MBP&O2/O

Our distress call was picked up by the USCG at Guam and the Japaneses Maritime Safety Command. Who took overall command I do not know ... we were somewhat incommunicado 😏 but we were 'overflown' by aircraft from both agencies as they monitored our situation. That aspect seems not to have been mentioned in the internal enquiry ... which was as far as any enquiry went, and another of that was not for public consumption😉 Our initial 'rescue ship' ... a WW2 T2 tanker named Fort Fetterman updated the authorities accordingly.

Freeborn, Bahamas. Alongside in 8 fathoms and we could see marine life on the sea bed

I wish we had that process when I was OOW. I did it once, as 2/O and it was not appreciated! It sort of puts you off being a responsible officer. In the latter stages however, as Masters became younger and more forward looking things started to change, especially with regard to lifeboat drills.

No complaints from me on that score !

Our 'abandonment' clearly shows all (remaining) staff left the ship, only to return the following morning to further assess the situation. The Master was, I am told, the last off.

When I came ashore I got heavily involved in Contingency and Emergency Planning, especially with the Emergency Services. We always tried to make our training as realistic and interesting as possible. We used sneaky tactics such as concealing a heater in the 'control room' and cranking up the heat ..... quiet rumbling explosion type noises over the PA ... turn up the bass and creating a vibration. In the debriefs the 'controllers' said it was frightening but they felt it was worthwhile and better than sitting bored in a lecture theatre. For those that were 'disinterested' we often played a tape of an Emergency call of a distressed person who was drowning, and subsequently died. It usually grabbed their attention. I managed a trip to London to visit the temporary mortuary set up after the London bombings. That was heartbreaking but the information that was passed on to trainees was another attention grabber. Sometimes of course it was the old horse to water syndrome.

A few months ago I contacted SS UK to ask for help with an IT issue. They had fiddled with something and merged two "my silversea" accounts and in essence I could not check details of our recently booked cruise. Entirely their fault. The helpful reply from my PCC was that SS would not assist me as I had used a travel agent and it was up to them to contact SS? Said PCC is now aware that I will not deal with her again!

I was on a ship that sank due, in the main, to a flooded engine room. The engine room alarm sounded at 1115 .... no other alarms were sounded at that time. I went to the bridge at 1150 with a view to recalculating my 'noon' sights as we had stopped. The captain was on the bridge and when he saw me he told me to get a Dead Reckoning position and give it to the Radio Officer as we were sinking. Thirty five minutes from the initial alarm to knowing the ship was effectively lost! By 1230 we had lost all power. We were a 'dead ship'. Our plan of action was to muster all crew members to a place of safety, and literally play it by ear. We were well of the beaten track and had to wait for help and hope that we kept afloat until the help arrived. The next day, the assistance arrived and an attempt was made to transfer all non essential crew and officers wives to the ship which had come to assist. Having completed this, the lifeboat was to return to the ship and be used again, if necessary, to evacuate the remainder of the crew who would stay on board whilst awaiting a salvage tug to arrive. The big fly in the ointment was that we only had that one lifeboat as the three others had been wrecked - on the davits - due to the appalling weather conditions, and those weather conditions caused the lifeboat to flounder and fill with water, and it could not return to the Mother Ship 🙂 in fact it never reached the rescue ship so we were sat in a flooded boat for a considerable amount of time. The point is that the safety and preservation of life was paramount and all efforts were made to ensure this happened. All decisions are made with the information available at that time. Nothing is constant and each ship will have different circumstances to contend with. The master, I am told, was last off the ship.

I am trying to transfer all my own logs from my time at sea. It is a nightmare🙂 I am using Excel, with separate sheets for Ship and Crew details. Trip dates with sea time. Port to Port details with distances. Total count of all ports and how many times each has been visited. Total distance travelled. So far I am up to 200 + visited ports, over 100 different ones, with Aden as the most visited surprisingly? I am finding ports i never remembered visiting😄 Longest trip 322 days. Plenty more to go at ...

Got it in one! My Nikons are almost 50 years old and we're purchased from a Nikon shop in Kobe. They cost me an arm and a leg but worth every penny.

When at sea,, the supplied bridge binoculars were like looking through a beer glass😄 Most watchkeeping officers bought there own and set them up accordingly. There was an unwritten rule that no one would use them. I bought a pair of Nikon 7x50 which was the best for what we needed them for. That was longer ago than I care to remember but they are still going strong. Quality binoculars. I also have a small pair of 10 x 40 but they are not in the same league. My sextant used a Tamaya 7 x 50 monocular which was excellent for working with stars, but not much use for general purpose use.

You live in Manchester so you can fly from there to Rome for a reasonable amount of money. Spend several days in Rome. Then take the train to Florence. That gives you time to see both cities without rushing around. That is what we did for Florence ... flights plus hotel for three nights was £200 more that the ships cheapest excursion. Rome was similar ... budget airline, direct flight, half decent hotel. Plenty of decent and inexpensive eateries in both cities.

Nobody panicked on our incident. Many were annoyed as the incident started just before lunch so that was cancelled, and within two hours we had zero power and no galley so no hot food.

I have just come back from Florence. We went early March and it was heaving. 2hr queues for the Uffizi! You mention dates around peak season to if you go it will be horrendously busy.Florence is reasonably compact which exaggerates the crowds but if you know what you want to see you can plan accordingly. Bear in mind the journey times to and from Livorno will eat into your day.

Yes .. on a merchant ship .. we sank🙂