Sailors, ex Sailors

Introduce yourselves...
21

Yes, she was built in Rochefort in the same dock as the original but gets around a fair bit.

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She spends a fair bit of time as a tourist attraction in La Rochelle.

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22

Yes that’s right Mark the Hermione. Wiki is correct Paul… it is F58 ( not F28 :wink: )

Really ? After 5 years general service, I recategorized into the FAA ( fleet air arm ), and worked on helicopters for the rest of my 20 years…

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23

Sorry about the number :roll_eyes:
He was actually RM’s Glenn, went up with him once, exhilarating, though I had flown in them quite a bit, in Saudi, and to Lighthouses and with the Coastguard, think He was trying to make me ‘puke’ :smile:

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24

This was my first ship, SS Bengloe.

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25

And the water, it is the hour?

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26

Sorry Jerry, don’t understand :slightly_smiling_face:

27

Et l’eau. C’est l’heure.

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28

? sorry mate :slightly_smiling_face:

29

Ah, French Wife just explained Jerry :wink:, hello to You too Mate :+1:

30

Any ‘Liveaboards’ or ex ‘Liveaboards’ on here?

31

Never have Bill; guess I have not been in the situation to think of the slightly alternate lifestyle…
Though i can imagine to some extent what it could be like.

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32

I enjoyed it Glenn, couple of years in my late 20s, a year in 90-91, both cruises to the Med and 96- 09 on both sides of the Atlantic, it was a good life, had to work a bit between spells :slightly_smiling_face:

33

Btw Glenn, when I worked in Saudi, I became friendly with a guy, Terry Higgs, he was an ex RN armaments tech, we had sailing as a common interest, took his boat from Plymouth to Gib with him, worst weather I have been in, 11 for 3 days, S Biscay, not to be repeated :+1:

34

I recall being on a collier of about 2000T, top speed 12kts, we sailed from Antwerp heading for Bilbao. It was mid december and the Bay of Biscay was rough.
It took ages to get to Spain and the routine position checks revealed we had actually gone backwards for a few days !

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35

Dodgey bit of water that Peter, stuck in the corner if it’s Westerly, we were lucky, it was NE, next stop Brazil :thinking:

36

That’s handy Bill, a nice tail wind to help…

Upside is, when we finally arrived in Bilbao we had one hell of a night out !!!

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37

You deserved it :wink: , been across Biscay a lot on big ships and my wee boats, only had it really bad twice, happily!

38

That was a memorable trip for many reasons even though it only lasted a couple of months. We signed on in Blyth (just about the end of the world then !) and took coal from the north-east over to Gdansk or Szczecin (Stettin), unloaded and brought back the coal processed into coke ! Talk about ‘coals to Newcastle’ !! Poland was flippin cold in november !
Then coasted around the european ports for a few weeks before heading for ‘sunny’ Spain (Bilbao and Ferrol near Cadiz) before paying off in Ipswich of all places !

39

Was it Ferrol near La Coruna , Galicia Peter? I spent a winter there on my boat, woke up one morning there, to find the QE2 tied up nearby, lovely area.
Only been to Kiel, Emden and Hamburg on that N. Coast, had some memorable runs ashore there!

40

Think the most dismal ‘Payoff’ I had was Middlesborough, and a hell of a trip home to Whitehaven, incredibly complicated train trip across, E to W Coast :roll_eyes: