Re: " Sea Stories" Moving up.
Posted: February 27, 2015, 8:15 pm
by PDBLK25
Captain Metz: We were lucky, we sailed in the days when it was much easier to work your way up. They got rid of Deckwatch in the mid-70s, and when I left the boats, they were trying to eliminate the watchman's position (they may have already done it, I've been off the Boats for a while). I know 1 fleet (won't name it) where the Mate is usually the only one in the Pilothouse. Uses an occillating fan to keep awake & keep the non-motion detectors from going off.
No matter how gently I woke the Deckhands, the response was always the same: "oh can't I sleep a few more minutes, then I'll get up, promise." They never were mad at me, but they craved extra sleep. My response was always the same: "You can sleep all you want when you're dead, we need you up on deck NOW."
Another strange story. As I've said before, I was impatient so I went to an Academy. Since I never planned "going salt water" I put the bare minimum of work into Celestial Navigation & Tides. One of my best friends was determined to go salt water. I agreed to teach him only if we met in this one bar, and he bought the beers. he passed the test easily and said to me - "The more beers you had, the better your teaching was."
Re: " Sea Stories" Moving up.
Posted: February 27, 2015, 5:31 pm
by sailorpatp
As I unpacked my sea-bag I found something that just didn't feel right and pulled it out and there was the pinkest pair of panties and bra. Not thinking, I said, "Where did these come from?" From behind me my wife said, Yes! Where did they come from?"
Sailors.....
" Sea Stories" Moving up.
Posted: February 26, 2015, 10:09 pm
by captrmetz
Moving Up
About mid-season, the job was going along great. I knew all about being a deckhand, but I really wanted a deckwatch job. Standing a watch of four hours on with eight hours off before the next watch instead of a full eight hours straight (as a deckhand) was for me.
My chance came one day. Our deckwatch, Darrel - the guy who got his kicks every morning waking us up so abruptly - was worried. “I don’t know what to do,” he said to me. “My girlfriend is pregnant. She keeps crying about how she wants me home by her. What should I do?”
I gave the situation some thought. Finally, I said, “Well, if I was in your predicament, I would decide to go home and marry the girl and be with her instead of out here on the lakes. You know, your wife and soon-to-be baby should come first.”
Darrel thought about this for a few more days. When we arrived back at Duluth, he told the mate that he was quitting to go home and take care of his new family.
I shook his hand. “Good-bye, and best of luck to you.” He left the ship and I found myself the new deckwatch. For most of the rest of that season, I stayed deckwatch.
Pappy was the watchman on my watch, and we got along great together. From Mellen, Wisconsin, Pappy was a powerful man with huge arms and wrists so big he could not buy a watchband large enough to go around them. All the deckhands tried to beat Pappy at arm wrestling. He just laughed and smiled while puffing on his cigarette. With very little effort, he would bang their arms on the table. No one ever put him down.
One trip, after departing the MacArthur Lock downbound, we ran into fog, so the Old Man checked her speed down. He felt his way down the river as far as Lime Island. When we were just below Lime Island, the visibility went right down to zero, and he decided to anchor. After he maneuvered into position, he yelled, “Let her go.” The anchor hit the water with a big splash, and the anchor chain came rumbling out, as it always did, sounding as if the ship was tearing herself apart. Everyone asleep up forward jumped a foot out of bed.
We lay at anchor until the next morning when the fog cleared. The Old Man told me to “raise the hook” so we could get underway. As the windlass pulled in the chain, we had a hose over the side to wash off the mud. When the anchor was just coming up through the water, we saw an old schooner anchor clinging to ours. It had a beautiful wooden stock with some old chain still attached. I called the Old Man in the pilothouse to tell him what we found. “We can tie some lines around it and lift it aboard,” I suggested.
“Drop the anchor again and get rid of it; we don’t have time to fool around with things like that.” So we let our anchor go again, and when we hauled it back up, the old anchor was gone.
