Where did the quote come from , the Beano ?. It's one of Cobelfret's , just a normal ro-ro.

 

Hi John please contact me at my e-mail address

 

The article was on MSN News.

 

Lighthouse manned or unmanned cannot be responsible for vessel machinery problems. Media hype yet again. OTT

 

Talking of lighthouses : The 8000 ton Safmarine freighter SS South African Seafarer was wrecked in a north westerly gale on 1st July, 1966, in front of the Green Point Lighthouse. The crew and passengers were taken off by SAAF helicopters , in very bad weather. The lighthouse beam was actually stopped and focused on the ship. I remember this wreck well, as my sister was going out with one of the engineers. The wreck was a great focal point for sight seekers as she was so close to the shore. There is nothing left of her now, but apparently it is a popular dive sight.

 

Talking of lighthouses : The 8000 ton Safmarine freighter SS South African Seafarer was wrecked in a north westerly gale on 1st July, 1966, in front of the Green Point Lighthouse. The crew and passengers were taken off by SAAF helicopters , in very bad weather. The lighthouse beam was actually stopped and focused on the ship. I remember this wreck well, as my sister was going out with one of the engineers. The wreck was a great focal point for sight seekers as she was so close to the shore. There is nothing left of her now, but apparently it is a popular dive sight.

Some great pics on Google.

 

Interesting Frio.

 

Currently Proceeding (Under Tow?) 4.8 Kts towards Zeebruge, ETA @ Miday 11/7/2023.

Curtessy of "Vesselfinder".

Losing power, was a not uncommon Hazard on some ships in the 70`s. Especially when some "Person" power washes the Genset that is online!!.

Pete

 

can't see any evidence of towing bridle.

 

https://media.fleetmon.com/cache/newsroom_article_images/MAZARIN/b7867cf12f1485ed54c9fe443d08bd14.jpg

 

How come it wasn't the usual "huge tanker"? Are the Press losing their touch?

 

'cause it's no a huge tanker !

 

Well at least it wasn't called a 'boat'.

 

Anybody got any similar stories/ experiences?

 

Ohhhhh!! Yes. Quite a few of the ships I sailed on in the 60``s/70`s, had a tendency to exhibit “black light’s” on occasion. Causes varied, from the mundane, water carryover to steam recip; DC gen; sets, the result of a Junior watch keeper who allowed the weir steam feed pump to overfill the online boiler?. To the case of the 3Eng; who power washed the alternator flat and shut the job down in the North Sea. That required us (Me and C-Eng) to spend most of a Saturday afternoon, (fortunately) removing chunks of bus bar to isolate said alternator, before we could put the power back on. After I had crawled in wearing B-A and extinguished the fire manually and shut the set down. The Icing on the cake, so to speak, was the crew members who moaned afterwards that they had missed the Scottish Cup Final!! I was surprised when DNV, actually permitted us to do 3 full round runs to Gothenburg, without the genset while it was being rewound?. That ship was really close to the mark power wise on just 2 sets. Losing power in the Manchester sh1t canal was also a quite interesting experience, the lock gates did survive, that ship was one we got very quick on getting everything back up after a few experiences. Still, stops you getting bored?

Edit:- Torry Canyon. That was big news, they tried bombing it with Napalm in an attempt to burn off the oil, I recall watching the B&W T-V news. And seeing Hawker Hunter jets doing bombing rums!!.

Pete

 

The Mazarine is at present outside Falmouth with the tug Mercia in attendance. I expect people want their lorries back sometime soon !

I have posted before that if the media don't know, they make it up. There is marked lack of knowledge of anything maritime within today's media.

Ref #5 from Freo. I was on a Safmarine reefer a couple of days from Cape Town at the time. Our Captain was naturally keen to know what had happened. I eventually contacted Table Bay/ZSN, on top of the Grain Silo, who gave us a good account. I later met the RO of the Seafarer. He said that when they were allowed back on to collect personal belongings, his expensive Hi-Fi system had gone !!

David

+

 

I remember this one -
Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef, between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly, on 18 March 1967 . It became grounded and, several days later, began to break up.

i was driving a sewerage tanker lorry for a local Council and was called in to carry detergent to beaches to treat the oil .
Lots of Army men on beaches helping out .

Anthony Martin [ tony ]

 

I remember this one -
Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef, between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly, on 18 March 1967 . It became grounded and, several days later, began to break up.

i was driving a sewerage tanker lorry for a local Council and was called in to carry detergent to beaches to treat the oil .
Lots of Army men on beaches helping out .

Anthony Martin [ tony ]

Torrey Canyon was eventually bombed by the RAF.

