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Welsh

Published June 7, 2008 in Americans and Wales. 1 Comment

Been off the air for a while, busy at work and all….anyway still here, and heres a tale from a recent Master-Pilot briefing.

You get to chat with quite a few Pilots on these coastal hops, and you generally ask the same shite, ” Cup of coffee, Mr. Pilot? sugar, milk? or would you prefer Tea, soft drink, water?”
Yes Mr. Pilot she acts like a right handed prop, even though shes left handed variable pitch, and the bow thruster is 900 horse power, we can start to single up, engines are ready….and off you go again.
Some Pilots give all the instructions known to man, others ask if you are happy to manouvre the ship by yourself, I normally operate the controls anyway, and the pilot says what he feels is right.

You get to be a sort of Pilot story exchange, you tell each new Pilot the stories the last one was telling you. The Liverpool pilot said this and the Cork Pilot said that, anyway the Pembroke Pilot was telling me about an American family that had moved to Wales for a few years with a big corporation. We were talking about languages and Welsh, Irish and Swedish, anyway this American family had two young children going to school in the locality and the Welsh language is compulsory as a subject, so the young Americans were coming home speaking Welsh and the parents hadn’t a clue what they were saying. So the parents have taken up learning Welsh too. I can count to 5 in Welsh and can say one or two phrases thanks to having S4C and BBC Wales broadcast across the Irish Sea for years, the language is spoken by about 750,000 people world wide so these people are going to have a great secret weapon and a great laugh when they move back to the States, nobody will understand a word!

Cymru am byth!

New carriers, old enemies.

Published May 20, 2008 in naval heroes, Warships, Americans, English, French, Grey Funnel, Admirals and pinch of salt required. 1 Comment

Carrier

Or you play with a toy one?

According to leaks and reports here and there, the French and British Admiralties are in discussion about the possibility of sharing an aircraft carrier, more like the impossibility, French and British crew together on the same warship? It could be propelled by Nelsons revolving coffin , his own quote“You must hate a Frenchman as you do the devil”
However it certainly is an example of thinking outside the box, even if they appear to be completely out of their boxes, a few too many glasses of sherry perhaps? You could go further and forget about this sharing business altogether and build the carriers in China, everyone else is building their ships there why not warships too? Then they can have 2 or 3 for the price of one, they could even crew them from China too, just disband( or downsize) the military apparatus in Europe and outsource it.

Another alternative would be to buy a few from the cash strapped Yanks, it wouldn’t be too far away from buying from China seeing as how much China is owed from the US, but anyway the dollar at it’s current weak state must make an offer from the Brits of the Frogs for a few ships feasible, unless someone starts shouting about Freedom Fries again.

Or a completely different tack would be to think environment (and not build any at all !) and think recycling, and get out the spy satellite pictures of the ports around Murmansk or Google Earth there are a few disused ships lying around idle waiting for better weather that could be had for a gas pipeline deal or other, I’m sure they could be persuaded to help their old friends France and Britain.

At the end of the day when 2 old enemies start talking about sharing military equipment anything can happen.

American Ship

Published February 7, 2008 in USA, Americans, ship spotting, UK, Unified Stations of Amurikay and Shipping. 4 Comments

Vehicle carrier “Courage”

Registered in Wilmington Delaware USA

The American flagged Vehicle Carrier Courage of American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier (ARC) seen yesterday leaving Southampton on a voyage to destination undisclosed, she was heading west in the English channel on the AIS at her last contact. A fairly rare occurrence to see the Stars & stripes flying on the mast these days in this neck of the woods, I even thought it was a Liberian until it passed a bit closer. The ship was once a Wallenius called “Aida” and the name has only been painted over. According to local information sources vehicles carried are often military vehicles and that is why it’s American. The website looks however normal enough http://www.arrcnet.com/.

The one about the US navy in the Irish sea……

Published October 26, 2007 in Youtube, Americans, Swedish, Irish and Unified Stations of Amurikay. 3 Comments

I heard this told as a joke years ago, then some clever Swedish guy made an ad for Silva compasses with it!

It has been on Swedish TV, not so sure it would go down so well in Amurikay!

Metres and feet.

Published October 11, 2007 in Radio, Americans and On the ship. 0 Comments

At the Steenbank pilot station outside of Flushing they tell you 1½ feet above the water for the pilot ladder, at Flushing they say 2 metres, I thought we had gone over to the SI system or Metric if you like, not that I particularly like, it’s a real bastard trying to buy timber (lumber for our US readers) when you want a bit of 2″ by 4″ in centimetres it’s 5 by 10 just doesn’t have the same ring . There is no real problem for your average Irishman born in the late sixties to distinguish between metres and feet, being brought up with both systems and sure a yard is nearly the same as a metre and thats 3 feet. It was only recently that the speed signs went over to Kilometres per hour in Ireland, and even though the scales are in digital Kilograms you will get funny looks if you ask for a kilo of minced beef at the meat counter. And don’t ask for a hectogram you might get a box! Whatever about my ability to distinguish between metric and imperial, there was a ship on the UHF radio (our working radio) this morning that was having great difficulty knowing where to put his feet and count his metres. The reason it was interesting was because they were Americans, normally you hear a load of gobbledygook from the League of Nations in all the tongues of the world so you switch off to it and try to find a channel with the least disturbance, but when it’s in English and with an American accent you turn up the volume to see what the yanks are doing. This particular ship was getting into position for mooring and the mates on deck were giving distances off to the old man, nothing wrong there except that it was all in feet, “30 feet off for’d Cap’, 40 feet off aft Cap’” “70 feet to go astern” etc. ”

when the old man says -Ok guys 5 metres astern

the mate on the deck says - are we workin’ in feet or metres?

Old man(commanding) -Yeah the pilot tells me 5 metres, about 15 feet-

Mate(surprised )-Well that’s absolutely wrong man, its a good 60 feet

Old man(disbelief in voice)-OK Brad, he swears up and down that it’s only 4 metres to position, we have a marker here….

Mate(angry voice)-Cap’n you let me be the judge of that, theres no ways its 4 feet, its near 50 feet

Old man(ignoring mate completely) OK guys the ship is in position, make her fast

Mate( more angry) I don’t give a Goddamn if we are talking feet or metres, if we land the ramp now we are going to hit a bollard

Old man(reluctant to give in and angry with the guy on the forward position) third mate do not heave on your forward spring!

Third mate(siding with mate) I thought we were going more astern Cap?

Old man(finally giving in while sounding like he is fixing the problem) yeah guys looks like I can get the shore guys to accept moving astern

Eventually they get alongside, the Captain said he was going off the air and the mate said “I need a new job” ! then we hear the Old man again “I heard that!”

We were on the floor rolling around at the live entertainment, they probably didn’t realise they were providing entertainment. But they did manage to avoid any heckling the hecklers were more interested in listening than disrupting which seems to happen more and more these days.

For the people looking for a conversion factor…..1 metre = 3.2808399 feet

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