Bon Accord

I think the author allegedly did a trip in a P&O VLCC for research purposes, probably the Ardlui or one of that class?

Engineering cadetships didn't appear until the 1960s. Prior to that all engineers served an apprenticeship ashore in industry before going to sea. Deck cadetships (and pre 1960s they were officially apprenticeships) had been operating in much the same manner for over a century, i.e. gain seatime and sit examinations.

All the IOW ferries as far as I'm aware are classed as "non seagoing vessels" so they cannot leave the Solent under their own power, even without passengers onboard, therefore the crew certification requirements for them would reflect that. The old Home Trade/Middle Trade/Foreign Going certificates disappeared with the advent of STCW initially with the 1978 regulations and then finally with the 1995 regulations. Home Trade and to a certain extent Middle Trade required rudimentary academic study or examinations (if any) as they were based on time served and what we'd now call on the job experience, i.e. once you'd got your time in and your superiors/employer were satisfied with your ability/knowledge they would then issue a certificate of service for the appropriate rank. This differed to Foreign Going types for which there were defined academic requirements, seatime requirements and examinations both written and oral, on successful completion of which a certificate of competency would be issued. The engineering side of things was similar in that an individual could advance to the position of 3rd Engineer without any marine qualifications, however this was under the specific proviso that they had undertaken an approved engineer apprenticeship ashore in heavy industry. That apprenticeship did not necessarily have to be marine related, e.g. an apprenticeship in a steelworks, the NCB or a fitter/turner would qualify. In the 1960s an alternative scheme for engineers was devised which was similar to the deck apprenticeship/cadetship which involved time at a shoreside college mixed with seatime. For advancement to 2nd and Chief Engineer examinations etc were required. These days - as with all things seemingly - it's geared towards the FG style of things e.g. academic pathways and exams, with each graduation up the scale being either tonnage limitations or specific geographical limitations. The watershed year for final implementation was 2002 and the old HT/MT fellows generally all had to undertake examinations to transfer their certificates over to the new system. Those who held FG certifcates only had a few nonsense short courses to undertake. My certificate is what was known pre-STCW as a "Certificate of Competency as Master of a Foreign-Going Steamship" which was a black leather backed booked inside which the relevant details were inscribed in beautiful copperplate writing. My current version is a plastic credit card not unlike the modern Driving License and is now simply known as "Master Unlimited". It is quite likely that a number of the mates and engineers in the Solent have "unlimited" certificates having gained their bits of paper elsewhere and then moved into a home job, however Masters on those vessel may only require a Chief Mate's unlimited certificate. It's all down to specific categorisation of waters, tonnage of the vessel's concerned etc. Back in the day most of the men on the "Dover Ocean" - as we knew it - would likely have had Masters FG even when sailing as 3rd mate. Reason being that jobs in those ships were highly sought after and it was very much "dead mens shoes" with regard to promotion and recruitment, particularly once the MN began to rapidly contract from the 1960s onwards. The engine room side was usually the same. Quite a few "good jobs" and indeed some of the more traditional companies that traded both domestically and internationally were similar. As an example Blue Funnel Line were well known for it. In that company when a young man completed his apprenticeship with them and gained his 2nd Mate FG ticket he'd then be given a 4th Mates position. A couple of years later he would usually have obtained a 1st Mate FG ticket and he could then be promoted to 3rd mate. The position of 2nd mate could only be gained once a Master FG certificate had been obtained whilst promotion higher literally required waiting your turn, in some cases 10-20 years. That kind of thing was not uncommon in the older, more traditional "liner" companies (both cargo and pax) when jobs and men were plentiful, but it was much rarer in the tramp outfits and tankers where they often had a much quicker turnover of men. Nowadays such provisions are very rare indeed as companies are unwilling to pay for certificates that aren't required by regulation, that is assuming of course that they have such suitably qualified men available to start with.

