|
Tim,
I sailed with a Mate, trying to remember his name, but I won't mention it, known as "Bottle Lock". A bit of a p rat, always had to tell people that he was RNR. He got his nickname probably on the newbuild that you mention - I later learned that he couldn't believe that all the locations cut in the deck for bottle locks were in the right place and spent his days measuring each and every one and distance between. Apparently, yard staff gave him a wide berth and let him get on with his measuring and reporting, paying no attention to him.
Apart from his RNR status, he was a bit of a bore, always going on about how he should have been made up to "Mar-ster" already. If I remember correctly, he was only on for the US coasting (around 2 months circumnavigation eastwards (1 crew), 1.5 months US coasting (2 crew)). He spent most of his time sunbathing on the monkey island and was a bar steward with the Nav cadets, reducing one to tears once. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and "senior" shipboard management had some very choice words with him, which took him down several pegs. He was then even more of a bore, sullen and morose, sitting alone in the bar reading and muttering. In the end, he got relieved early. Later scuttlebutt said he had been made redundant on return to the UK. I never heard of him again, though.
There was a peculiarity with BF which affected your attitude to the job. The ships were "self insured". The Master had the unenviable responsibility for "you break it, you pay for it"! This decision came from Alfred Holt himself, I believe, who apparently decided on the no-insurance route, claiming to have the best ships (Holt's Class) and the best officers to man them. Mistakes were not tolerated - I remember one Master who, shall we say, had constant diorrhea! On taking on his first trip in command. He had no experience on the RoRo's.On the same circumnavigation, we lost not only a 25T forklift in the drink (Yokohama) but also got arrested in NOLA for an incident in the Red Sea between a Bay boat and a bulker and lost the "Yoke" (spreader) to the drink in Miami. We ran on a very tight schedule, day and hour arrival and this was another aspect that didn't do his bowels any good! We rallied around him because he was a very good bloke and made sure that our reports put him in the very best light, poor sod! I know that he went on with the company until the end.
It is nice, finally, to have a measured response to the BF "myth", not the usual round of critique, and to be able to put out some points which were part of the culture and may have been misinterpreted by some outside the company! And no "other" company was safe, for one, the P&O myth with uniforms and swords!
Best Regards,
Dave
|