Pull up a pew and spin a dit!

Thought I'd get this started while I'm here.

Imagine its a Monday morning, your on the FX and recovering from a heavy weekend trying to avoid that hole called Jesters (Which you end up in either way!). Part of ship was always boring until that one dit pops up and has you all giggling!

So who's spinning.................................

P.S remember that 'Gen dit no sh1te' is always counted!

The history of the 'dit':

 

It never fails to make me laugh but I've got it on VERY good source that one of the bootie teams embarked on a Type 22 (Begins with B and ends in razen!!)in the late 80's managed to ND with a LAW 66 in their barracks (FYI, the Royal Marines messdeck onboard is known as the Barracks).

And YOU thought Matelots with guns were dangerous.

 

Well on the basis that all the guilty buggers (allegedly) are long since retired I suppose the tale of a certain fleet of Clyde Coast Fishing Boats visiting Reclaim when she was visiting Greenock in the late 70s is worth airing.

Being just a kid at the time, I have no idea what arrrangements were entered into but the visit was a splendid affair and it should be noted that, as a result, the owners of the Loch Toscaig, Stack Rock and Golden Dawn never bought another warp, fender or life raft for at least the next couple of fishing seasons. One of them never again sadly there may well be tales of the Loch Toscaig to follow.

As a pre-teen I was rather impressed by the speed with which the adults disappeared into the Ward Room (although a tad less impressed with being left to navigate a trawler back to the Dallandhui at Garelochhhead via the Rhu Narrows at night with her twin tied alongside and the skipper tied below decks. Those were the days before they locked adults up for being criminally irresponsible - although I always wondered what the Polaris Boats would have thought if only they had known that I could steer the thing but hadn't a bloody clue how to make it stop - I could always sail in circles though until the adults sobered up enough to bring her alongside.

Needless to say, while the adults kept each other occupied with alcohol - and visiting ladies Mother Abs would not have been impressed about - my task was to "help" a few of Reclaim's Ratings dispose of "damaged" equipment.

Pardon me for being a bit sniffy as to the IQ of your average sea-borne serviceman but you see I had imprinted on my childhood memory the fact that you lot couldn't tell the difference between a thump and a splash when discarding "waste" over the side. :lol:

Cheers guys, much appreciated.

Abs

 

you lot couldn't tell the difference between a thump and a splash when discarding "waste" over the side.


do you mean 'float testing' ???

 

Oh I have tested many caps, there must be at least 5 of my caps in the Med sea!

 

This forum shold be called "Dirty Dicks" every sailors favourite pub!

Quarted Deck means colours to me (shudders)

 

OK, it's a recent one, and it's second hand (but I have no reason to doubt the truth.)

A certain fairly senior officer has taken up kayaking, and goes to Collingwood to use their pool. He needs a new car pass, so, in trackies he goes to the window where the killick i/c car passes is waiting. He hands over his ID card.

Killick - Radm? What the **** is this, are you having a laugh? There's no such rate as Radm?
3 x ABs behind him gasp and cough.
Killick, through a dark and dusty dawn of revelation - Oh no. It doesn't mean Rear Admiral, does it?
Rear Admiral - yes, I'm afraid it does.
Killick - (and this is the response that saved him) - S'pose I'd better go and get me 'at then Sir?
Rear Admiral - no, just engage brain for before mouth next time.

True dit. Related to me by the Rear Admiral concerned.

Another nice little one.

Rear Admiral Cooke-Priest was going outside, and decided to test the release routine at Nelson. Anonymously. He told his Secretary that he was going to just turn up and see how they treated him. Being a good Secretary, he phoned ahead to Nelson and warned them off.

Cooke-Priest turns up, and presents himself to the Duty Writer.

"What's your name then?"
"Cooke-Priest"
"Well **** off over there Chef, we're waiting for some effing Admiral to turn up and it's supposed to be a quiet job....."

