Old school pranks onboard

As a boat building apprentice myself and other newbies were often sent to the stores for things like
A short stand (sorry laddie, none left but try again tomorrow)
A long stand (just wait there laddie, I'll go out back and find one...it may take some time)
Striped paint
A packet of sparks for the angle grinder
Left handed screwdriver
Tin of elbow grease
Paper plane
Elephant seal

One or two poor unfortunates fell for the foremans favorite...they were told to sweep all the wood shavings and loose chippings in the yard down to the waters edge at low tide...so that we could gain another half hour before the tide came back up the slipway.

Overheard the start of one while at a shop. Newbie had been sent off to pick up a heat resistant stainless steel 4 inch muffler bearing. Man behind the counter kept a straight face and suggested that the newbie try another shop. As soon as newbie out the door the call was made to the referred to store. I suspect that newbie was referred on and on for a good part of the day.

When I was on active duty at Pope AFB we had a Tech Sgt that sent a new troup to supply for a gallon of prop wash. We all were waiting for a call from supply laughing about it, about a half hour passed and no call from supply and no troup back from supply. After about an hour had passed the phone rang and Tech Sgt answer the phone, you could see him almost choking on his laughter as he talked on the phone. When he hung it up he almost fell out of his chair laughing because it was one of the supply guys and they were looking for the prop wash, they wanted to know if it came in a plastic container or a metal gallon can. One of them remembered it being in a metal can, we all had a good laugh at that one.

In a previous life in the navy, ( 20 years ago ). I heard of a young fellow being sent to find the Carboom for the 4.5 inch gun

Of course I had NOTHING to do with this
That "bucket of prop wash" is famous here! I have also heard of freshmen sent to retrieve spark plugs for the diesels, ID-10T forms, fresh batteries for the sound powered phones and my favorite "go get the keys for the sea chest."

Some stories from the last cruise...

When one of the liscensed deck officers got annoyed by a deck cadet on watch, he sent the cadet to find some relative bearing grease. He went searching for it but couldnt find it so he went into the officers mess to ask the captain where he could find it. I guess everyone in the mess got a good laugh out of this.

On the engineer side...
My buddy was on watch preparing to switch over gens. We have three but only need to run two at a time. This was the first time he had switched gens so he was nervous about it. He hit the switch to parallel the gens, heard the turbo slowing down...then all the lights went out. Panic now spread through him and he expected the 1st engineer to be running and yelling at him any second. It turns out that the watch engineer had seen that my buddy was nervous and shut off the lights just as the gens were switching over. Not a nice prank to play when you have a limited number of underwear to change into...

Things you learn at a Maritime Academy...

old film story

I hope my English is sufficient for this ..

From an very old B/W German film.

The Capt'n send a newbe to the machine room for a compass wrench. The guy send him back with the biggest wrench he could find.
The Capt'n send it back because it does not fit. After 3 ore more ways the Capt'n says: forget it, i fixed it with my finger nails ....

One day, a long time ago, I was sitting on the bridge of the Coast Guard Cutter Durable, in port GTMO. A new deckie came up to the bridge and asked me if I knew where he could find 20 feet of shoreline so that he could secure the paint locker before getting underway. I managed to keep a straight face and told him to go down to the Chief's Mess and ask there.

Another time, while in our homeport of St Petersburg, FL, I stepped out on the bridge wing to take a break from from chart corrections and saw standing in the parking lot a new deckie wrapped entirely in aluminum foil. He had a vhf radio with him and was being given directions to where to walk. He was not the last person I saw help tune the ships radar.

These are really good, have to admit I have never heard the one about tuning the ships radar before. I guess that comes from being in the Air Force. I laughed very hard at that one, it is not hard to picture some poor young troop out there wrapped in aluminum foil with a radio.

Big strapping farm kid, first day on a rig meeting the ToolPush. The Push gets a really serious look on his face and the kid asks what's wrong thinking that he's already messed up. Push still looking very concerned says something about the rig being out of balance and then points at a large canvas carry case loaded with wrenches. Tells the kid to grab the bag and run out on the floor and watch his hand signals for direction and not to move otherwise. Nothing on a rig is light duty so figure that the wrench bag weighed a good amount, probably close to half the kid's body weight. After maybe 15 minutes of the kid being directed to and fro, back and forth on the floor the Push holds his hand up in a stop signal and the kid stops dead in his tracks. Every few minutes the Push would hold up his thumb and forefinger fairly close together indicating a small move and then the direction of the move. Went on for about an hour and the kid is looking like he's going to drop. Of course there's an entire crew moving about during all this and it doesn't dawn on the kid that the weight of the bag plus his own weight couldn't be making any kind of difference to the structure. When it finally sinks in and the kid cocks his head over with a WTF expression on his face and looks at the Push everyone cracks up.
Kid got to see the trace of his motion across the floor on the tapes from the overhead cameras that evening. His initial motions spelled out his name and the later ones had him puzzled until someone explained that the Push's favourite offtime hobby was ballroom dancing.


