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Benkitlan no smoke without fire.

2K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  makko 
#1 ·
We were outward bound sept 68 and we were just coing into the Mallacca sea having passed Paulu We and heading for Port Swettenham .

back in the Uk we had loaded loaded at Chapmans reach just short of 900tons of explosives for ICINobel and 250 tons of ammo for the troops in Borneo.
the cargo was in three hatches two on the fore deck and one aft mostly in magazines except for the ammo which we did not have magazine space and it was ok in the tween deck.

It was early hours of morning and I had switched the radar off as we werewell clear and out of range of the coast. I was making a cuppa and having a spam sarnie when the chinese QM shouted me FIRE!! FIRE!! , I ran to the front of the wheel house where the windows were fully open for what little breeze we could collect.

To my horrow I sure did smell smoke and i could see it on the fore deck ,i ran into the chartroom and checked the Kidde riche smoke detector which was on the aft bulckhead , my eyeballs popped out of my head focussing on these little impellors wherring around at the top of the tubes ,No1 UPTWDK F/e no, No! LWTWDK F/e No!, After end the same No smoke No3 same again ,Where the F**K is the fire, I had sent the cadet to summon the mate and the other tww QM were now on the bridge (these guys had better communications than Nasa. How the other two knew about this god knows but they wanted to know if they put the rest of the chinese crew on the shake.
The mate came up and i went down on deck and opened the mast house doors to the hatch ladders while the mate shone the aldis on deck , I even went down to the tween decks and S**T there was no smoke anywhere .

By now you will have all guessed it ,the local Indonesians were burning a hole in the ozone layer back in those days The Sumatran jungle was on fire and we were over 50 miles off the the nearest land . We laughed about it at breakfast and all that day because the QM's were telling thier own story about me jumping through loops on the bridge and crapping myself at the same time . I can admit i am a very good swimmer but i did not fancy my chances agaisnt the sea snakes in the Malacca sea, having seen them in the afternoon about 10 to a normal swimming pool no way .

Throw another shovel full on the fire keep it stoked up.

Rgds Ian.
 
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#2 ·
Good story, Ian. On the Barber Priam, with the wide open RoRo spaces and very powerful ventilation system, whenever we opened a watertight bulkhead door (very big doors!) or deck ramp access, we would get fire alarms. We deduced that it was probably related to pressure differentials. We always took every alarm seriously and investigated accordingly. We also caught a stowaway with the fire alarm. He decided to make a little fire to heat his chow!

Regards,

Dave
 
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