 

This is a famous ''safe guard all clips on dit'' i know because i was the bosuns mate. Whilst alongside middle slip jetty in pompey we were berth next to HMS Exeter nothing strange about that my ship was the Nottingham . Anyway normal friday night , the lads go ashore . About 3 am my oppo staggers up the gangway with his kebab says hello ''GIT'' then crosses over to the Exeter . I guessed he had an oppo on it so i ignored it . Anyway up in the morning to slip the Exeter then turn too . Buffer starts to ask where AB [email protected] is. I said he came back onboard from his night out down JO's . A few hours later the buffer grabs me and asks if there was something i was'nt telling him , i had a good think and said no ''well'' says the buffer ''that cnut [email protected] is now expaining to the JOSS on the Exeter why he is on the wrong ship which is now half way to bost at Portland . Turns out my oppo could'nt remember getting back to the jetty and got in his rack on memory alone . The same pit on the Exeter (which happened to be empty ) and got his head down ,only to be woken up after harbour stations on the Exeter .
I got a major [email protected] and he got 7 days nines . The skipper was [email protected]@ing himself at defaulters . A lesson for me as i was only 16 at the time . I have heard the same story a few times over the years and i have been forced to correct the story teller on a few facts . My next ''matelot memory'' about having to go to the skippers table for ''non-payment'' of
bunk light bill i will save for later.

 

Well i was sat on me favourite bollard the other day and thought about a few dits(cant be sea dits etc etc)So here goes/


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1978 me and my Oppo John English(WAFU) went on leave from Raleigh back to Scarborough.Little did we know what fun and games we'd have!On the 2nd day we were walking down the main street in Scarbs when we were accosted by a Constabule!We were taken to the nick and quizzed for a few mins,untill i showed them my Leave pass.We were arrested 5 times that day!Apparently 2 lads had escaped from a Borstal in York and me and john fitted the descriptions to a tee!We eventually got a chit from the Head Plod to show if we were accosted again!



a few days later we went to Cayton Bay for a bevvie,was sat in the bar after a few beers when this bloke comes up and says
"ID cads lads!"

"Fu*k off "Quoth the both of us!"Who the f*ck are you to ask for ID?"
"Me?" he says with an oily ******* smirk.and brandishes his RN ID card

MAA it said!Holy shit! poor John was underage with that blue line on his ID

So the up shot was he took our names etc and told Johnny to report back to the Reg Office on his return to Lee On Solent as he was going to report him for underage drinking!
He never did go to the reg Office as far as i know but it was funny as fu*k at the time!

 

Able seaman Taffe was a good lad but could only be described as, a couple of cards short of a full deck. We all thought that it was probably due to interbreeding in the small welsh village where he was raised. The amazing thing was how he ever got in the navy at all, but of course we all had a theory on that as well, him being a good looking lad we reckoned one (or all) of the selection board fell in love with him.



Anyway in 62 on board HMS Carron, a destroyer doing day running from Pompey, he had found his perfect role in life as the lifebuoy sentry and positioned as he was on the quarterdeck at the stern of the ship he was also the one with the responsibility of dipping the ensign.
Out at sea he took his job very seriously and I must admit he was the best ensign dipperer I have ever seen , with perfect timing he carried out his duties in all weathers.
What are you going to do when you get out ? asked the skipper, on one of his strolls around the ship, Well said Taffy , the lads said I should apply to be lifebuoy sentry on Southsea Pier. Excellent, said the Skipper, carry on.
Any Jack tar will tell you that the run up from Hurst to Southampton water before entering Pompey can be very hectic. Every boat out in the Solent comes to have a look. But the worst is the speedboats (or nowadays ribs) that criss cross the bows and stern homing in like Kamikaze pilots then turning off at the last minute. Taffy couldn’t handle this at all and took to keeping a sack of spuds to throw at the speeders, trouble was he was a useless aim and never hit any.
Then one day after we had secured at our berth in the dockyard, the skipper came aft from the bridge, I want a word with you Taffe, he said, we’ve just had a signal from the coastguard saying they have had a call from a member of the public saying someone has been throwing large pototatoes at him from this ship and although they were falling short he wished to protest, was that you? Yes sir, said Taff, well don`t do it again, said the skipper, In future use the smaller ones, they travel further.

…………
personal photo.

 

I have been blessed with the ‘unlucky’ streak of running aground, with HMS Campbeltown!

