Pull up a pew and spin a dit!

[Deleted 7]

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':

Sailors tend to “spin their dits†when feeling relaxed and sociable - often (in times past) after the mid-day issue of grog, or during a make and mend (a half day free of duties) or, best of all, when putting the world to rights in the bar of the Fleet Canteen . Some dits are tall tales, where accuracy may take second place to sensation. Attempts have been made to verify the dits contained in this selection by comparisons between eye witnesses to the events described.

 

[the_matelot]

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.

 

[abacus]

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

 

[flynavy]

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


do you mean 'float testing' ???

 

[Deleted 7]

do you mean 'float testing' ???

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

 

[Merchantman]

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

Quarted Deck means colours to me (shudders)

 

[PompeySailor]

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....."

 

[Deeps]

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.

 

[andym]

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!

 

[UncleAlbert]

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.

 

[Deleted 7]

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!

 

[pots359v]

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!