Lifeline that rescued my capsized career
AS A 17-year-old assistant purser aboard the BI cargo passenger liner S.S. Kenya in 1957, I was required to obtain a certificate of efficiency in handling a lifeboat in order to qualify for promotion. The day of my test came while the ship was anchored in the Port of Tanga in Tanzania. A full-scale lifeboat drill took place, watched with great interest by hundreds of passengers lining the deck rails. I managed to lower my manually propelled lifeboat, load the 30 crew and take it round the harbour and bring it back alongside, attach the falls fore and aft, and signal for the motor, four decks above, to lift us out of the water back to the boat deck. To my horror, the mirth of the spectators lining the rails and the fury of the captain watching the exercise from the bridge, the boat upended — tipping half its occupants into the shark-infested waters. I had attached the stern fall of the boat in front of mine to my bow and my own boat’s forward fall to our stern — as a consequence of which we were lifted only by the stern. Thanks to an alert Indian deck hand, the operation was stopped and we were lowered back into the water, where we rescued the none-too-happy crew members who had taken an unexpected dip. I could hear the captain bellowing through a loud hailer from the bridge: ‘I’ve never witnessed such an incompetent display of seamanship in all my years at sea. Report to the bridge immediately.’ Safely back aboard with my tail between my legs, I made my way shamefacedly and somewhat fearfully to the Bridge, where ‘God’ took one look at me and screamed: ‘Get off my bridge before I throw you off!’ Puzzled as to how I had escaped an expected firstclass rollicking, I learned from colleagues that in the few minutes it had taken for me to get from my boat to the bridge, the First Officer, who was in charge of the ship’s only motorised lifeboat, had managed to run it onto a hidden reef, tearing a hole in the hull and causing extensive damage. Compared to this disaster, my own display of maritime incompetence had paled into insignificance. Robert (Bob) Readman,
Bournemouth, Dorset.