Double ended ferries always have a nominal bow and stern regardless of actual direction of travel. The visual give-away for the stern is that it's usually the end with the port of registry. The general arrangement drawings for the vessel show the frames of the vessel numbered (sometimes with letters) with frame 0 generally being the stern end. My experience isn't with those with two bridges - which I would imagine might have lettered or numbered ends - but those with one central wheelhouse A few times now I've had a very pleasant few days taking such small ferries from their normal route to a drydock because they needed someone with a proper ticket to take it to sea; the regular crews don't tend to have "go anywhere" certification but instead have a Boatmaster certificate which is usually route specific. This normally means I'm just a passenger onboard enjoying the run and just there to tick a regulatory box, leaving the usual lads to get on with it with me as Tea maker in Chief etc.

Certainly cheaper and in terms of accessibility would transform the islands concerned. Which is precisely why nearly all of them don't want fixed links; they look at what happened to Skye and recoil in horror. There is a very vocal lobby who want the island lifestyle but still demand mainland-style convenience, hence the sheer amount of fresh air carried on most ferries outside the peak summer season - all at the expense of the mainland taxpayer.

I found this as a result of one of SWMBO's clearout diktats. In very good condition considering the age and abuse it will have had, alas the fit was far tighter than I remembered it to be, so it must have been exposed to some kind of shrink ray during it's many years in storage (ahem). In a similar vein, how about this pinched from Geest-something. I can't imagine any shipping company - never mind one that carried passengers -providing such things today! I didn't throw either out.

Above the door to the platforms (through which I took the picture) there is similar lettering identifying the destinations from that platform. See here: https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/25/717/ The ticket office was closed and waiting room locked when I was there so I couldn't get a snap from inside.

What really terrifies me is that I'm now at an age and in a position which a youthful me would have automatically assumed to be a paragon of responsibility and knowledge, i.e. a grown up....

As Mark has said the Marine side of things at Shields actually made them a fair bit of cash, specifically the foreign cadets and students as their fees were multiples of what the indigenous variety paid; I have it in my head that it was something like four times as much. I do know that in the early 2000s there was a squeeze on local authority spending and South Tyneside Council saw the marine lecturers etc as being overtly expensive** compared to normal teachers and so a redundancy programme was initiated. Since practically all of them were old boys approaching or at retirement age, there was no shortage of volunteers to stick their hands up take the money and retire to the pub full time. The subsequent "brain drain" caused massive problems which I don't think they've ever fully recovered from with the council only realising they were sacrificing one of their few cash cows far too late. At that time Shields and Warsash were the top two nautical colleges academically speaking in the UK, with the likes of Glasgow, Fleetwood, Plymouth etc following in their wake. **I believe the going rate for marine college lecturers now is something in the region of circa 35k. Unless someone is near retirement, has no real bills still to pay or has a specific reason to want to work at a college then there is realistically no chance they'll attract the senior mates/masters/engineers that they really want/need as they can find much better wages elsewhere, even shoreside. Notwithstanding the small point that a lot of what is taught these days is how to do the job paint-by-numbers style rather than really going into the theory behind it all. For example the mathematical side of things is basically taught as a pro-forma and examined as such, rather than going into the all the reasons for etc., therefore the question is do you really need hugely experienced and knowledgeable blokes to teach it? A few years back Fleetwood college were taking on newly qualified cadets - i.e. those who'd just got their ticket but had never used it in anger - as lecturers teaching the cadetship courses on 20k ish. Since many of them had endured less than ideal cadetships through absolutely no fault of their own (tonnage tax cadets) where the wisdom imparted to them during their seagoing training - if at all - could be highly questionable, that to me was really an example of the downward spiral of knowledge in the industry. Warsash does still idolise the likes of Dartmouth I think. I had to revalidate my Shipmasters medical care certificate down there a few years back and it was much the same. Notices everywhere about uniform of the day etc, using the term cohorts instead of classes etc and all manner of other guff. Back in the day they used to drag them out for morning runs plus teach them important stuff like which way to pass the port bottle etc. Warsash was also the first college where I'd seen cadets wear seagoing uniform to classes. At Shields, Glasgow etc there was a college uniform but that was navy blazer (with company badge), shirt, tie, trousers shoes etc and seagoing rig was strictly prohibited, principally because we weren't at sea. If you didn't appear presentable with the correct rig (including blazer) the college would write to your company and complain. These days they all seem to follow the Warsash mould with woolly jumpers and epaulettes and if a tie is present the knot is normally dangling down somewhere near their belly button. Aye, changed days!

Burntisland ticket office still in a near timewarp aside from the modern posters and other items. The built-in cigarette machine is interesting as it still proclaims a packet of Embassy can be bought for 20 pence

I was there for a course in 2015 having last been there about 15 years previous. To say I was horrified to find the MarTech bar was now a gym is something of an understatement, that and there was a Costa Coffee in the actual college building. I suppose the two fearsome old ladies who the ran the Martech with a rod of iron are long gone. No longer are there cadets or lecturers to be seen in the Westoe or County either for the usual lunchtime pints. Of course all the lecturers I knew are long retired or indeed long dead, but I doubt their replacements are anything like them character wise; some of them were absolutely certifiable and most of the rest just nuts. All followed the same mould of being proper local men who'd served their time with every one of them an ex Master deepsea with the college principally being a source of beer tokens or to keep them out of the way of the wife. One lovely fellow (ex BP) who used to teach us chartwork and magnetic compass had made a lot of money as Master in foreign flag tankers running oil into SA during the embargo, he then became a North Sea Pilot and was very amenable to early knocks, smoking breaks and a pint or two with us before he caught the ferry home to North Shields. Some of the ex BI and Blue Star blokes were something else too, "shot away" as we'd say, but in the nicest possible way. One of them told us all to take up smoking as it meant more fag breaks, plus making a rolly or filling your pipe was apparently a good way to play for time if something really bad was happening and you had to make a decision whilst at the same time appearing outwardly calm. The Engineering and Radio types were very similar of course - I remember doing my engineering module and being ushered into the "Doxford Shop" to see that magical beast shaking the building to bits in between odd and usually very loud bangs. Then into the "BP shop" to see an array of museum pieces donated by my former employer like steam steering gear etc. When I did my GMDSS ticket I also did that in Shields, and the ex R/Os taking the course made no attempt to conceal their bitterness and distaste for the new order. We weren't took keen on it either to be fair. One bloke kept waxing lyrical about the Pendennis Castle as he'd been on the thing forever and took it as a personal affront when she was withdrawn from service and sold by UCL, this was in between regularly b*llocking us for getting our Q codes and various other radio procedure wrong. The things you remember?! Regarding Warsash, I did my mates ticket down there - not through choice - and it was a real eye opener, especially after having heard all the stories. You could well see why Warsash was ideal for (and usually well filled by) passie boat and RFA types, whilst the rest of us mere mortals were much better off in places like Shields!

It most definitely has. A few months ago one of our radars developed a fault and a new card was identified as required. None available in the UK but they were available in Belgium. Now this was a PC type card about 6"x4" so small enough to fit in someones pocket. Pre Brexit we'd 'phone the supplier, get the quote for the item and carriage costs, knock up a PO and email it off to them. All done in about 15 minutes. Post Brexit we now have to get all the information (in writing via email for any potential audit trail, verbal quotes no longer permitted) and pass all that onto our purchasing department. They then contact their freight forwarder - a company we have a contract with specifically to handle the import side of things - and they then arrange appropriate courier(s), export/import paperwork etc and sort it all out. What was once in the past basically next day delivery organised by ourselves now involves three extra stages and a lot more people. This can at times be expedited (legally) but it entails £££££. Because this was November time it took a fortnight for the part to get to us. In our case with the Radar card it would quite literally have worked out substantially quicker and cheaper for someone to jump on a flight to Brussels, pick up the card, stick it in their jacket pocket and fly back with the authorities on both sides of the channel none the wiser. But hell mend you (and your employer) if you're caught. It really has become a circus.

They are not all owned by public bodies. Ownership is a mixture of outright private companies, local harbour trusts, local harbour authorities, local councils and CMAL themselves; and yes all of those have different legal and in some cases political responsibilities. Port standardisation is nowhere near as simple as it sounds. Leaving aside the ownership issues, some ports are not necessarily where they can best be sited thereby incurring infrastructure and therefore vessel limitations, them being where they are for longstanding historical reasons. In an ideal world that would mean re-siting them, but then all manner of political issues come into play e.g. historical convenience, road links, public transport links, environmental concerns, NIMBYs etc. At the moment the going rate (based on previous experience) to build a brand new pier with associated facilities is something approaching £30 million for somewhere easily accessible. For somewhere that is not (e.g. a remote island) you can add £5-10 million onto that. Most of the piers currently in use are heavily modified "steamer" piers that have been in use for many decades plus, designed for much smaller vessels which called far more infrequently than today. For ultimate network standardisation you're looking at half a billion plus in costs, assuming all parties agree. Then factor in that the combined population of all the islands is only circa 45,000 people. Is such expenditure really justifiable when it could be used to build X number of schools or Y number of hospitals on the mainland which could directly benefit a far greater number of people (i.e. millions)? If you were a politician facing re-election in a few short years which is the most likely votewinner? The big picture is infinitely far more complex than the gutter press or casual visitor can ever comprehend.

CMAL own, buy and build the ships, Calmac merely operate them. Both organisations are state owned and funded. Accordingly they have to abide by the relevant legislation with regard to public sector procurement; e.g. everything has to go through a very prescriptive tendering process. Private companies often form relationships with their preferred builders and suppliers, that is however much harder for a public body as every procurement exercise comes under the microscope of the civil service and the various parliamentary committees in London and Edinburgh where ultimately the desire is to select the tender that represents " best value for money". There are of course hugely varying opinions on what that phrase actually means, particularly between the accountants and those who have to operate the ships. There are so many different designs of ships for two reasons: firstly there is massive variance in traffic levels, seasonal fluctuations and traffic type on the west coast. Secondly the ships all go to different ports with hugely different and varying infrastructure, all owned by different organisations both public and private which massively complicates attempts at standardisation. Crews live onboard for one reason: operational flexibility. If crew all live ashore then that raises the question of what happens when the vessel has to reposition to another port to cover a breakdown, clear a backlog of traffic or to avoid adverse weather? It's not easy to find two dozen or so hotel rooms at a few hours notice in the middle of winter on the West Coast of Scotland when most operate in the peak tourist months only. It's absolutely impossible to find such accommodation in the Summer. By the same token if the vessel operates a longer day then to comply with hours of rest legislation crew can take rest periods in their cabins onboard ship and thereby extend the working day. If there is no accommodation available to do so then crew have to be sent ashore (somewhere) and replacements found so as to permit the vessel to operate the same hours. Under the terms of the Maritime Labour Convention there are now (long overdue) specific requirements relating to crew accommodation standards. Pentland Ferries can adopt the live ashore model because they only operate a single route with only two ports with a single vessel, which starts and ends the day in the same port. Calmac by contrast operates a network serving 23 separate islands and over 30 ports with some ships ending up in different ports every night so as to maximise the length of the working day and timetabled services, i.e. the crews can't work any more hours to return the ship to a home port. Pentland Ferries are regularly held up by the critics as some kind of model to which Calmac should aspire, totally ignoring the salient point that they're comparing apples with oranges.

