Who are the professional seamen on the forum?

[chanelyacht]

At the risk of posting this directly below webby's dubious kit

Current - MRCC Watch Manager, also various small craft safety work, etc.
Past - 2WO VLCCs and box carriers 15 years

For this forum, I think the best thing "we professionals" can bring is perspective - for example, few people can actually envisage what visibility is like from the bridge of a VLCC at 235000 GRT - or what commercial pressures mean they run at 20 knots in fog....

From my current role, I try and let people know how we run things at this end, especially as during SAR jobs the obvious local paper type headline "nearest lifeboat not sent to sinking boat" etc may hide a magnitude of other things (local lifeboat would have been slower against tide etc).

It's not for us to be here telling others how to do things, just to give them extra knowledge to inform their decision.

 

[tel1]

I would say i am one

Some people like searush may be surprised but i have served on HMS Tireless for 18 months and i have currently been working for the Royal Fleet Auxillary for 4 years now.

Does that count?!

 

[nonitoo]

It's not for us to be here telling others how to do things, just to give them extra knowledge to inform their decision.

Could not agree more, especially when we all know that the only qualification necessary for buying and using a boat in the UK is a chequebook.

Tom

 

[Cruiser2B]

Professional seaman encompass a lot of trades - a marine engineer for example might not have the foggiest notion how to navigate.

There was a nice old motor yacht (if there can be such a thing) that went up on a rock in Nanaimo hbr a few years back, when its owner went on the wrong side of the navaids. It was reported that he had recently retired after some 30 years in the Navy - and of course the big question was how could this have happened. As it turns out: (a) it was the US Navy; and (b) he was a ship's doctor!

 

[Pasarell]

As a child I always wanted to go sailing and could never understand why my father didn't know anything about it. After all he'd been in the navy in WW2. Later I understood that stokers don't get involved in much of ship handling

 

[Latestarter1]

Why do you want to know?

If you are recruiting please let me know where to send a cv; meanwhile I will dig out my discharge book.

R829042 anybody trump that.......

 

[nonitoo]

R829042 anybody trump that.......

R798392

Tom

 

[Latestarter1]

That means you you first went to sea about '64'........

How times have changed!

 

[nonitoo]

That means you you first went to sea about '64'........

How times have changed!

December 1963

Tom

 

[Kawasaki]

I think the origional poster's question/query was about peeps who are involved in the Leisure side of the Boaty stuff , not the Commercial.
There is a World of diference there

My relatively new experience of said stuff is as follows.
I mend outboards et etc
I instruct RYA stuff
I do a few small bits of Commercial stuff

'So who are

 

[Kawasaki]

Oops!
I definately aint no Pro on this Puter stuff, that post went before I finished!
What I was going to say
There is a heap of difference between real Commercial stuff and those who make a living just doing leisure boaty activitiies.

 

[Kawasaki]

Bloody H , done it again!
Some on here are 'Pros' cos they make a buck, for a living by doing Pleasure stuff
There are some who have served in the Royal, The Merchant etc etc an still do.
I think the OP was just wondering who made a living out of the water.

Oh and by the way
My driving instructor was ****
It took me 4 times ter past me test
1958 I burnt three clutches out on His Moggy Minor!

 

[johnchampion]

That means you you first went to sea about '64'........

How times have changed!

and R782976 was Jan 63!

Golden years of British shipping

 

[grumpy_o_g]

December 1963

Tom

That's interesting. I was H8124083 though I was the Junior Service (a decision partly based on the premise they should have got it right by the third or fourth try).

That's a hell of a lot of people between '63 and '76 if the numbers ran across all the services.

 

[oldsaltoz]

Sorry, no Navy or Merchant background, just around boats all my life.

Delivering them, repairing, re wiring them, building them, making major modifications, adding or removing whole sections. Building all manner of items ranging from a simple instrument cluster over companion way to huge foam cored canopies with all the wiring inbuilt for lights, speakers, antennas and so on.

But mostly I sailing them and being a self employed contractor, I can tell callers I'm all booked out for the next 10 days and just go.

 

[smee]

I guess I am

Paid crew as Stewardess/cook on motoryachts, got commercially endorsed Yachtmaster (&STCW) which doesn't get used much when cleaning heads and pouring wine!

 

[Boreades]

.

- W

There's been a lot of seamen discharged in Portsmouth.

 

[Bilgediver]

One of the skills I seem to have retained, when compared with most of my "amateur" colleagues, is to be able to assimilate a situation almost instinctively, (a bit like driving a car), with reference to both navigation and traffic.

A valuable asset when approaching a japanese port at 6 am in the morning and you meet the 100 plus fishing fleet heading the other way

 

[chiefeng]

me, me, me

I am what it says on the tin.
Can plot a course, tie a few bits of string together, identify those floaty things that are around the harbour and have a fair understanding of colregs!

 

[monkfish24]

I'm a member of the RN, however, being an aircraft engineer, I've spent 0 days in the last 5 years on board a ship that has left british harbour! In fact I have huge amount more sea time on blue flagged boats of the RN than white......

I'm definitly amateur.