The largest of the Swedish navy’s ships the HMS Carlskrona has an uncertain future, the lack of officers and government cutbacks have meant that she will be mothballed and maybe even scrapped. She was rebuilt a few years ago for 225 million kronor…..thats about $33 million, a sure sign of getting the chop in this country, pump in a shit load of money then pull the plug.
Anyway I sailed with a converted naval officer, that is he converted from military to civilian or the Merchant Navy/Mercantile marine call it what you will, and the same chap had served on one of HMS Carlskronas long voyages for which she was famous for. During his time there the ship was on an official visit to Finland, some Swedes still lament the loss of Finland to Peter the Great and Finland still has Swedish as one of it’s official languages, I digress. The commander knew he could speak Swedish with the Finns but wanted to make a special effort and do a greeting in the Finnish language for the visiting dignitaries from Finland’s Navy, so the word went out to all the officers and conscript crew if anyone could speak any Finnish, one conscript was found willing and was given the job of greeting the Finns in their own tongue as they arrived.
The Finns walked up the gangplank were greeted in Finnish they all looked slightly surprised at the speech they all individually received but maintained the official dignified look and the whole visit went down very well.
The next day before the ship was about to sail, a parcel arrived from the Navy of Finland, when unwrapped it was found to be a chainsaw painted in gray camouflage and naval insignia, the commander was baffled, it turns out the conscript either by accident or design was saying to each of the dignitaries ” Do you have a chainsaw?” so they got one. It apparently had pride of place in the ships mess and was taken down for parties and the like, the chain was removed for the sake of good order.
I wonder what will happen to that when the ship gets scrapped.
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