Had me rolling on the floor

Had me roling on the floor

+1

Excellent!

I tend to find an ounce of verity in almost everything I see or hear these days. Just the title of the video (19)STCW(45) reminded me of the end of WWII in Europe...?!

More to the point, it reminded me that during the early years of WWII, the merchant marine suffered truly horrendous losses of personnel when transporting vital supplies across the Atlantic to the UK and Russia. To the point that any civilian who could simply tie a bow-line would automatically be appointed bosun aboard a 5,000 ton cargo ship*. And anyone with minimal experience as skipper of even the smallest sailing yacht might expect to find themselves appointed as 2nd or 3rd mate or even chief mate, without further ado. Even the Royal Navy at the time experienced severe shortages of qualified crew. The "dinghy-sailor" above would often be appointed as a junior officer aboard a warship and could find himself as "the Captain" of a corvette or destroyer a mere 2-3 years later...

So you see, from my point of view, the greatest nations in history have shown a propensity to accommodate when faced with the direst circumstances in the past. In 2012, "they" may choose to over-regulate for whatever reasons (legislators are paid fat salaries to do just that, otherwise how else to justify it all), but if or when it ever becomes vitally necessary, they can and will revert to the very basics.

So, all you RYA / MCA YachtMasters (with or without commercial endorsements), how do you feel about taking command of the Royal Navy's latest type 45 guided missile destroyer, aptly named HMS Daring - would you dare?

* Note to above: I once worked aboard a 55m motoryacht with a German skipper. We'd already operated for 9 months, traversing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without an official bosun aboard. I'd sort of assumed this role with some help from the French 1st officer, organising and supervising the 3 other ABs. No problems, until the day we were informed that the new bosun would be joining the vessel in Tahiti. "Have I not sufficiently displayed my competence" I asked him? "airship", he calmly replied, "it takes a minimum 10 years for an AB to accumulate sufficient expertise and knowledge before becoming bosun...". I was going to reply visciously "und zat is vhy you lost ze last var", but decided against, having already seen how upset he became after having found the crew watching the movie "Patton" one evening in the crew's mess. I believe it was a scene where Rommel was explaining to the Fuhrer why he was back in Germany with the flu and not in north Afrika. Our skipper simply blurted out something about "How can you watch such utter rubbish" before storming out and back upto his quarters...

What a great story!

Truth is stranger than fiction!

Thank you! Filling in the boxes on the innumerable forms instead of checking them off... Oh my, the possibilities... How tiny a font, text wrapped to fit the little check boxes.....