Ex Matelots

[piquet95971]

Hi Chris

With all the time that you have spent on "Success" you will have come across a mate of mine who I believe was on there at the time of the fire. A WO named Murray Sells.

He was on the Melbourne when I was there in the early '80's. I was living in 2 delta c/line mess and he was in charge of the Catapault. The cat room was right outside my mess and the cat itself went through the mess at the deck head which made the mess quite hot!!!!

A top guy who seems to have been hung out to dry in the enquiry about the engine room fire.

Another site you might like to have a look at is the RAN-Skilled hands web site.

Cheers,
Peter

[reddwarf]

hello peter. peter here. ex pomth and crew member of success its a bit of a shock to here of a fire in the engine room , ant one hurt? . and was a cause found? i was on success when we had a etw fall down the cargo lift .not much was done about that

[reddwarf]

hello peter. peter here. ex pomth and crew member of success its a bit of a shock to here of a fire in the engine room , any one hurt? . and was a cause found? i was on success when we had a etw fall down the cargo lift .not much was done about that

[cbsynboat]

Hi Peter S and Peter R,
the only fire I can remember on Success is a switchboard fire a few years back in F11, only very small? Maybe the galley, I don't
know? Maybe you are thinking of the Westralia fire. I was flown on there, from Success as part of a support team on the day of the fire. Having served on there previously, I can say the writing was on the wall for a long time! A WO Murray Sells sounds familiar to me but can't remember when or where. I think he was on Success when I was off, so that is probably why I can't remember. Still a good ship but in desparate need of a good refit (thorough)! Being in the mess when the catapault let go would have been rather exciting, maybe a little bit hotter than desired!

Cheers

Chris.

[reddwarf]

hello again chris .the westralia fire is about the only one i can recall .a great cockup byalot of people .i read some reports seems the g a f attitude prevailed

[piquet95971]

You are correct it was the WESTRAlLIA fire that I was thinking about. I believe that Murray was hung out to dry in the investigation when by what I remember the problem was with the installation of the fuel lines done by a civilian contractor.

It's funny how we managed to get rid of in-house training (read nirimba) and get some second rate contractors doing what should be in-house maintenance.
Happy steaming
Peter

[cbsynboat]

Hi Peter,
they used flexible injector lines on there instead of the usual solid steel lines. What were they thinking? I think from
memory the contracter used to be in the RAN on the ship.

I think closing down Nirimba was a big mistake, you want to see the in house training (or the lack of it) today, you would be horrified.
Instead of teaching the initial trainees basic fitting skills they need, they try make them jack of trades, but in reality they are master of none, and are incapable of all but the most basic of jobs. It is pretty sad the way our training has gone. And the material condition of our ship's show this, particularly Success.

Since the first Gulf War they have been obsessed with DC training, which is not a bad thing but have totally dropped the ball with regard to the material maintenance of ships. All the DC training in the world won't save a ship that is that bad it should have not gone to sea in the first place because of inadequate or shoddy maintenance and they use this as excuse to keep ships at sea when they should be in a maintenance period.

Cheers

Chris.

[piquet95971]

Hi there
The change to the training scheme from the ratstruct system to the sailstruc system was designed by commodore David hothouse. He was an absolute idiot who had been captured by his political masters to change things to save money.

Rear Admiral Hudson didn't help things after the Melbourne paid off as he was reported to say that we could do more with less. Hence minimum manning on ffg etc.

I did my apprenticeship as a shipwright at Nirimba in the late 1960's and then posted to the Sydney doing Viet Nam runs. And then on to a proper warie the Perth
My last two postings were at Cerberus running the slipway and the boats workshop and then to CPSO managing the Melbourne stock of housing. CPSO was a good job for getting high PP1s but no good for promotion or trade skills.

Am just taking a break from nail and roving of a couple of planks on the boat. Gosh I'd forgotten how slow it is to nail and rove planks. No wonder the boat building systems have changed so much it would cost way too much to get someone else to do this sort of work

Have a happy Aust day
Cheers to all
Peter Sneddon

[reddwarf]

unfortunatly with the navy ,there has been a trend to save money and try any thing eg alignment trainig where a three month course makes you a greenie out a stoker, multi tasking . what ever happened to trade people .what is the training now

[cbsynboat]

Hi Peter S and Peter R,
first we had ratstruc, then sailstruc and then Technical Training Plan 92 (TTP92), what a disasster! At present we have some offshoot of TTP92, I can't keep up with all the changes to the initial techos training. I think they initially do just six months know, cut down from about 18 months. So they are even worse than before! I think they are thinking about going back to phase type training under another name? But at present I think the initial 6 month course is about all. I was trained under the sailstruc phase system, initially TTP92 sounded OK. What the Grey Funnel Line clearly forgot about, was that multi skilled people on the outside had a full trade with experience prior to undertaking other skills. Someone who is supposedly multiskilled with no core skill is next to useless! Peter, Reddwarf looks great at Penrith! Take care.

Cheers
Chris.