Manannan is a high speed cat and a totally different beast in design and purpose to Alfred/Pentalina which are not. The latter are powered by medium speed diesels driving conventional props and are intended to operate year-round, Mannanan (and her equivalent with Condor) are of course waterjet driven and are summer only when the traffic levels can justify their much higher operating costs. High Speed Cats like Manannan are also a swiftly disappearing breed in British waters; twenty years ago there was upwards of twenty such craft operating around the UK, now there are only two as the operating costs killed them.

Drivel mostly, from certain vested interests who don't understand why monohulls are preferred. One of the main individuals/experts wheeled out regularly calling for a catmaran fleet also happens to own a company which designs and builds Catmarans - an entirely independent and unbiased viewpoint of course. It's worth considering that of all the major ferry companies operating within the UK - those being P&O, Stena, DFDS, Irish Ferries, Calmac, Northlink, Transmanche, Normandy, Brittany, Isle of Man Steam Packet, Condor, Wigtlink and Red Funnel - not a single one of them utilises medium-speed Catmarans as car ferries in the manner of Pentland Ferries (the example used in the article). Not a single one. A layman would be forgiven for thinking that there might be some good reasons for that. The potential fallout from a state owned and subsidised ferry operator ordering ships from the likes of Vietnam would be absolutely colossal and political suicide for any party. The likes of the Express and their ilk would be the very first to jump in with their howls of outrage and they'd be printing stories about it for years. As for the Alfred, the story is incorrect as to her build cost as she was built for £14 million in 2019. A two and a half year build time for such a simple vessel in a Far East yard is to me somewhat eyebrow raising. Her predecessor - Pentalina - which was builtin the Philippines back in 2007 cost £15 million to build. Adjusted for inflation to 2019 prices that comes to £20 million. They are both of the same generic design, except that Alfred is 15 metres longer. Yet Alfred was built for £5 million less than her smaller predecessor some 12 years before. I might be sticking my neck out here, but I suspect she's not the most high quality build.

All vessels in the fleet receive an annual overhaul, with the overhaul season running from mid September to March thereby avoiding the busy summer months. That's 35 vessels of all sizes from 20 metres to 115m length which have toto go through an annual drydock, inspection and overhaul cycle, all in the space of 7 months with this happening every year. It's planned that there are usually two "major" vessels and two "small" vessels out of service at any one time. Due to the intensity of the timetables in the summer months, all major planned maintenance is generally shoe horned into the annual overhaul cycle, so in any one docking there's a huge amount going on aboard each ship. As is usual in any maintenance cycle there are occasional overruns as emergent issues are found, this is exacerbated in Calmac land due to the very tight window available to get all the work done, e.g. so many vessels in such a short period of time that a domino effect can occur as one vessel might be delayed in going to overhaul as it awaits a completed vessel to replace it etc. In a perfect world you'd have spare ships (and crews) lying around to pick up any slack, but that's massively cost prohibitive to the tune of millions of pounds per year. Plus, if there were any spare ships it'd take five minutes before the various well known mouthpieces up and down the west coast (who often aren't local) start demanding extra runs for the purpose of convenience i.e. the ships carrying mostly fresh air, this of course with older ships that are past their best - which is why they're spare in the first place - because they are seen to be lying idle. Then cue massive local and political ructions seemingly akin to Calmac demanding very "islander" sacrifice their first born just because they take their "nice to have" extra ferry away to make sure another island actually has bread on the shelves in the Co-op. For those unaware, every god foresaken windswept rock on the west coast of Scotland believes itself to be the centre of the known universe and to hell with everyone else. For Calmac it's the perfect no-win scenario. Of the ships mentioned in that article, at the moment Isle of Lewis is in the final stages of her (planned) overhaul. Clansman's (planned) overhaul was completed in Birkenhead only last week but issues with a newly overhauled engine became apparent on the voyage home, that's why she's in Glasgow for rectification by Cammell Laird/contractors as the work is under warranty. Caledonian Isles was supposed to complete overhaul 3 weeks ago, but main engine issues have become apparent which require significant work plus spares to be brought in from Europe. Pre Brexit this could literally be done next day, but these days it's often a week plus due to customs delays etc. She's 30 years old this year and has been run hard for all that time. Her ultimate replacement (Glen Sannox) is in the drydock next door undergoing her pre sea trials drydocking. Hebridean Isles has emergent propulsion control system issues with a Rolls Royce/Kongsberg system that was fitted about three years ago. This same control system has been retro fitted to a number of other vessels in the fleet with no issue. Like everything these days it's software based so a fair amount of fault finding is required - apparently they can't replicate the fault when they try to, it occurs randomly. I find it rather curious that the "UK Defence Journal" website is remotely interested in the wellbeing of car ferries in Scotland, that is unless the intention is to attempt to make a rather clumsy political point. Since certain parts of that article are lifted directly from Wikipedia word for word it's obvious little actual research went into it.

