Kukri
Well-known member
Another rain squall and radar incident, from the depths of memory.
I worked in the early 1980s for Swire Pacific Offshore. Amongst our competitors were Smit. Both companies had (SPO still have) offices in Singapore and various offshore support vessels deployed offshore Thailand. A colleague was relieved there and got a lift back to Singapore on the anchor handler “Smit-Lloyd 19” which had just finished a charter. This was just before New Year, 1984. The top four on the Smit boat were Dutch and the crew were Filipinos. During the evening of the 31st December the Smit-Lloyd 19 was running down the coast of peninsular Malaysia and her skipper decreed that there should be a New Year Party.
The Officer of the Watch decided that he didn’t want to miss the fun, so he instructed the Filipino quartermaster to keep a good look out, and to use the radar. He showed him what a rain squall looked like on the radar, and joined the party.
The Smit-Lloyd 19 passed through a rain squall. And another.
The third rain squall was the Malaysian island of Pulau Aur.*
She’s still there.
The party carried on until the Jenever and Heineken ran dry, the Dutch part of the crew reasoning correctly that they would soon be finding alternative employment. Then they called the office.
The funniest part of the story is that Smit, an extremely publicity conscious outfit, never admitted it had happened. Had there not been an Englishman on board, nobody outside a tiny number of divers holidaying on Pulau Aur would ever have known.
* Aur Island - Wikipedia
I worked in the early 1980s for Swire Pacific Offshore. Amongst our competitors were Smit. Both companies had (SPO still have) offices in Singapore and various offshore support vessels deployed offshore Thailand. A colleague was relieved there and got a lift back to Singapore on the anchor handler “Smit-Lloyd 19” which had just finished a charter. This was just before New Year, 1984. The top four on the Smit boat were Dutch and the crew were Filipinos. During the evening of the 31st December the Smit-Lloyd 19 was running down the coast of peninsular Malaysia and her skipper decreed that there should be a New Year Party.
The Officer of the Watch decided that he didn’t want to miss the fun, so he instructed the Filipino quartermaster to keep a good look out, and to use the radar. He showed him what a rain squall looked like on the radar, and joined the party.
The Smit-Lloyd 19 passed through a rain squall. And another.
The third rain squall was the Malaysian island of Pulau Aur.*
She’s still there.
The party carried on until the Jenever and Heineken ran dry, the Dutch part of the crew reasoning correctly that they would soon be finding alternative employment. Then they called the office.
The funniest part of the story is that Smit, an extremely publicity conscious outfit, never admitted it had happened. Had there not been an Englishman on board, nobody outside a tiny number of divers holidaying on Pulau Aur would ever have known.
* Aur Island - Wikipedia
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