On this day in History...

1992...

2012, Is that kent still alive

89, I didnt know it was still out there

I thought they sank the fecker in the 60s!

Alive yes, but not as we knew it...

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The Ross Revenge,  from where their last seagoing transmission was made, an ex fishing trawler, worked on a few of the Ross boats, mainly the Bird Class plus one of their Cat Class the Ross Lepoard, it was based Grimsby, was heading north to the fishing grounds but was taking on a bit of water, rudder gland was leaking bad, so was diverted to Granton, me and another engineer were sent aboard to nvestigate problem, through a manhole cover we enter the sterling flat, a 6 x 6 x 4 foot high compartment above the rudder where the hydraulic steering gear is located, water is pissing in, much like you see in a war film when a submarine has been depth charged, the problem is the rudder shaft (about 15" diameter) and its brass bearing are badly worn, about half an inch gap, waters pissing up past it and the sealing gland on top of it like a fountain, we try to tighten the gland, the ships chief engineer tells us in no uncertain terms he's been doing that all the way from Grimsby to Granton,,, he wanted to turn round and have repairs done at Grimsby but the office told them to keep going and just keep tightening the gland, which they did until it would tighten no more which just happened to be around the Fourth estuary... To do the job correct boat needed to be dry docked, rudder and shaft removed, shaft repaired, new bearings and seals fitted, probably about a two week job, plus our drydock (ex navy pontoon) at Granton wasn't big enough to take the boat, so all us getting drowned in the steering flat think the boats going back to Grimsby, but no,,, some bright twat in the office has other ideas,,, the steering gland seal is made up of about ten rings of one inch packing, were told to remove and replace this !!!!! Waters going to absolutly  piss in, we, including the chief engineer express our concerns in no uncertain language, but we are over ruled,,, so ten new rings of packing ready to fit we start removing the old ones, to do this you screw things that look like long corkscrews in to each ring of packing and pull it out, each ring we pulled out the water flow got greater, we had to give up after pulling about seven rings out, our fear was if we pulled any more out the water pressure would stop us getting the new ones back in, so stuffing as many new packing rings back in as we could we tighten up the sealing gland, yip we stopped the water from coming in,,, but for how long,,, the minute the rudder started turning, plus the sea battering on the rudder, the seal would soon start leaking again, the chief engineer knew this and was protesting like hell, he still wanted to go back to Grimsby and have 100% repair done, but head office said "No", go catch some fish, your only away for twenty odd days stop moaning...

Pumps must have kept working, didn't hear anything on Radio Caroline news about it...

PS; On the bright side I learnt to swim during that repair...

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I dont do boats, ships, yachts, rafts, Ferry maybe if i can see France then turn round and see blighty,

Broken up now it says...

Yip, but not at the bottom of the sea, so you can't hang that one on me...

1992, should try that over here, stop the feckers trying to get in, build more jails,

Mcqueen wrote:2012, Is that kent still alive

Yeah. he's a UKIP supporter... Mail

2001 and things haven't changed

Want filling in, then the kents will try to row over, then they might drown Leeches

Ahh, 1988, I almost remember it...

 Hic...

Can't understand that court decision in 2012

Sometimes I question the opinion on these cases, so I blame the twats in charge, but if the twat was a lost cos,,, so what...

1977 easier to lose.

I've still got one. We still get them occasionally up here...

1975, lovely place.