OK, I have to point out this wasn’t actually my fault, I may have been on watch in the ops room but that was radar. The bridge should have been keeping an eye on the depth. Any way, smudge and I decided to go for a cig on the fwd sea wolf deck. We were on transit down the Norwegian fjords, on the way back from our Russian ‘convey’ remembrance trip. It’s a beautiful part of the world, any way, there was a massive cruise ship heading towards up. From what I gather there was a language barrier aka they couldn’t understand a word we were saying. While this was going on, smudge joked ‘wouldn’t it be funny if we collided with that ship or ran aground’, I laughed and on that note we made our way down to the Ops room. With in seconds of us sitting down at the plot, the ship jolted to a Holt, too suddenly and everything in the Ops room (including the on watch) were thrown to one side of the room.

Next thing we know is the bridge going Looney over the headsets, people shouting and alarms going off. The CBM came storming through the Ops room follow extremely closely by the Ops Officer. All we could do was sit there, take down what we were listening to and what ever was going on over the intercoms. I can remember my Mess was over the Sea Wolf Mag and then a fire being discovered in that exact spot! Panic set in with every one, see being stuck in the Ops room and not knowing the whole thing and hearing people screaming mad and running round like headless chickens kind of worries you!

Any way, I opted to go up on deck and help out. Went towards the FX and jumped in for the cable crew. The P.O. POS was screaming ‘don’t any of you straddle any rope/cables or anything, be careful and if I see you crossing what I just said, there will be murder!’ We were securing a tow rope, got it into place and made our way towards the break water, next thing you heard was the P.O. screaming ‘GET OUT THE FCUKING WAY NOWWWWWWWW!!’ and on that note any one on the FX hurdled the cable and anything in the way to dive for cover. The tow rope had snapped and was spinning in the air before in came down with a thud and broke any tools we had on the deck. For all those that know by now, that rope can take a body part off with in seconds.

Mind you, after that was over, we did get 4 weeks in Tromso with loads of extra dosh and time off!

We found out that we had 2 choices, collide into a cruise ship with 1000 people on board and do too much damage or go into the shallow and run aground

OPs!

 

i was on the invince when we ran aground in norway. taking part in the cold winter exercise we were at anchor when the anchor chain parted. we drifted to aground in a fjord overlooking some poor chaps house. i remember the skipper going ashore to placate the locals. when he came back onboard somebody asked him if we could claim a days loa!

 

This Gen Dit happened about 7 years ago. My mate who was a mackem and a marlin spike short of a rigging set, was tired of being in the mob. He was always getting into trouble and was a regular feature at defaulters. He decides to go on the trot. Rather than keep quiet about it, he tells everyone that he is planning to do a runner on Pay day. Pay day comes along and he finds that his Pay has been stopped, someone has informed the head shed and they have taken action. Undettered by this he manages to blag a train journey to Sunderland by hiding in the heads to avoid ticket inspection. Knowing that the first place the reggies would look for him would be at his mum's house, he decides the best course of action is to lie low and camp in the woods nearby until the heat dies down. He has just over ten pounds on him, so you would have thought he would buy just the essentials for a lengthy stay in the woods, such as bottled water, matches for a fire, dry food which is non perishable, something to make a shelter with. He bought 8 cans of baked beans(negative can opener), a 4 pack of coke and finally 2 porn mags (1 Razzle and 1 Men's World). He survived 1 week camping in the woods, smashing baked bean tins in to rocks to open them,and wanking himself stupid, before he finally succumbed to hypothermia and gave himself in to the police.
He recovered in hospital and is now outside.

 

Jenny_Dabber I was at Whitehall and talking to Campbeltowns MCO at that time, I can remember hearing the alarms going off and muffled pipes through the phone and said to the lass on the other end..."mmm I think you need to go now don't you !!!" we read about it all later !

 

Ha Ha Ha Good dit ! :lol:

 

Its all true 'onest Guv.

New Bridge for Old
(How to re-design an O Boats Bridge)


One fine day in May 1971 Her Majesties Submarine Opportune SSK20 was quietly weaving along at various depths about two hundred miles south west of the Sicily Isles. Our gain-full employment was to test sonar arrays, which were later to be part of the 2000 series sonar sets. El Capitano feeling bored and unhappy with two thirds of his motley crew tucked up in their smelly pits decides to close up the attack team and practice on a poor unsuspecting passing merchantman that had just happened along our part of the South West Approaches. We tumble out of our bunks and gallop off to the Control Room, looking out of course for a Senior Rate or Officer coming in the opposite direction down the 24-inch wide passage to trample over.

