Question:
Did you come across much fog?
Yeah, not … not a great deal but enough. Um some of the
skippers, especially George Howard, he was quite good, but, because
don't forget there was no radar, and he used to time himself and I
know you think its strange but going up and down the river you've
got buoys to go by, to the starboard side and to the port
side. He could time himself between each
buoy. Some buoys took two minutes, some buoys took five
minutes, and it could be dense fog and we could virtually go full
ahead. And people would think he was mad but he was so good he used
to time himself between each buoy. If he hadn't seen
that buoy he used to turn the engines off until he saw the buoy and
then start off again. Obviously when it wasn't foggy
that's how he timed himself through the buoys. And
people wondered what he was doing when it wasn't foggy, but he was
setting a plan for when it was foggy.
Question:
Did that frighten you, fog at sea?
It was a bit hairy because don't forget you can't see anything in
front of you, and you have a big bell on the forward end of the tug
which was the responsibility of the deckhands, and you have to ring
it every two or three minutes to make sure that you know if there
was any other ship in the vicinity they can hear that there is
another tug or there's another ship close by. You know,
up and down the river it wasn't so bad.