I soon became comfortable being a deckwatch. I was the one calling the watch every morning, but I wasn’t like Darrel. I was like a mother to the guys. I would walk in and turn on a soft light and shake a guy’s shoulder and say, “Time to get up.”
Now I was eyeing up the watchman’s job! He was making more money than I was and he was the deck boss. Most of the time, he stood watch on the bow, and he relieved the wheelsman for his coffee break. Then it was time for his own coffee break, and his watch was over. But before I could get a watchman’s job, I would have to become an able seaman, or “AB.”
As soon as I got a chance, I went to the Coast Guard office in Duluth to ask for an AB manual and find out what the test would entail. “All the information is in the book,” I was told. “All you have to do is study very hard.”
Well, I did just what the Coast Guardsman said. Every night in my bunk, I studied and studied. During the day, I studied all the lifeboat equipment and what each piece was used for. I climbed the masts just to study the lights. I studied everything on that ship!
To obtain a lifeboat ticket (certificate), I had to lower a lifeboat into the water and take charge of the boat. We had a midsummer Coast Guard inspection that year, and when it came time to lower the boat into the water, the mate said that I was to take charge of the boat. “Do a good job, because the Coast Guard will be watching how the boat is handled. This will be your test.”
We lowered the lifeboat, and the crew who were assigned to that boat climbed in and took their places. I ordered, “Up oars.”
Pappy said to the crew, “I want all of you guys to listen to Dick’s orders and do your best!” Everyone sat up straight and oars were all straight up.
I ordered, “Oars down, push away.” All oars pushed away; each man had done his job. We rowed around for a while and then headed back to the ship. The mate and the Coast Guard were very pleased. Pappy had a lot to do with that.
The day finally arrived for me to write my AB exam. I took a taxi from the dock to the Duluth Coast Guard building. I had no sooner taken out my AB manual and begun to page through it when the cab driver said, “We’re here.”
As I walked up to the steps leading to the main door, I wondered if I was ready. I wanted to pull out the manual and read it all over again. Then I thought, “If I don’t know it now, I never will.” I slipped the manual into my pocket and walked into the office. I filled out some paperwork, and the officer handed me the test.
I sat down. My mouth went dry. I was nervous. I got up enough courage to look at the first question. “I know that one,” I said to myself, and wrote down the answer. I finished the test and felt pretty good about it as I handed it to the officer. Then I waited.
After a short while, he called me into his office. “Sit down,” he said. He looked me right in the eye. “How did you study for this test?”
My heart sank. The palms of my hands started to sweat. “How could I have flunked this test?” I thought. I had felt so good about it. I was numb. My AB career was down the drain. That did it. I’d have to go back home because I could not face the crew after all they did for me and I failed the test.
“Mr. Metz?”
I was jolted from my stupor. “Oh! Yes, sir! I studied my manual day and night and learned by looking at all the ship’s equipment from the anchor to the stern light, and the crew all pitched in to help me, sir.”
He was silent for a few seconds. Again he looked me in the eye and said, “Well, Mr. Metz (oh no, here it comes), you have the highest score on your test that has ever been recorded in this office.”
I couldn’t believe what he said! What a change in the wind.
He continued, “Any man who can write a perfect score like this should consider writing for a mate’s license as soon as he has enough sea time.” He stood up; I stood up. He shook my hand, congratulated me, and God carried me through his door.
I felt great. I was proud of myself because all of my studying had paid off. I walked over to the clerk, a charming young lady with a smile on her face. As she handed me my brand new AB card, she said, “I hear you did very well on your test.”
“Yes, I did. How would you like to go out for dinner and celebrate with me?” She accepted my invitation.
When I walked back aboard the Thomas Wilson, Captain Peterson was standing next to the boarding ladder. He asked, “Are you an AB?”
“Yes, sir!” I answered with my head held high.
