In May this year I though I'd struck the best opportunity of a lifetime fishing on a Scottish registered Trawler in the Irish sea.
When I arrived at port to board the vessel and on setting eyes on her I knew instantly that I'd made a huge mistake.She was a Scallop Beam dredger with the most undesirable looking phillipene and Russian crew. Being to proud to turn around and walk away (1st mistake) there and then I boarded her. There was no turning back from that moment onward. The nightmare had begun.
Little did I know that besides the Skipper who has to be the biggest piss artist on water (and i've seen a few), myself and the first mate were the only English speaking people soon to be 100s of Miles from anywhere. The other crew members could not even understand the most basic english words.
The sleeping quarters were a total dump which had a constant damp stench to it, although it didn't matter because I was soon to find out that the word sleep doesn't exist on this vessel. It turned out that we were short of crew members which meant that there was no rotation system/shift system, when that dredded buzzer sounded it was all hands on deck.
To cut a very long story short. My routine for a full week was, 1 hour sleep, 1 hour work. The dredges were put out for an hour at a time. During this time we all tried to get some shut eye. The most obnoctious sounding buzzer would sound every hour on the hour for all hands on deck. If it took longer to clear the bellies (dredges), replace the sword & springs, size the scallops and pack them below deck into the ice room, sorry for you, the buzzer still sounded on the hour even if you had just completed the previous task 15mins ago.
As I was the only one on deck that undrstood the skippers constant swearing and screaming I found myself doubling my workload by helping the other guys out, running around deck helping wherever I could just to shut the constant whinning sound coming out of the skippers mouth.
When he discovered I could weld (2nd mistake) it was tickets for me, things just went from bad to worse. The only time we had any rest in the week aboard was when the Skipper passed out drunk as a fart in the galley. We left him where he lay and took advantage of any rest we could get. We even hoped the vessel would run aground and the nightmare would end.
After about 4 hours the skipper stumbled back up to the wheel house.
I wanted to jump overboard when I saw the state of the Bellies and riging from being dragged over the seabed with 8 tonns of rock and crap in them for 4 hours, the ships engineer was recovering from arc eyes from a previous incident and I was left to do the welding and welding and weldind and , you get the picture.
It was only a gale force 9 that came to our rescue and snapped the port side beam in two. It was off to the nearest port for us to await repairs. I must say though it was the fastest I've walked away from a vessel and fishing opportunity in my life. Even the skippers complements of that he wishes he had 10 South African crew members wasn't going to change my mind I was gone.
I walked into the nearest little hotel I could find basically demanded a room regardless of my state & smell. I can honestly say it was the first time I showered for a week. After drying myself it was the first time myself and my clothes were dry in a week. The sleep, beer and dinner that night was like heaven.
Guys consider my misfortune as me taking one for the team, it's never ever going to be as good as it looks or is made out to be. I'm glad I had the experience/adventure, but never again!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I arrived at port to board the vessel and on setting eyes on her I knew instantly that I'd made a huge mistake.She was a Scallop Beam dredger with the most undesirable looking phillipene and Russian crew. Being to proud to turn around and walk away (1st mistake) there and then I boarded her. There was no turning back from that moment onward. The nightmare had begun.
Little did I know that besides the Skipper who has to be the biggest piss artist on water (and i've seen a few), myself and the first mate were the only English speaking people soon to be 100s of Miles from anywhere. The other crew members could not even understand the most basic english words.
The sleeping quarters were a total dump which had a constant damp stench to it, although it didn't matter because I was soon to find out that the word sleep doesn't exist on this vessel. It turned out that we were short of crew members which meant that there was no rotation system/shift system, when that dredded buzzer sounded it was all hands on deck.
To cut a very long story short. My routine for a full week was, 1 hour sleep, 1 hour work. The dredges were put out for an hour at a time. During this time we all tried to get some shut eye. The most obnoctious sounding buzzer would sound every hour on the hour for all hands on deck. If it took longer to clear the bellies (dredges), replace the sword & springs, size the scallops and pack them below deck into the ice room, sorry for you, the buzzer still sounded on the hour even if you had just completed the previous task 15mins ago.
As I was the only one on deck that undrstood the skippers constant swearing and screaming I found myself doubling my workload by helping the other guys out, running around deck helping wherever I could just to shut the constant whinning sound coming out of the skippers mouth.
When he discovered I could weld (2nd mistake) it was tickets for me, things just went from bad to worse. The only time we had any rest in the week aboard was when the Skipper passed out drunk as a fart in the galley. We left him where he lay and took advantage of any rest we could get. We even hoped the vessel would run aground and the nightmare would end.
After about 4 hours the skipper stumbled back up to the wheel house.
I wanted to jump overboard when I saw the state of the Bellies and riging from being dragged over the seabed with 8 tonns of rock and crap in them for 4 hours, the ships engineer was recovering from arc eyes from a previous incident and I was left to do the welding and welding and weldind and , you get the picture.
It was only a gale force 9 that came to our rescue and snapped the port side beam in two. It was off to the nearest port for us to await repairs. I must say though it was the fastest I've walked away from a vessel and fishing opportunity in my life. Even the skippers complements of that he wishes he had 10 South African crew members wasn't going to change my mind I was gone.
I walked into the nearest little hotel I could find basically demanded a room regardless of my state & smell. I can honestly say it was the first time I showered for a week. After drying myself it was the first time myself and my clothes were dry in a week. The sleep, beer and dinner that night was like heaven.
Guys consider my misfortune as me taking one for the team, it's never ever going to be as good as it looks or is made out to be. I'm glad I had the experience/adventure, but never again!!!!!!!!!!!!!