Quote:
Originally Posted by RAL's_pal?
cRusty was a Shipfitter for his first 9 years but found a drafting table was harder to lose than a sledge hammer.  |
I NEVER lost a sledge hammer. BUT there are a few ball peen hammers, centerpunches and crescent wrenches either still at the bottom of the harbor (if not dredged up to fill in the dry docks) or at the bottom of some tank in an AO (USS Cacapon to be exact).
Also a good briar pipe I used to smoke.
My paycheck almost drowned as well. I had it slipped under the webbing of my hard hat. In those days, the sailors were paid in two-dollar bills and one superstitious sailor had one left to exchange for ones. So I bought it off of him and we broke for lunch.
After lunch we went back to our work area along the main deck where we were installing life lines. I THOUGHT I had the life line sister hooks secure enough where all I had to do was tighten the turnbuckle.
I didn't.
How fast you can reason out options in a couple of seconds was well demonstrated to me. There was a barge tied along side with its corner only a few feet away plus its mooring lines. As I was pitching forward I was thinking of jumping to the mooring lines but by that time my angle was getting too low -- too fast.
I remembered I had the lifeline well secured at the other end so I just hung onto it. My arms came up over my head knocking my hard hat off WITH MY PAYCHECK IN IT and knocking my glasses off as well. I swung toward the aft end of the ship on that line and raised my knees to catch my glasses (I was very near sighted and without them couldn't even drive home).
My helper and our welder came running over to the point where I fell and couldn't see me at first except for my hard hat floating upside down and heading out to sea between the ship and the barge.
Then they saw me hanging on by the after handrail stanchion and I was thinking if my hands were strong enough to climb up without losing my glasses. Just then our welder, a big guy named Bevins with very long arms, grabbed hold of the line and hoisted me up in only three pulls. I'm still dangling by his hands and asking our helper, Eddie Reyes, to grab my glasses for me.
Then Bevins made a fishhook out of a welding rod, tied it to some sisal line and fished my hard hat out of the water so I didn't lose my pay check and only the heels of my boots got wet.
But I will never buy a two-dollar bill again off of any superstitious person who thinks they bring bad luck.