Bon Accord

21 minutes ago, MarkC said:

Indeed so - we do have regulated working hours these days - if everyone plays the game fairly, of course...

 

I must admit that every ship I've been on with a Dead Man alarm is merely reset by pressing a button. Nobody I know has objected.

 

Personally, I prefer the attitude of old school Captains, who tell their deck officers that they are not, under any circumstances, to sit down on watch. I've seen a Second Mate actually fired, after several warnings, because the Old Man appeared on the bridge during the 12-4am watch & caught the 2/O happily parked in the Pilot chair - after the 4th time, and the necessary disciplinary procedures had been followed, the Office had no choice but to support the Master.

 

I also feel that watchkeeping standards in Engine Rooms started going downhill once lots of automation was introduced. One of the best trips of my career was back in 1987, on a 1965 built Reefer ship. No alarms at all in the ER; 2 Engineers & a Donkeyman per watch, no Control Room, everything adjusted by hand. Bliss!

 

Mark

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.

5 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

When I was a cadet stability was part of the syllabus for engineers, intact and damaged stability, bilging etc, including free surface calculations. Maybe they dropped it as no longer relevant, but I'd find that a bit worrying.

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.

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I see the future RFA Proteus, the LCV Topaz Tangaroa, for use monitoring and protecting sub-sea infrastructure has arrived in the UK to be repainted grey for the RFA. I just hope they don't do what they did with the last big offshore vessel they bought for the RFA (Dilligence) and decide to 'improve' it.

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.

5 minutes ago, 62613 said:

It was ever thus; when did Kipling write "Tommy's Lot"?

1890.

"O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, go away " ;

But it's " Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play...."

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I do wonder what will happen to the RN. Chickens are coming home to roost, successive governments have underfunded defence and grossly mismanaged what money was spent. The army is in an equipment crisis just as conventional land warfare has become very topical. The RN still has issues with its destroyers, aircraft carriers that are only really useful is deployed with the USN/USMC and nothing like enough submarines and although the RAF has maritime patrol/ASW aircraft again there aren't many of them. Defence funding needs an increase of biblical proportions to try and correct decades of underinvestment and government ineptitude at a time when the economy is on skid row. Heads should roll (and I don't mean just the current government, this goes back over 20 years) but I won't be holding my breath.

Of course the other elephant in the room is manning, or specifically a distinct lack of. We could initiate a massive re-equipment and rebuilding programme but the big question would be just how would we man the ships?

Those same successive governments which have underfunded and mismanaged the armed forces have also made all three services progressively more unattractive as career options for potential recruits.

Poor equipment, lack of equipment in some cases, more regular deployments with an operational tempo far greater than anything ever seen during previous conflicts,  continual watering down of T&C's and perks and not forgetting the icing on the cake: MOD in it's various forms crapping all over their own people should the fancy take them just as easily as they draw breath. Ergo poor morale.

About 10 years ago the RN went through another wave of redundancies and some of the lads amongst the RN detachment aboard my ship at the time got their papers whilst we were out in the PG on an operation, basically as soon as we got back to the UK they were out. A few of them had their redundancy dates pencilled in for a week or two before they were eligible for their half pension - no coincidence of course as that saved the MOD a ton of money. All were advised to either go AWOL on return or find a means to go on the sick so as to be able to cross the pension date. None wanted to leave, all were committed to the service and were good fellows and this came totally out of the blue. At the same time the RN were publicly crowing that they had a recruitment and staffing crisis due to a shortage of personnel!

One of the reasons I have little time for all the jingoistic guff that surrounds November 11th is just how hypocritical it has all become.

People celebrate how much money the various appeals and charities raise, all of which are of course publicly supported and sponsored by politicians of every hue and the royal family, yet very few appreciate that it should in fact be a national scandal of unprecedented proportion that these charities have to exist at all. I find it beyond the pale and profoundly shameful that veterans (particularly disabled veterans) have to rely on any charity for treatment, equipment and care.

It merely serves to illustrate that little has changed in the century since the supposed watershed of the 14-18 war that Governments, and the public to a certain degree, still don't care enough about the people who give up so much for others to actually treat them decently.

