Earnings

[VNA]

The Captain wrote a shit report and tried to get the chief engineer sacked for refusing to discharge the CO2. Thankfully I never sailed with that Captain again. I was the missing man.

Promote that Captain now! :lol

I do remember my first fire training.  A lot of it was done in welded together shipping containers, two stories high with hatches and vertical  ladders etc.  Some where on the ground floor a massive bonfire was lit, water was run through the complex to keep it cool and stop the containers distorting (or going on fire? :eek ).  We went in the top and played out our games.  Once you got used to it I quite enjoyed it.  At the end of each exercise one person got a shot at putting out the bonfire.  Now back then you used your ears to gauge heat.  We were told if we couldn't bear the pain from our ears we needed to back off or get out.  The only thing was I had long hair, lots if it, so I was given a fire hood (we were told these were used for fighting ship fires cos the ship was more important than the men on it - ie middle of ocean - well if you wanna live you wanna keep the ship afloat - so they would fight the fire till they dropped - anyway that's what they told us). 

Anyway it came to my turn to put out the fire under the supervision of one of the instructors.  Seeing as they had played no end of tricks on us, well I figured it was my turn to have a little fun.  He told me to hit the base of the fire and when I felt too much heat to knock it off.  So opened the hose right up and kept it right on the base of the fire.  Boy did I feel the heat, Jesus, shit loads of steam blasting back at me, but I didn't shut it off, I kept it going, my ears tucked safely under my flash hood.  Didn't knock it off till the instructor was screaming in a high pitched agonising howl "SHUT THE FUCKING WATER OFF - AAAAAAGH - SHUT IT OFF NOW - FUCKIN NOW - AAAAAAAGH!!!!"

The firemen were all fully confident they could take more heat than us amatuers, but yup, he forgot about my flash hood.

His ears were burning red for days :lol    And don't worry he got a good few more back at me. :lol  I think that fella picked me out for special treatment for the rest of the week :lol  Worth it :lol  Top bloke. 

The other thing I remember was one of the lads had a big mop of curly hair, some of it stuck out from under his hat a bit.  We did the hot hatch exercise.  They let the fire go a bit in the lower section, then open one of the hatches near the fire going from the 1st floor to the ground.  It's so you know what too much heat will feel like.  When the lad with the curly hair went down his brim right round his hat lit up for a couple of seconds, saved him a hair cut I think.

I tell you, if you think firemen are overpaid you wanna try a fire fighting course.  They deserve every penny they get.