales about battery lockers I'm beginning to wonder about other things that were disregarded. Chas I still feel sure that 99.9% of R/O's were totally dedicated and took their responsibilities seriously but there is always a bad apple in any profession.


The problem was that if there was strong "static" one could get a lot of false alarms. After being rousted out of bed a couple of time (And hearing others cursing the alarm bell) there was often a pretty strong case for leaving it off as it simply was not performing properly.
de chas


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## Rhodri Mawr (Jul 6, 2008)

charles henry said:


> The problem was that if there was strong "static" one could get a lot of false alarms. After being rousted out of bed a couple of time (And hearing others cursing the alarm bell) there was often a pretty strong case for leaving it off as it simply was not performing properly.
> de chas


Charles - if your SOS was picked up by the old KFS, surely the static in that area should not have been too bad. At least, no real reason to switch off the auto alarm. The way to have dealt with the miscreants would have been to have made an extract of your radio logbook (I think it was called a "proces verbal" but my mind tends to play funny tricks these days ) and to submit it to the UK authority at the time. Especially, if there had been any UK flagged vessels around and ignoring your SOS, the logbooks from these ships could have been called for and scrutinised for any lapse in the statutory watchkeeping requirements. But, all's well that ends well, at least you are still with us to tell the tale. But it could have been so much worse to leave a holed ship unplugged after a collision.

Best wishes
Rhodri


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

Rhodri Mawr said:


> Charles - if your SOS was picked up by the old KFS, surely the static in that area should not have been too bad.
> You are absolutely correct, there was no static in that area. However I have always tended to try to see the other side of the coin. However logging those that came on watch later, presumably did the trick although I rather doubt if the PMG authorities ever really looked at all those logs
> chas


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Did you all know that (in Australia at least) the radio logs we faithfully filled out and dutifully sent off were eventually BURNT by the bureaucrats.....makes me almost sick to think of it...the bastards.


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

Worked a ship one night a GKA where they had the lifeboats slung out. I got one of my colleagues to phone the owners while I kept the ship standing by. I cannot remember now the outcome but he hadn't sent a distress. We also one evening had a phone call from an amateur who had heard a distress. The supervisor monitored the frequency and sure enough it was a Spanish trawler on fire and sinking. A few weeks later I saw the ham operator getting an award from the Spanish govt. He must have been the only person to have heard it. regards Graham Powell


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Without going into gory details: Having once refused to give GKA the requisite permission as described by Larry on the basis that a) not every non-UK-flag ship is insured through Lloyds and b) the owners should in any case be the ones to release any pertinent information, I subsequently made it a practice to always use a different HF station in such cir***stances (I think, twice or three times) and then the question didn't arise.


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

Graham P Powell said:


> A few weeks later I saw the ham operator getting an award from the Spanish govt. He must have been the only person to have heard it. regards Graham Powell


His name wasn't Tony Hancock by any chance(LOL)???

Best Wishes

Alan


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