Tims Times

On the long voyages on big VLCC’s where you have 3 or 4 weeks of a voyage between the Persian Gulf and Aruba around the cape things tended to get a bit monotonous, this was in the days before internet connections and mobile phones, so once you left port that was it for communication, you were incommunicado.
Some say that necessity is the mother of invention, but boredom is mother of inventiveness especially when it come to devious wind ups to be played out on fellow shipmates, the more elaborate and well planned the better, and usually deck versus engine room but not always, it might be the whole ships compliment against the old man and if he was an auld bastard he got double rations!
Some of the pranks were simple, and usually done on the spur of the moment, like for example leaving your camera in the bar then you were guaranteed to have plenty photos of mooning backsides and more, before in the days of non digital cameras, these days you can just delete the unwanted shots, back then you got a nasty surprise when you collected your prints from the photo shop.
Another simple one was to pierce a hole with a dart just below the lip of the beer can of the guy who has just gone to the jacks, on his return he will take a swig of beer and usually the first time not notice the tiny stream of beer going onto his t-shirt, the second or third time he will!
One of the most elaborate ones I heard about involved a ball bearing and welding gear, one of the engineers cut out section of railing by the old mans deck, and placed a ball bearing inside the railing which was a long tube, then welded it closed, and had it painted up not to arouse the old man’s suspicions, of course when the ship started rolling so did the ball bearing, inside th tube and crashed against the end with a thunk, then roll back again dunk, and no matter how much he searched he could not figure out what was making the racket.
Another good one also involves a tube a ball bearing and an electromagnet. You place the tube in the deckhead (ceiling) above the victims bunk and connect the electromagnet to the light switch, you’ll need engineers and or electricians if you can’t fix it yourself.
So when the light is on the magnet is working normally and stops the ball bearing in the magnetic field, switch off and the ball is released.
When the lights go off all the poor sailor hears is dunk……. dunk……dunk as the ball rolls back and forth, then when he gets out of the bunk to inspect, he puts the light on to see if he can find the source of the noise…….no sound…..you have to tell the guy about this soon or he will go mental, unless that is your plan!