Trip 3 M.V. Painsman

I only had a short break of 2 weeks before joining the Plainsman in Birkenhead towards the end of May 1974.

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My main thought that stands out about '74 was the summer, the UK that year had an unbroken summer where there was glorious sunshine and droughts. We left the UK at the end of May and came back on October 1st and as I recall the whole of the UK was brown in colour and not green! Low and behold the weather broke a week later and my leave was washed out!

The main story for me that trip was the mother of all storms, and thankfully was never repeated during my time at sea.

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We were off the SE coast of Africa heading home, we had to go around the long way as the Suez was still shut. I can remember being on the Bridge where we had a height of eye of 54' above sea level and I was looking up at the waves next to me by some considerable way. There was also a tanker off to port which was ploughing through the seas with ease, unfortunately they  developed a fire onboard and had to turn around in that weather to keep the fire away from their cargo. They managed to get it under control, turn around again and steamed passed us!!