43 years, man and boy. It’s a pity there are so few ships left. When I joined there were over 60.
Incidentally when I left, I was the longest serving person ever to have served in the RFA.
Still. The pension is good.
PS. The sister ship to the Wave Knight, the Wave Ruler, was the last one I sailed in.
43 years. All that experience......
ReplyDelete(or Masochism)
I always took pride in passing as much as I could to any aspiring youngster that I thought in need of it.
DeleteI decided it was masochism when I was expected on joining a ship that I had more experience of than anyone, to spend a whole day in induction lectures. Mind you I was hoisted with my own petard. I'd written 50% of it!
As an ex- submariner, I remember at least one RFA in port (Faslane), all the time. Those were the days of the Leaf and Rover class. Mended the radio's of the Gold Rover once. Invited to the mess after. Left ship in a mess! Happy days.
ReplyDeleteThe Rover was usually there to act as atarget for the subs.
DeleteHa! we couldn't have hit it if it had been moored fore and aft and had been painted Day-Glo orange. Something to do with either Mark 8 torpedo's or Tiger Beer.
DeleteI'm sending this from the last remaining Leaf class (Orangeleaf) presently going through FOST training off the south coast. FE will know exactly what we a going through at the moment. Day after day of war games, simulated battle damage and sleep deprivation. I got more rest during the Falklands war when the action was real!
ReplyDeleteI bet you're having fun then. My last workup was on the Fort George as I/C of the MCR. At one stage I had to take MCR control of the engines. However as I turned around to report the fact to HQ1, my AGR snagged the Stbd engine control and put the engine in the astern mode! Believe it or not the staff never even noticed.
DeleteI'm also OOW in the MCR, which is a bit odd as I'm in the daywork billet and don't normally keep a watch apart from standing in for the weapons maintainer occasionally. Apparently the positions were changed as I'm supposedly "more dynamic" than the 4-8 watchkeeper. A bit of a compliment at my age but then at 56 I'm the younger of the two by some way. God, the RFA is getting old!
ReplyDeleteMarine Engineering got a V. Sat overall for todays Thursday war which has cheered me up a bit.
As they say.
DeleteBravo Zulu.