Great expectations (with apologies to


Charles Dickens) By Capt John Noble HonFIIMS


Long standing IIMS member, Capt John Noble, was asked by Capt Purnendu Shorey to reminisce for a forthcoming edition of his publication, Offing Echoes. This is what he wrote.


Introduction


I am going to look back over the start of my seagoing career and look at some of the factors that laid the path of the past 59 years! Like many a young seafarer, my career began with great expectations for the forthcoming years. I will take it in steps and trust this look backwards will help you appreciate where my generation is coming from. To borrow another publication, I do not “Look Back in Anger” (with apologies to John Osborne, who wrote the play in 1956)!


In the beginning


Back in the dark ages (1962 in my case) prospective officers had the opportunity to undertake a two-year pre-sea training course. My training was undertaken at HMS Conway, by that time a shore based residential school. Much of the history of HMS Conway can be found in the book The Conway by John Masefield first published in 1933. The training course in my day followed a combination of academic and practical lessons. Boat craft was a central feature along with more traditional subjects like navigation and seamanship. After two years I could tie most knots, handle a sextant and communicate using the morse code, semaphore or international flags.


The apprentice


My three-year seagoing apprenticeship was conducted under Indentures with Alfred Holt and Company (Blue Funnel). Training involved 18 months on deck, working as a deckhand alongside the crew. Work involved such tasks as “Soogi-moogi” (cleaning paintwork with a sooji (strong soapy) fluid and waste rags). Topping the ships derricks (26 in total), chipping, scraping, red-lead painting and applying Stockholm tar to the standing rigging were all jobs we undertook. The philosophy was that no ships officer should ask the deck crew to undertake a task that he had not done himself! The second part of training involved understudying an officer on watch either on the bridge or on cargo watch in port. Bridge training involved navigation using a sextant, compass and paper charts. Even today the sextant remains the most versatile navigating instrument capable of taking readings for sun and star sights plus horizontal and vertical angles used in coastal navigation. All too soon, once the training phase was over. It was time to sit the Board of Trade Second Mate (now Class 3) exams.


Seagoing career


My first job after obtaining my second mate’s certificate was as mate on a small ship, the Albatross, a 650gt ungeared coaster. The Albatross had been designed as a feeder ship, but on the mistaken assumption that containers would be 7ft 6ins in height. The tween deck was built for 7ft 6ins boxes; as a result, she could not be used in the container trade. Keeping watch and watch about with the Master proved a demanding role. The ship was fitted with a magnetic compass controlled auto-pilot. This worked very well, with one issue; just after Cuxhaven on the river Elbe there was a (charted) wreck that was marked as a magnetic anomaly. If the ship passed


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