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RE: 😉 Sailors Dream - "Kidnapping by Submarine at Night"
You are so right, and there is nothing "romantic" about it. Problem on a sub at that time was, that you never got enough sleep. Our captain had a thing for "entertainment" and we constantly had to practice things like "fire on board" or "ingress of water" and so on.
What's your story?
I worked about a year as a fisherman in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic as a young man. No practice, but plenty of hard work. We once had a tour with the duty periods 18-6 (not sure of the real word in English... in Danish it is simply vagt). We were on the sea for 14 days and when I got home i sleept for 24 hours in one go. So being sleepy all the time is also what I remember :)
woah... that sounds like a pretty rough job. Plenty of bad weather and big waves up there too, I imagine. The Danish sounds like the German "Wache" in this context.
Most of our trips were 10 days, which is more than enough. Couple of 3 week tours too, thank god I never had to go on any of the longer trips. We were on duty 4 hours and then 4 hours off, with a 2 hour shift in the afternoon, so crews switched the bad night. The four hours off were not really free time... eat, clean up and "games" depending on the captains mood :-/ Of course one tried to get every minute of sleep possible in a bunk you shared with another crew member 🤢
Surprises me only, that you didn't sleep longer when you got home!
In the winter it is hurricanes all the time up there, so I have been in more than 35 meter/second, but on the smaller wooden boat that I later sign on to 15 m/s and rising felt much more violent than in the larger ship.
But else it sounds much the same - we mostly had our own bunk, but sleeping was the thing you longed for all the time :)
P.S. I think we called 4/4 Wache - Chinese Wache. I mostly went 12 or 14/6 and on the smaller boat we were going out at 3-4 pm - sleeping while we sailed to the fishing spot, then work all day and landing the fish at 11 AM - but I made a hell of a lot of money :)
Hurricane... that's pretty serious. When we got into such weather on the surface, nobody could stay on the bridge and the first officer had to direct the sub from the periscope. We were always happy when we reached our diving area and could get away from such ghastly conditions..
Money was good too on the subs. Some 600 German Mark extra, which was a fortune for us guys at the time. Plus we had the best food :-)
And I saw some nice places in Denmark, we even spent two days in Copenhagen once :-)
We had air dried lamb, air dried cod, pilot whale, boiled lambs heads and other local specialities.
Thing is... we agree that it was not at all romantic, but it does give you access to a secret brotherhood - just look at us chatting away :)
To me it was a great way to be accepted in my family in law (I call them the schooner Hansen-Nielsen). In that family it is important to have been on the sea and I was way more accomplished than most of them.
You are right, the sense of brotherhood is definitely there. Have always felt it with everyone who shared the experience.
The camaraderie on the sub was intense too, particularly since everyone's life depended on everyone else.
Funny thing is, my wife was on a ship too, when she was a young girl... made a much smarter choice than me though. There is a German TV show "Das Traumschiff" (equivalent to the American "Love Boat") and she was a barkeeper and stewardess on that ship!! Her memories are somewhat different 😉
So, your family in law, are they ship owners? Or why is it important to them to have been on the sea?
No, they are not ship-owners, except if you mean small fishing boats. But my wife's oldest uncle has been sailing since he was 14 - sent away due to poverty and divorce after the war, and I guess that in Denmark there is some respect for sailors. It was and still is an important part of your identity.
I found some small bits of Traumschiff on Youtube. Part of my childhood we had German television so it felt quite nostalgic :)
I see. Yes, understand what you say about the identity.. same in northern Germany.
Haha.. we watch it too every now and then. Trip down memory lane... and like I said, much better ship and destinations than I had ;-)