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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.

Warships

Published February 4, 2008 in Warships, English, UK, VHF and the weather. 3 Comments

HMS Gloucester

HMS Iron Duke

HMS Lancaster

Three warships passed our position today heading for sea all spick and span after the bad weather, there was no radio traffic and the AIS was switched off so no ideas about where they were going or what the mission was. Their silent passage was impressive with all the crew on deck and the white caps gleaming in the winter sun. A few days earlier there was plenty of chatter from one warship and the VTS at Southampton, now the other day at Rotterdam I blogged about being able to speak English on the VHF, well who better to give us a great example of perfect Queens English than the boys and girls of the Royal Navy?
Well it was English, but it must have been the competition for the most clipped and shortest time on air or they have some kind of military practice for short messages so they don’t get targeted by radio direction finders or something. There are things that are confusing when hearing such military tone and military speak ” This is coalition warship calling the vessel on a course of 225 speed 15knots in position etc. etc.” Since when have the Royal Navy started calling themselves “coalition warships”, and what happens when they use the half second grunts and bleats that are meant to be words but sound more like noises from a haggard or stall with the non-English speakers like the French? Probably more of the same back to them……
But I was happy to hear the calm and collected voice of Solent Coastguard on the VHF sounding very clear and concise, even if it was a bad weather forecast for more gales, they sounded good anyway.

More ground for concern

Published January 3, 2008 in Container, Grounding, English, accident, Navigation and Shipping. 0 Comments

Cortesia

The container vessel LT Cortesia (click on the name for more info about the ship)went aground on the Varne bank in the English Channel about 9 nautical miles from Dover Harbour yesterday. The British news was full of stories about a giant container ship aground, and that later it had been refloated, and there are plenty links on the net about the when and the where of the whole story. The big questions are the how and the why of the grounding, the Varne bank is not a concealed navigation hazard, anyone who has been up and down the English channel a few times knows about it and even if you had never been there before it is well charted and there is a great big red light on top of it that can be seen for miles around. It is possible to make all sorts of assumptions about what could have happened to cause the ship to steam onto a sand bank, like was the echo sounder on and the alarm set? was there sufficient position fixing? who had the conn and did everyone know this? was there a passage plan with parallel indexing and no go areas, did they know what the draught was in relation to the available depth of water? and so on and so on. The MAIB will in due course publish a report, until then it will be speculation all over the shop.

From the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7167666.stm

Helicopters

Published December 25, 2007 in English, Helicopter, Youtube, French, UK, France, VHF and From the ship. 5 Comments

We were leaving port the other day, or evening as the small video clips will show when we had a visit from a very loud and bright flying object, they started flashing searchlights across the deck and it was all very noisy. I went to the port bridge window and there was a big Helicopter of type unidentifiable about 10 metres from me the co-pilot had a number board with “69″ on it and he was gesticulating vigorously with a flashlight at the number, the penny finally dropped inside my head and I lifted the VHF tuned to channel 69 (nothing to do with any other purported uses of this cipher combination), as I tuned in an extremely efficient British voice crackled across the airwaves, “Coastguard helicopter Whiskey Delta, on exercise, permission to place a man on deck, OVER” I gave the OK “Whiskey Delta, permission granted” thinking to myself these are the boys that could make the difference on a dark and dirty night in the North Sea, so practice away lads.
My cameraman missed the first part of the operation we were all fairly awestruck at the proximity, noise and presence of such a big machine flying a few feet overhead. There are four small sequences showing the winchman exercise with a stretcher basket and finally fly off into the murk.

The last clip is a few seconds of the Dunkirk pilot making his entrance, there was too much wind for a launch so he had to arrive by chopper. I took a photo as they flew past the bridge and blogged previously under Flying Pilots

How to upset the English mate

Published May 30, 2007 in English, Engineers, Deckies, Scottish, Tankers, Irish, VLCC and From the ship. 6 Comments

Subtitled Oil & Water Don’t Mix

On leave again and the posting is less frequent, home improvements to be taken care of, sinking a few cold ones now and then. My visit to St.Petersburg left a great impression on me and my travelling companion on the day who is a member of the Engineering Department, it reminded me also of when I was a cadet many moons ago. Back in those days the deck cadets had to work in the engine room for a few weeks to see how the spanners worked.