Oh! me, I was the Leading Hand of the forward mess, Rader Plotter 2 and Navigator’s Yeoman together with various other tasks assigned to me by people various, but I must admit to an aversion to Chief Stokers, GI’s and Jossmen. Arriving at my allotted position on the front side of the back plot, I donned my regulation head set and mike, scooped up various chino-graph pencils, slide rule and assorted protractors. Had the Sound Room and Local Operation Plot loud and clear and off we go building up a picture of the target. The Captain is on the attack or forward periscope, the signalman is shadowing his movements reading off angles and bearings as required. Other than the Captain did not have his cap on back to front it was just like the movies, loads of tense people talking in hushed tones, when required, practicing what they were trained to do, convert a skimmer into a submarine.

For a reason known only to God and his able assistant our Captain, he, that’s the Captain not God, suddenly stood back from the periscope and says, “I am incapacitated, First Lieutenant take over the attackâ€. Well you could have heard a pin drop or even a Leander Frigate pinging away at Portland, so steps forward the man of the moment Lt. Tom Le Marchant, later to be Captain SM10. Very soon he is gripping the handles of the attack scope and getting into the attack. Old ‘Mr. I Am Incapacitated’ is on the search or aft periscope checking on proceedings. Unfortunately this instrument is four foot shorter than the attack scope so spends a long time under the surface where the Captain can see only a milky green haze.

The proceedings are now reaching a climax, don’t even go there, and we prepare to fire water shots at the target i.e. fire the water in two empty tubes out, this makes the fore-endies, TAS Weapons ratings, feel involved in the proceedings. Then Tom Le Marchant orders the Coxswain on the one-man band, combined helm and planes, to take us to 200 feet. The bow down angle increases and we had just about reached 100 foot when the most almighty bang and the bow down angle increase. All water tight doors and bulkheads were slammed shut about 2 seconds before the Engineer Officer gave the order. All compartments reported no damage or flooding but we carried on going down.

Now one of the laws of physics is as a submarine goes deeper the water pressure compresses it, this makes it heavier, which make it go down faster, which compresses it further, this of course makes it heavier. I will leave the rest up to you, suffice it to say; us that had sight of a depth gauge thought well how deep can we go. The ballast pump was pumping away for all it was worth and as we reach 800 foot, well it may have only been 700, the Captain ordered Main Ballast to be blown. Up we popped like a champagne cork no chance of a one all round look on a periscope or sonar search for surface contacts which is normal when coming up from deep. Being the soul who sat just about under the tower I was ordered to test the tower for flooding then open the lower lid. Then open up the upper lid, this would not open fully due to various bits of metal and fibreglass, which had previously been the bridge and front end of our fin. Up goes the outside wrecker, skilled tiffie, to cut away the wreckage so that the OOW and Lookout could occupy the radar mast well as a temporary bridge.

It was soon discovered that the merchantman, recently out of dry dock, yes a 2-foot by 1-foot new zinc anode was embedded in the fin, had taken off the front upper area of the fin. Later investigations concluded that the 1st Lieutenant had been over estimating the range putting us closer to the target than anticipated. Both our periscopes were well dead and we were ordered to Portsmouth for dry-docking while new scopes were fitted then calibrated.

Six weeks minimums we were told. Well every cloud has a silver lining, I had been married only four months and lived near Guildford, after bunging the chart correction unit in HMS Dolphin 200 duty free fags to correct my charts, and the staff at Guildford Royal Navy and Royal Marines Recruitment Office a bottle of rum I was duly drafted to the same recruitment office and shown as RA for the only time in my naval career.

Nutty

 

10/10 for effort! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

If I can remember it was the 9th September 2001! We were demanded not to tell any one back home too. Think a cork was put in that within an hour of running aground, the whole European press had swammed, taking photos etc. Oh and passengers on the ferry were taping it all!

 

Jenny_

Couldn’t you have just sent some dabtoes over the side to pretend to paint the bottom or sommat. Then the peeps on the ferries would think you done it on purpose.

 

Would have done that but seeing as the water was 2meters in depth and clear as crystal, it was hard to cover up the STBD prop/blades being inbedded into the ground