Or more to the point, isn't it high time the England rugby and football teams adopted their own anthem instead of appropriating our awful dirge of a national anthem?

From what I remember from a book I read some years ago (one of those provided by the Flying Tabnab for onboard use), the amidships engine in that class was an exhaust gas turbine with no astern turbine fitted. The wing engines were four cylinder triplexes and such beasts can of course be reversed at a fearsome rate when required. In terms of turning another thing to do would perhaps have been to leave the starboard engine full ahead, but with the port engine full stern and the rudder hard to port. That might have induced a faster turning moment, aided by the port engine trying to screw the stern around to starboard. But then what's to say the impact would simply have only been further aft in an area perhaps more critical such as the boiler rooms or main engine room, thereby potentially losing electrical power or causing structural failure earlier than they did. But that's all easy to think about in the cold light of day a century on. That there was only one rudder and that it was woefully undersized as was usual for the era didn't help matters either. I doubt any watchkeeper would have reacted differently to what was done in reality, particularly given that an instant decision was required. Simple fact is she was going too fast and the iceberg sighted too close-in for anything really meaningful to be done in the time available. I've been in ice often enough and even with the aid of radar spotting the bigger lumps we were still caught out from time to time, so the only thing you can do in an ice area was to slow down, particularly when in low visibility or darkness. In many respects that incident was one of the most well known - and earliest - examples of what we now refer to as "commercial pressure" coupled with over reliance on the technology of the time. When I look around today at some of the things that go on I do wonder if we really have learnt from it? Particularly with ever increasing micro management from ashore and real time data transfer, e.g. some failed 3/E of a Super (as seems common today) sat in his living room able to watch all the monitoring data of his ships 24/7 via livefeed from the E/R, followed on with stupid phone calls and emails asking even dafter questions. The deck side is no better. Of course I might just be turning into a cantankerous and difficult old sod.

One of the main engines and it's a Crossley. Most of the engine room equipment is original, including the gennies with only a handful of more modern stuff to comply with ever changing regulations, e.g. a sewage tank etc. Many spares now have to be made to spec., indeed about 15 years ago she had a M/E crankshaft replaced with a new item made by Babcocks from the original drawings. The current owners look upon all the original kit as one of her selling points even though it's invisible to most punters. This is as she was originally when I first encountered her

One of my old ships: the wheelhouse and manoeuvring platform on the old COLUMBA of 1964 vintage. She is of course still in service as HEBRIDEAN PRINCESS and she's still a DC ship.

Thankfully where I am things are still rather civilised with two ABs allocated to each watch which means one is on the bridge at all times with the OOW whilst the other is making rounds of the accommodation and cargo spaces, they normally change over every hour or so. If it's restricted vis. we have both on the bridge and also call out the Quartermaster should we have to go into hand-o-matic. No UMS down the stairs either, the E/R is manned 24 hours a day whether at sea or not. If alongside there's a nightshift motorman who checks in with the deck night watchman at intervals not exceeding 1 hour by radio or telephone to make sure both are ok, we also have CCTV in both the wheelhouse and ECR so you can see who's answering the telephone if nothing else. Admittedly of the four ships that I relieve between the newest was built in 1995 and the oldest 1983 and some of the technology and facilities are somewhat geriatric, however the system works!