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Maroon and White. 

 

There are two at the SRPS which were originally at the Bluebell. Arrived with the CR Single on a railtour and stayed, then swapped for some Bulleid coaches a few years later.

 

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10027.htm

 

 

Jason

They both remained in use in Scotland until 1965, neither went South of the border with 123.

1375 was sold to the Bluebell in 1969, whilst 464 was sold by BR directly to the SRPS.

1375 then returned north in 1974 with a Bulleid TO as a part exchange.

10 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-64081163

 

I can imagine how this will be received in many quarters, despite the fact it is probably a perfectly sensible decision.

An eminently sensible decision I should think, four sisters all built in the same yard.

Politically unwinnable regardless of what they chose to do; the same mouthpieces bemoaning CMAL from ordering abroad would be the same mouthpieces giving them a kicking for giving it to Fergusons what with all that's gone on.

I'm still not entirely convinced with the Voith propulsion package; twin Voiths down the back and conventional thrusters for'd.

It'll require an entirely different driving style compared to conventional ships and to old farts like me it's akin to trying to rub your belly and your head at the same time. Voiths give you manoeuvrability but not necessarily the same kick of power you'd get with the alternatives.

I'd have thought the more sensible evolution would have been diesel electric with azipods aft and thruster for'd.

3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Surprised to see that! What engine is it?

The usual 2 cylinder Lister. This does at least have an electric start in addition to the crank handle!

2022, nearly 2023 and still messing around in boats, or at least three of my ABs are.

This aboard one of four ships I currently regularly relieve between, two of which are still old enough to have open lifeboats.
If nothing else they are at least reasonably foolproof, in stark comparison to the more modern versions.

2 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

Can we get back to toy trains please...

That notion seemingly went adrift as far back as post number 2 of this thread.

..

16 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

 

IMHO the majority reaction on here to KRM's choice would probably be different if the crime had not involved violence with a fatal outcome,

 

The GTR did not have a fatal outcome.

Just wondering if Rapido had any samples or suchlike of this model at Warley?

20 minutes ago, duncan said:

Hope it won't be a repeat of the Ferguson's fiasco, putting work to a company without the workers & skills to build them, not the management experience.

It's twenty years since H&W last built a ship, and even those final two certainly weren't their finest hour; and that was basically an assembly job with all the hard work done abroad.

If only SK had instead used the phrase "and when your gender fluid, non binary life partner provides your equal share of the vegan surprise..." there'd be no such controversy.

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The catamaran plan strikes me as full of assumptions and wishful thinking on multiple levels. As a general observation, any proposal which presents itself as a panacea for complex problems should be approached with caution as if it was that simple the messy situations they purport to be capable of solving at a stroke wouldn't be so messy.

I think it's unfair to blame CMAL which is heavily implied, as there has been a lot of political interference from the Scottish government in their decision making, and throwing money at Fergusons and ordering LNG fuelled ferries was largely politically driven. There may have been good reasons for offering financial support ro Ferguson and bringing the yard back to life, but don't try and blame CMAL for the consequences of the yard making a complete pigs ear of trying to build the two LNG ferries. From what I can see the problem is not so much the design of the ferries being built but rather in the case of the ill-managed Ferguson ships the yard bit off way more than it could chew. Which raises a number of further points, have they looked at what ferries are needed in Scotland? The CMAL fleet is actually rather diverse and includes vessels from small sheltered waterway craft up to some quite large sea going vessels in the case of the Northlink ships. Certainly you could increase standardisation and reduce fleet diversity but that wouldn't be as simple as this seems to suggest. It's also at best disingenuous to infer that the CMAL fleet is a collection of clapped out antiques, as with any fleet of ships the age profile is also varied (it would be silly to try and be otherwise with a large fleet) but it's certainly not old as ferry fleets go, a ship type which tends to have much longer than average life anyway. What evidence is there for the huge savings in costs to build and operate? Why are catamarans better than mono-hulls? I'd be curious to know as all my naval architectural training basically said it was swings & roundabouts, horses for courses etc and for many applications even with fast craft mono-hull is a better solution. If Ferguson are struggling to make steel hulls, how are they going to manage with aluminium if they go for lightweight catamarans (which if what I'm guessing is being proposed, however I admit that is my assumption and may be completely wrong)?