“Good, you’re on the 12 to 4 watch as watchman. Bill Anderson retired today while you were gone.” Bill, a fine shipmate and friend, lived in Duluth and had been sailing for thirty years. Life was great. Here I was, a new AB, and a watchman with a raise in pay. Little did I know then that I would not be satisfied for long with my new job.
Being a watchman required me to stand lookout on the bow in all kinds of weather. One morning on Lake Superior, I was on bow lookout with a nor’easter blowing a gale. We were heading right into it. Seas were coming over the bow as the ship nose-dived into each oncoming wave. My oilskins were covered with ice. The mate was crazy for having me standing out here in weather like this! Oh well, I wanted to be a watchman, so here I was.
It started snowing, and the mate started blowing fog signals. He lowered the front pilothouse window and yelled down to me, “Do you hear another ship’s fog signal, and if you do, where away? I have a ship on radar.”
Here I was, standing on the bow with seas pouring over me, a howling wind blowing into my face taking my breath away, our fog signal blowing three blasts every minute yet I could barely make out the sound 600 feet away, and thick snow swirling into my eyes. How in the world did he expect me to hear or see another ship? I have never forgotten that hellish night, especially after I became mate.
Another time we were upbound hauling around Southeast Shoal in Lake Erie in dense fog, and I was standing bow lookout for over three hours. The wind was light; it was a quiet day with the only sound that of the bow pushing the water aside as we moved through it. Just before my watch ended, my relief walked up and we talked for a few minutes about the weather and the fog. “Have you heard any other ships around?” he asked.
“No, we’re all alone out here. No other ships around. Have a good watch.” I walked off the bow.
Just before I got to my room, I heard five short blasts from our whistle - the danger signal. I was confused about why the danger signal was blowing, so I ran back up on deck. Looking over to port, I saw a huge ship’s bow appear out of the fog heading straight for us. “Charles C. West” it said in big, black letters painted across the front of the pilothouse. Where did she come from? I hadn’t heard the West blowing fog signals. Her port bow came up on our port side. She was turning to avoid hitting our ship, and just in time!
Her bow scraped all the way aft along our ship’s side. Sparks flew. I smelled paint burning as she slid along. When her stern met our stern, our port lifeboat was smashed. Then the West disappeared into the fog just as silently as he had come.
I ran up to the pilothouse to ask the mate what had happened. He didn’t say a word, but I saw his ashen face. The Captain was still standing in the front window with his right hand fumbling for the general alarm.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Part of my duties included relieving the wheelsman for his 20-minute coffee break once during each watch. This was right up my alley - being up in the “brain box” where navigating the ship was accomplished. I loved being behind the wheel and steering this monster of a ship, making her head for each course that the mate barked out. At first it was just out in open lake waters.
After I got good at steering in mid-lake, I got to relieve on the wheel in the rivers. What a job! I enjoyed standing at the helm and looking out of the pilothouse windows watching the shoreline pass by. It was so good to see small craft with girls wearing bikinis waving to us, to meet upbound and downbound ships. But most of all, it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer and there was no standing out in the bow. This was the job for me!
We had a wheelsman from Virginia named Willie. A laid-back individual with a great sense of humor, life was fun and much of it was a joke to him. One day, we were downbound in the St. Clair River just about abeam of Fawn Island. It’s a pretty little island that sits low in the water; it’s flat with green grass and a few homes. When we got to the buoy, the captain ordered a course change to port.
He noticed the ship was not turning, and immediately said, “Port,” again.
Still the ship did not respond.
Once more, “PORT!” he shouted.
Ol’ Willie said, “I can’t, Cap. The wheel fell off.” Willie stood there with the wheel in his hand, not one bit excited. The ship by now was headed straight for Fawn Island.
The captain about bit his pipe in half. The mate ran from the chart room into the pilothouse, grabbed the wheel from Willie, replaced it on its shaft, and got control of the ship.
