maritime

  Revealing the hidden industry The shipping industry functions largely unnoticed by the public, yet we all depend upon it for our daily goods and services. Except for glimpses of ships passing along the coast or into port we know little of their history or how the seafarers who man the ships live and work on the oceans. We know even less of the commercial nature of the vast industry that underpins shipping or the regulatory authorities that strive to bring order to its operation. This series of articles “Shipping for dummies” will describe the different sectors of the industry and follow the historical development of shipping and its ancillary services. We start with an examination of the birth of the general cargo liner and what brought about its demise. Throughout, I will use my experience in the industry to highlight some of the issues faced by seafarers in their daily life. Whisky, Camels and Tanks The general cargo liner Today, the general cargo liner is no more b...

  Apprentice uniform: Humber Maritime College Only 2 weeks to get all the necessary clothes and equipment together. Good job Grandpa went to sea and can now help me as Dad is back on his ship. What gear do I need Grandpa? Well, the company will send us a list of clothing for both northern climates and tropical areas plus a cap badge. So, you will need a uniform, jacket, trousers, white shirts, tie, shoes and a uniform cap with the company badge on it. It should have a replaceable white cover to be used in summer. You will have the apprentice fletches on the lapels. The best uniform is made of doeskin but this is very expensive so I guess we will go for Barathea. What is Barathea, Gramps. It is a wool based weave giving a material that is hard worthy, good for apprentices! You’ll need a battledress, said Grandpa through a cloud of tobacco smoke. This is your working uniform. Battledress A battle dress, isn’t that something soldiers wear? Yes, remember Montgomery in the 2 nd ...

  Let’s be clear he was no saint, more of a pipe-smoking ancient mariner with a penchant for a drink or two that got him into trouble more than once. It was not unusual for Grandpa to be delivered home by taxi and more than once it was not clear he was in the taxi until you opened the door and this body fell out! He was a heavy man and it took both mother and a neighbour using a blanket as a stretcher to get him in the house. Life was never dull with Grandpa! Nevertheless he was kind and very supportive of mother bringing up 4 young children alone and helped me in my quest to be a seafarer. I remember that sometimes my brother and I were allowed to accompany him on his Saturday trips to the local fishing port of Whitby to meet his cronies! I suspect it might also have been mother’s strategy to ensure her father got home safely. The steam train stopped at the West Cliff station first at the top of the hill overlooking Whitby before reversing down the hill to Whitby town stat...

 Report on board S.S. Mahout 1400 GMT Birkenhead Friday lates t   Wow that was quick, only 2 weeks to get all the necessary clothes and equipment together. Good job Grandpa went to sea and can now help me as Dad is back on his ship. What gear do I need Grandpa? Grandpa had always been a part of the family. We lived in his big red brick house that was built in the 1920’s most probably from the proceeds of many successful voyages as Captain. As his wife died our young mother decided to look after him and it was therefore natural that we all lived together once he had retired. Grandpa or Gramps as we called him was my mother’s father. Born in Lincolnshire in 1879, his father was a coastguard based in Sutton Bridge, he grew up around the sea. He went to sea in 1894 at the age of 15 and spent the whole of his life at sea working for a shipping company out of Whitby, Yorkshire and settling in the fishing village of Robin Hoods Bay. He retired as Captain and it as a pensioned sea...

  You are 16 years old and what is called a late developer. This means you were hopeless at school and averaged out near the bottom of the three classes for your year in grammar school. However after 4 years of hard slog things started to improve. X’s and Y’s in maths started to have some meaning other than some sci-fi objects! However the cultural part of the curriculum did not go well. Thrown out of arts class for painting stick figures in a portrait class of a half clad lady and sent to woodwork class was the first hint that perhaps higher education might elude me. Worse our class managed to change a serious Thomas Eliot play into a comedy due to a series of mishaps on stage. Nevertheless the English literature teacher thought it was a worthy effort and awarded us the class year prize! Good enough at rugby to get to the Yorkshire schoolboy trials but not good enough to get more than your younger brothers share of GCE examination results. A future prospect of 2 more years ...