Regarding dead man alarms, I don't recall being in a ship which actually had them switched on until around 2012. Most modern ships (e.g. 90s onwards) were built with them but very few used them as they were seen by more or less everyone to be an irritating nuisance, particularly on those ships where it wasn't set up properly. By properly set up I mean that the dead man is linked into all the control functions and screens, e.g. that moving a cursor on the radar or electronic chart/adjusting the autopilot or telegraph etc resets it or perhaps even have a motion sensor(s) fitted in the wheelhouse. Either that or have reset buttons fitted at every potential location for the OOW, e.g. all the bridge consoles, chart table, bridge wings, wheelhouse front etc. I've been in ships with all or some of the above. Some ships - including one I relieve on occasionally - just have a single button amidships that has to be reset manually. I found that myself to be more of a distraction than anything as you could be out on the bridge wing, or peering into a radar etc and then the confounded alarm would go off and you'd have to return amidships to reset it by which point you'd taken your attention away from what you were looking at with potentially serious consequences. One drydock many years ago the Lloyds surveyor asked us to test the bridge alarm and we did no problem. We then had to simulate a blackout and test it again. I told him it wouldn't work and asked why? Apparently it's in the regs somewhere that the "tw*t alarm" (as I call it) has to have an emergency feed, although I can't recall if it's from the ESB or the batteries. I did make the point that the only scenario where that would come into effect is if the ship is totally blacked out and without either engines or the main switchboard operational, drifting and no doubt rolling our guts out to the prevailing swell. If that was the case I rather doubt we'd need the dead man to keep anyone awake or alert us to a problem... Which of course brings us onto the law of unintended consequences with regard to dead man alarms. In certain sectors of the marine industry OOW are known to regularly sleep on watch - in their fine comfy bridge chairs with feet up on the console - because they know they'll be woken by the alarm going off every 12 minutes or so. They wake up, reset it, have a quick look around and then doze off for another 12 minutes (or whatever the time interval - I think most have a setting upto either 18 or 24 minutes). This has already been found to be the cause of a few collisions and groundings. The deadman setup also therefore helps to perpetuate the longstanding nonsense of people doing 6 hours on/off as they'll be woken should they fall asleep. There's a lot to be said for simply manning ships properly and leaving the technology behind, i.e. perhaps we should fix the problem at source by having sensible working hours and the provision of a lookout at all times, rather than permitting undermanned ships and simply finding technological means to mitigate/dodge around it.

Bilging (amongst a number of other things) was dropped for the Foundation Degree deck cadets as long ago as 2008... Those still doing the traditional HND/C route were still taught and examined on it however, as are those doing senior tickets now whose cadetship etc predated FD. I do believe that MCA have had something of a rethink though (after a few scares) and they're now making the FD people at least sit the Scotvec exams whereas before they only sat internal college examinations.

I'll lay odds that they'll still want to use 2 or 3 tugs everywhere they go despite all the DP toys on that ship. When they ran Sea Centurion/Crusader for a few years ago they couldn't do much to the ships themselves as it was a bareboat charter, however the manning side of things was rather ridiculous. They were basic freight Ro-Ros with no specialist equipment and designed to be operated by about 15 men, but RFA required 20 odd including a Purser and an R/O as heaven forbid the Master should have to do his own paperwork. Since those ships were considered beneath proper RFA Masters they decided to use some of their senior Mates for the job instead but didn't promote them, they referred to it as "three ring command" as it was always a C/O in command. It was about then that RFA decided they should follow RN practice and permit all three stripers and above to have the scrambled egg on their caps as opposed to normal MN practice (and as per the Uniform regulations) that it should be the Master only. All a bit of a circus really. Of course their intense dislike of operating such ships then lead on to the Foreland contract so in many ways alls well that ends well.