The ship is run on a departmental basis, theres the Deck department, the Engine room and the catering. Now I’m talking basics here, you can add a few more if you are taking cruise ships or survey vessels like the medical and radio operators and so forth. The two main departments and deck and engine. (others may argue the toss here)
There I was anyway off to down below or the pit for my two weeks of greasing and deafness induced by lots of howling machines, I was shown around formally by the second engineer, a Glaswegian, who had a deep mistrust of anyone from the deck department, and he hated the English mate, he pointed at various bits of machinery and roared something at me, had not a clue as to what he was saying, his accent, drowned out by turbines and boilers and me wearing hearing protection made it hard to understand, but fair play to him he did his best. We went back into the air conditioned control room after being out in 40 degree heat of the engine room, the boiler suit stuck to my skin wet from sweat and cold all of a sudden. In the sound proofed control room you could hear talking but still it was difficult, it felt like I was in a Gregor Fisher comedy version of Para Handy, the entire engine room was from Glasgow and points west thereof bar myself an Irish deckie. I was given a few tasks on the first day that included “buckets of steam” and “long stands” which I duly fell for then I was allowed to continue my time without further piss taking. Talking about steam, this ship was an old VLCC from the early 70’s with steam turbines, and all the deck machinery was driven by steam. If the deck wanted steam they had to call the engine room and ask politely for steam on deck at least 1 hour before it was required, to warm through properly. The Engineers controlled the steam, the Deckies needed steam for everything to work so it was a great source of entertainment ( the same source was boundless in it’s ability to provide hours of laughter and every time also) for the engineers to delay giving steam especially if the mate(my boss) was English and the entire engineering department was from Scotland.

One afternoon in the Gulf a hot, sunny 42 degree Celcius afternoon we heard the mate saying on the radio, “ask the Jocks for more steam, we can’t get this windlass turning any faster” the second was waiting for the call from the bridge, and I volunteered to open the steam valve being the keen young cadet I was, he asked “d’ya ken which valve ty’open?” I nodded he replied “only one turn”, so i found the big steam valve which was positioned in a position upside down on the deck steam line and I duly opened one turn and ran back to the control room and reported my task done. The second nodded and smiled. A few minutes later we heard the mate calling again “it seems to be even slower than before, ask for more steam”, the bridge replied “ok more steam” then the old man called down for more steam, the second said to me “one turn only” and away I went again.

I asked the engineers why we didn’t reply directly on the radio, the whole place erupted in laughter, and when the tears had stopped and the sighs sighed the second said, ” ach , son ye’ve a lot to learn” . Soon enough another call on the radio and subsequent call from the bridge, and I was away again to open another turn on the valve. We heard again that it was getting even slower, the second looked at me and said ” what valve are you opening” I replied -steam to deck, he said -are you sure, I said 100% sure, ok he said open it up full the mate will be getting heat stroke on top of apoplexy. I went out and opened full, even putting a wheel key on to make sure it was full open.

When I came back in to the control room, the second grinned at me, “what valve have you been at son?” steam on deck I said, getting a worried feeling in my gut, in the background I heard the radio and what sounded like the mate, my boss, crying into the radio,” the windlass has stopped , we need steam, more bloody steam”. The second said “you better show me what valve you opened before something pops”, out we went and I trotted after him striding away, we got to the valve and he nearly fell over with the laughs, I had of course shut the valve it being upside down and me turning clockwise instead of anti-clockwise.

When we got back to the control room after restoring full steam on deck, the second patted me roughly across the shoulders and said, “good man, you can make a good engineer one day, give the bastards on deck nothin’!” The whole place fell about laughing again. Relations between the Engineering and Deck departments continued at Cold War level thanks to my actions but the second engineer claimed the glory.

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