“You take the wheel,” the captain said to me. He turned to Willie. “You’re fired!”
I had my wheelsman’s job. I remembered back to when I worked at the paper mill. Yes, now I considered myself the luckiest person in the world.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We laid up for the winter that year in Ashtabula, Ohio. After we had completed all the end-of-the-season tasks that readied the Wilson to sit safely moored while the lakes iced over, we were ready to leave the ship and head for home.
“You can’t go home yet,” the mate told us. He said we had to wait for the fleet’s flagship, the Steamer Joseph S. Wood to arrive and then help lay her up. We weren’t very happy about that.
“Let’s go up to the sailors’ bar for a drink,” suggested Pappy.
We all agreed, though none of us had ever been in that bar before. It was within walking distance, and as we walked, we questioned Pappy about what kind of bar he was taking us to. He grinned and said, “You’ll see.”
“It must be something really special,” I thought.
We entered the building like a flock of sheep. We crossed the first room to a heavy, oak door with a little slit in the center. On the other side of the door, the slit opened and all we saw was an eyeball peering through at us. “Show me your AB cards,” we heard.
“Man, this is really something with all this security,” I thought. I really didn’t know what to expect behind that oak door. I slipped my AB card through the slit, the eyeball looked at it, and a buzzer sounded. The big door opened and we walked in. Everything seemed normal; the bar was at the far end of the room. But the room was empty! No one was sitting at the bar or any other place in that room. As I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, my eyes traveled all around that empty room. I waited for something to happen. Nothing did.
We had a few drinks and decided to head back to the ship. Pappy stayed behind at the bar with a grin still on his face. What a guy. We got our hopes up and then found nothing but a dead place. Of course, he never promised us anything. It didn’t matter; we would get even with him.
The Wood finally arrived at Ashtabula the next day. Our deckhands and wheelsmen walked over to the Wood and worked the rest of the day to lay her up for the winter. Now we could go home.
After breakfast the next morning, we went back to our rooms to pack our bags. Pappy’s sea bag, packed and ready to go, was already sitting on the deck outside his door. “Now is the time to get even,” I said. “Go on deck and bring back some iron ore.” Meanwhile, I opened up his bag, and removed some of his gear. The others came back with about ten pounds of iron ore that they were able to shovel up from what had been spilled on deck. I dumped it into the bottom of Pappy’s bag and repacked his gear.
“Your cab is here,” the mate called.
We all picked up our sea bags, slung them over our shoulders, and watched Pappy do the same. It was a long walk out and through the dock gate to the waiting taxi. “Man, I didn’t think I had that much gear in may bag,” said Pappy, puffing as he lifted it into the cab’s trunk. We all turned our heads so he couldn’t see our smiling faces or hear our stifled laughter.
All of us got on a bus that was heading toward Chicago. One by one, each man got off at his station except for Pappy and me. We traveled together beyond Chicago, as both of us lived in Wisconsin.
In a little farm town in central Wisconsin, the bus stopped for a lunch break. “We’ll stop for 45 minutes. Everybody be aboard then so we can stay on schedule,” the driver announced. Everyone else went into the small café where we had stopped. But not Pappy and me.
We looked up Main Street and headed toward a hotel on the corner. We heard a polka band playing. We looked inside the door. “Come on in,” someone said. So we did.
It was a Polish wedding. Everyone was happy and having a good time dancing. After a few drinks, Pappy and I just fit right in and had a ball! I was dancing with the bride when the bus driver burst into the room. “You, there, get back on the bus! I’ve looked all over this town for you. Now we’re behind schedule,” he snarled.
“Why don’t you stay?” asked the groom. “In a few days you can get a ride home.”
“No, but thanks anyway,” I said. “Thanks for a good time.”
We got back on the bus. We were not very popular with the driver or the passengers for the rest of the trip.
With every bus change, Pappy had picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder, grunting. He never did figure out why it was so heavy.