Those tapes of everyone that ever went through that exercise are all in permanent storage in the company H.O. Was recently suggested that the tapes be converted on to DVD.

Kale may have most of this stuff... but I'm still looking for the 25' of flight line I was sent out to scrounge some 35 years ago.

Don't have many boat stories, but on airplanes a new flight attendant may be in for some fun:

On a twin engine turpoprop full of passengers, the new F/A was told by the captain that they had problems getting the landing gear out, it was stuck in the wells.
To help the pilots get the gear out the F/A was told go back and in the middle of the aisle, pretty much over the undercarriage, then jump up and down severeal times. The vibration would get the wheels out....

This one is copied from another BB:

CA decides to play a prank and tells his FO to play along as he calls the FA. When she answers, the CA says that his chicken sandwich isn't sitting too well, and could she bring up a sick sack and a can of Ginger Ale? She does and leaves the flight deck.

CA reaches into his flight case and pulls out some apple sauce and a package of oatmeal. He tosses a bit of each into the sick sack, and adds some ginger ale to the mix, then sets the bag down.

Being the good flight attendant that she was, the FA calls up a few minutes later to see how things "have settled". CA calls her up and explains that he "feels better now, but filled up the sick sack and is hungry again." He then proceeds to dip a finger into the bag and pops the "slurry" into his mouth.

FO says "Hey- that looks great! Lemme have some!" and does the same.

FA wigs out. Turns out she's a sympathetic puker... she ended up barfing all over the center console of the plane.
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Another one copied from an aviation bulletin board:

~ The stewardesses (as they were called back then) were often from Latin America, apparently sometimes right off the boat. He would call a newbie up to the cockpit before the passengers boarded, and tell them "In your country, I'm sure you have a welcoming greeting. In the U.S., we like to say I'm constipated." These clueless stews would stand in the doorway repeating the phrase as the pax boarded. One little old lady actually went back to the gift shop and bought the gal some Ex Lax.

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The Chef sending a deck hand to the local fresh fish supplier to get 25lbs of one eyed trouser trout.

The Retro Encabulator slays me every time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtuqjFf7-N4

For those that don’t know me, I fly r/c helicopters. When the term PropWash came up, I was reminded of a story…

About 5 years ago, we hired 2 stewardesses for a day cruise. When they arrived, we were offloading both PWC’s from the upper-aft deck to make room for some plastic lawn chairs and Carl’s “landing pad”. We asked one of the stews to set up the chairs in a circle, with about a 10-foot diameter space in the middle. She asked if a table was going in the middle of the space. I replied “no, this is the helicopter landing pad”. Her somewhat baffled response was “is this boat big enough for a helicopter?” I smiled and said “oh yes, we’ve landed here many times”.

Shortly thereafter, I’m on the dock greeting guests and I see both stews scurrying about on the aft deck, but I didn’t pay much attention. Later, one stew is working the bar and a few guests began talking about my heli. A guest asked when I was going to fly? The stew remarks, “the helicopter hasn’t arrived yet, but the landing pad is ready”.

My brother overhears this and asks “what do you mean the landing pad is ready? The stew, in utter confidence says, “sir, we taped the chairs down to the deck so they won’t blow away”. At this point, realizing good humor in the making, he turned and said with a straight face, “You can remove the tape. Carl will be flying upside down today, so there is no propwash!”

Realizing the error in her judgment, she apologized and tells her co-worker to remove the tape holding down the chairs. Then, in a most professional manner, she turns to my brother and asks “what time will the helicopter arrive?” About the time everyone is ready to bust-out laughing, he takes it to another level. He said… “it depends on whether he’s flying upside down or right side-up. So she asks, “which is faster?” He says, without so much as blinking, “upside down is faster because nothing is hanging beneath the rotor to cause drag”.

To this day, it is not clear if we have re-written the principles of aerodynamics in one stews life, but ever since we revealed the actual heli, we're certain she’ll never repeat the story.

It was tradition on my school ship for the seniors to send a freshman in during the 4-8 am watch to wake the Captain in order to water his Compass Rose.
Not to mention that at some point during the cruise a volunteer list was put up to stand lookout for the mail bouy.

Living in South Florida, I have always had a curiosity. If I were to place empty one gallon jugs at a supermarket and label it "dehydrated water" as a hurricane supply, would I have any takers?