What fuel and machinery are they proposing? That is a much bigger question than many might realise as shipping is entering an energy transition. The Scottish government jumped into LNG as the fashionable fuel of the moment and with dreams of making the Clyde a global centre of excellence for gas fuelled ships, but now LNG is almost as toxic as diesel for the green lobby. When I was still in class they were looking at compressed hydrogen with fuel cells, again they had dreams of leading the world with hydrogen ships. Their decision making seemed to be driven as much by clutching at fashionable ideas as anything, I know some of their own technical experts within CMAL found it difficult as they were saddled with doing what they were told regardless of whether they thought it sensible.

I don't want to sound too negative, and it'd be nice to see the Clyde spring back into a hive of shipbuilding activity but at the moment I'm rather sceptical of this particular proposal. This kind of reminds me of the infamous Thornycroft, Giles & Associates short fat frigate debacle of the mid 80's.

Quite. The first question that entered my head on reading the article was specifically where are these 50 catamarans intended to operate?

Without even touching on why it's a crazy idea to send an aluminium catamaran into the Minch in winter, even the small craft replacement proposal doesn't bear scrutiny.

Replacing the current landing craft type vessels with Cats strikes me as a solution looking for a problem which isn't there and in turn only creating more problems. The landing craft type vessels are all designed to operate on a slipway with 7 degrees inclination which is the network standard; foot passengers and vehicles alike use the slipways to embark/disembark and because the vessel is basically aground on the slip no fancy mooring arrangements or piers are required. It also means those vessels are interchangeable network wide and no special vessel-specific berthing facilities are required. On some routes when the vessels aren't in service if no handy pier is available they lie at a mooring buoy and the crews access them via a RIB. These vessels are also all Voith Schneider equipped and so highly manoeuvrable. Replacing them with Cats will require piers to be built in every location, plus requiring a linkspan to handle the ramp for vehicles, so increasing the cost and complexity of the operation enormously in exchange for less flexibility. Cats also really don't like slow speed manoeuvring in poor weather which is where a monohull with Voiths (for example) will always win the day.

There are quite a few other points in that article which are factually incorrect, but then an agenda is being pushed.

Perhaps the headline should read: "A couple of blokes who want to design and build catmarans say they're amazing and want you to give them a LOT of taxpayers money"?

3 hours ago, 62613 said:

That wasn't off Christmas island (I.O.) was it? I can recall doing two or three trips there from Singers on British Gull; The island rises straight out of the Indian Ocean and there is literally nowhere to anchor off. So you drifted, and occasionally ran the engine to stop the ship crashing into the island.

 

I have it in my head that the second time was somewhere off the UK and possibly the NE coast. I could be entirely incorrect however.

Certainly in their latter years those ships didn't stray far from Europe.

8 hours ago, peterfgf said:

What did Class have to say about the metal-locked crankshaft?

Peterfgf

She was a 60s built ship and this was over 40 years ago - a different world really.

2 hours ago, keefer said:

Later on, in GNER days, the 'Mallard' refurbs resulted in the Restaurant being turned so that the saloon end faced, and was fitted with seating as, Standard Class (more like a TRSB). Presumably then, all meals were served 'at-seat' in First Class, with the saloon just designated as ordinary seating. The buffet counter was moved from the gangway end of the coach (above) to the centre of the coach, next to the saloon (below).

 

After the "Mallard" refurbishment circa 2004, Mk4 rakes had three FO's. The FO nearest the restaurant had about 50% of it's seating set aside for those taking meals, suitably adorned with tablecloths etc. In that sense it still operated as per the seating in the restaurant in that there were sittings and you left your normal seat and went to the dining area for a meal.

Once National Express et al took over and the catering offering went from being a separate cost to being free, the quality and range of food on offer went sharply downhill and that's when they transitioned to at-seat catering - I won't call it at sea dining because it's anything but.