 

All in a typical day at sea, eh Peter?
The difficult we can do imeadiately but the impossible takes a little longer.

 

As some mentioned, usual media hype, misinformation and complete lack of knowledge or the ability to get some. The other day I saw a report where the reporter was calling a container ship a bulk carrier and so on. Media power of 10 practice, take any fact or even fake fact, exaggerate by a factor of 10, use at least 10 superlatives, and 10 cliches and then repeat the same 10 times over to make up the minutes. So when it comes to ships or anything maritime they absolutely show how stupid they all are, if ever they needed to. Remember the Suez Ever Given episode? horrendous reporting, every possible cliche used. BTW was working on a ship project in Singapore last year and saw that hapless vessel departing and back in service.

 

"The enormous 640-foot-long Mazarine cargo ship was on its way from Ireland to Belgium when it got into difficulty off the coast of Cornwall, close to the Isles of Scilly.
The vessel - which is longer than two football pitches ( not being a football fan, then how long is the ship)- appears to have become stranded off Wolf Rock lighthouse about nine miles off Land's End. Photos from the scene today show the massive ship dwarfing the 135-foot lighthouse."

Aren't all cargo ships massive now. The ship's name is Mazarine it isn't a Mazarine Vessel but a Roll -on-Roll of, 196 m LOA
It cannot have been the lighthouses fault, it wasn't even manned.
Isn't that what lighthouses are for to keep ships off rocks and going aground? Don't you give them a wide berth?
Maltese Registered, Classification Society and Owner not given on AIS, say no more.
Journos???

Massive ? nah try a 398000 ton tanker

 

Massive? Try a 16,000 elephant ‘boat’

 

"The enormous 640-foot-long Mazarine cargo ship was on its way from Ireland to Belgium when it got into difficulty off the coast of Cornwall, close to the Isles of Scilly.
The vessel - which is longer than two football pitches ( not being a football fan, then how long is the ship)- appears to have become stranded off Wolf Rock lighthouse about nine miles off Land's End. Photos from the scene today show the massive ship dwarfing the 135-foot lighthouse."

Aren't all cargo ships massive now. The ship's name is Mazarine it isn't a Mazarine Vessel but a Roll -on-Roll of, 196 m LOA
It cannot have been the lighthouses fault, it wasn't even manned.
Isn't that what lighthouses are for to keep ships off rocks and going aground? Don't you give them a wide berth?
Maltese Registered, Classification Society and Owner not given on AIS, say no more.
Journos???

"enormous" ?? hardly ! naughty lighthouse !!

 

So, if they have 3 football pitches why do they need 5 gyms, they are obviously not worked very hard if they have energy for gyms and football. What happens if the ball goes over the side is it Offside.
With the likes of the Prince of Wales hull, won't that be a white elephant when they cannot align the tail shaft with all the toys and experience at their disposal these days. It was done with a bit of chalk, a piece of string and an old Rizla packet for years but they had experienced fitters who knew were to put the chalk mark. Not these laptop top wielding graduates. So the charge hand comes down and says to the fitter who was adjusting a recip bottom end," What did you get out of it?"
Fitter says, " Peak of the labourers cap, half a day and 10 thou".

 

I was thinking of buying a lighthouse to live in, but nothing to flash'e

 

Rusty, trouble is at our age when you have climb all those stairs to put the outside light out at night, you have forgotten what you went up there to do.
And just think of all the white paint you need plus good with the bosun's chair.

 

Candles are not cheap anymore which gets on my wick !

 

I have a pair of lamp trimmers scissors in my tool box, they were always a favourite with Marine Engineers and marine fitters as one of the blades is semicircular with an edge about 3/8" high, which caught the trimmed wick to stop it falling in the oil. The arms had a right angle bend in the so the finger holes were higher than the cutting blades. Of course you had green oil for the stbd light and red oil for the port light and white oil for the white lights.

 

use spellchecker - if you know how

 

I see the press are at it again. Three huge EU Navy ships in Cardiff for R&R and stores (so Taffe I wouldn't go clubbing whilst they are in).

Three huge European warships have arrived in Cardiff Bay

They'll be here for several days

www.walesonline.co.uk

These Huge ships are only minesweepers and they would be dwarfed by any of the ships we sailed on in our day, never mind now.
Perhaps they are bunkering Brains Bitter and giant leeks.
May be first time they've been deep sea and away from home.
The Cardif Mayor has a strange Welsh name Bablin Molik, sounds a bit Soviet Block to me.
The harbourmaster is a boyo. Obviously harbourmasters don't have a uniform now or a tippy cap with a bit of scrambled egg.