what makes a "good" sailor??

what I meant to say was what do you think makes a good matelot? why did he/she join?, what made em stay?

edited coz I can't speaka da englissh!

 

WTF are you on about. Pleeezzee speaka da Engrish??? ;-)

 

At the most basic level I should have though the following items:-

pair of legs, good working order
pair of arms ditto
pair of eyes sufficient to distinguish branch/rank of another at 5000 yards in fog, unaided
pair of ears capable of listening to any dits tween decks
a mouth capable of staying shut/open as appropriate
a brain - this may seem obvious but these days is just a fashion accessory
coordination - the ability to coordinate brain and mouth at same time
the ability to speak and rite in good inglish, of corse
good sense of humour
a willingness to absorb anything thrown at him/her - knowledge, insults, bricks, bullets, black cats, etc
a propensity not to cry at their first sight of a burly PO
love of wearing strange uniforms, performing eccentric rituals and keeping a straight face

No good for me then! :lol:

 

One thing with all those qualifications you could never be a crusher.

 

The ability to party hard, romp with the ladies, stay out all night and howl at the moon and then arrive back on board five minutes before leave expires and do your job like a professional even if you have the afternoon middle.
Take the good times with the bad, don't blub when you go operational, but do whinge and complain as it is your right as a matelot.
When you hear the boss is going to ask you to do something you don't want to, tell your oppos "if he comes down here telling me to do that i'll tell im to shove it up his rusty bullet hole", then reply to said order with "Yes Chief"...
Have a Cisco egg bacon bap on a dockyard bimble for breakfast and a pint of milk and an oggie for standeasy. Hang around in your civvies ready to shoot over that gangway as soon as leave is piped.

 

I agree Lingyai... well apart from the bit about romping with the ladies, I always kept well clear of the HMS Dryad hockey team.

... at the risk of opening a huge can of worms here... I'd like to get some feedback on what the effect was putting women on ships. Did we make good sailors? I was one of the first batch out of the box to go to sea in 92. However I found most complaints from other crew members were from the new guys who had never served on ships without Wrens. I could certainly understand the old and bold dripping about the bloody girls and perfumed smell coming from the wrens mess and the changes they had to make on board. However I could never understand the whingers who didn't know any different.

 

They probably had some preconceived notions about what it was going to be like (without women)... but were wrong, since the older crew had no problem with it.