Regarding turning gear incidents, some years back there was quite an impressive one on a BP 'Border' tanker.

At some point they'd started the engine (6 cylinder Doxford) with the turning gear in followed by a big bang; the crankshaft had split.

Metalock was suggested as a solution but scoffed at by some, anyway they were invited down and those very nice people did an excellent repair to the crankshaft. Sea trials etc followed with no issues, well done all.

About a year or two later the same ship was drifting awaiting orders. As is usually the case, every so often they had to flash up and reposition depending on the rate and direction of drift from the port, although whilst FWE was rung down after the completion of every repositioning the E/R was effectively on continuous standby - the turning gear was therefore not to be engaged on FWE.

The 2/E was on watch with his Junior (as was usual then) and after the vessel had changed position FWE was rung down, the 2/E settled down to a peaceful spell pottering about pending another movement whilst his junior went off to do whatever they do, pumping bilges etc.

Some time later the telegraph rings again - SBE. The second returns to the sticks, acknowledges stand by and shortly after slow ahead is rung down. The second does his thing and then BANG.

After no doubt a change of trousers, much head scratching and some pointed questions, it transpires that after FWE had been rung the Junior went and dropped the turning gear in as was normal practice, even though he had not been told to do so and he knew what the plan had been e.g continuous standby - he'd simply done it autopilot.

The C/E was summoned to the E/R as were the rest of the engineers via the calling bell, crankcase doors opened and they peered inside - yes, the crankshaft had split again.

Except that this time it had fractured in a different place as the Metalock repair had held!

The seating area was 2+1 around tables which lined up with the windows. Two per row on the upper/galley side (as seen in your pic) and one on the other side.

At that time there were "sittings" for meals and that was when tables were made up.

6 hours ago, MyRule1 said:

Still on 39 Steps

 

Did Kings Cross have lower quadrant signal?

Did the Flying Scotsman go to Aberdeen before 1981 when BR extended it?

 

The dispatcher of the train at Edinburgh needed sacking as the train was moving with an open door allowing Hanney to jump on.

 

Best comedy  moment train comes to a halt in the Fourth bridge after an emergency stop and the waiters continue serving tea in the restaurant car and don't get their trays knocked by the chase.

The train itself terminated at Waverley, but as I remember there were through carriages to Aberdeen in LNER days.

KIngs Cross did indeed have lower quadrant signals, see here: https://tinyurl.com/2y8tyb7y

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

But if you want to save money you'd need to make efficiencies, it's all academic because they've spent the money already on the stock, they are not about to renew them again.

 

The practical formation efficiencies that could be made were already made in the mid 90s, e.g. there subsequently only being two main trains: Highland/Lowland sleeper.

Prior to that Inverness/Aberdeen/Edinburgh/Glasgow were separate trains, admittedly with Motorail stock attached. The Glasgow sleeper also had a shunt at Carlisle where it used to drop off sleeping coaches, as the Night Riviera did/does(?) at Plymouth.

As an example, until circa 1996 the "Royal Highlander" (the Inverness sleeper) was regularly 15 vehicles all on it's own: 11 passenger coaches and 4 GUV. Made a fine noise climbing to Culloden all the same.

The Highland sleeper is already reasonably flexible with regards to demand with Fort William provision increased in the peak summer months at the expense of Aberdeen and Inverness.

4 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I watched the opening half hour today and thought I'd check back through the thread to see if this had been picked up on before.  Nice to see how even in 1935 we could have had a moan about inconsistency in railways on film!

Not relating to railways, but the scene where Hannay is handcuffed to the young lady as she removes her stockings is legendary, this was considered incredibly risque at the time.  What I'd forgotten is the conversation between the two other men in Hannay's compartment; one of whom is a women's underwear salesman.  It's probably music hall humour of the time, but it would equally probably be "inappropriate" now (still funny though).

After the train leaves Edinburgh and Hannay is walking along the corridor, he looks out the droplight and gazes forward. The film then cuts to the single track WHL with a K2 on the front!

It later cuts back to the Forth Bridge of course.