Smudger Snippets: The Second Work Party
Created | Updated May 2, 2010
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
The Second Work Party
I can't believe that it's been a year since our last working party on board HMY Britannia, and yet here I am sitting in my hotel room writing to you all. It seems that not even the ban on flights has stopped people coming from all over the UK, even if it did mean arriving a day late, they still made it, and twice as many have turned up as were at last year's group. It just goes to show the level of dedication these old Yotties have, to be able to take part in this year's working party. I do believe, however, that it was the success of last year's event being talked about on our Yottie website, as well as the pictures we posted up on there when we all returned home, which encouraged them to come.
With this in mind I took a lot of pictures of the blokes actually working on all the jobs that the staff needed help with, as last year most of the photos I took of the Yotties was with them all standing in groups, at Tot time or for the morning muster for prayers. I hope that by posting these pictures onto our website it will give the blokes who have never attended a work party before a chance to see what we do on these weeks. In fact I took so many I will have to check with the site admin before I post them up, as all the blokes will probably want copies of them. Due to the success of these work parties the association are now planning make to them an annual event for the years to come.
This success is also shared with the full time staff that work on board the Yacht, as well as all the visitors who come to do the tour around it. We were on the local TV news last year with it being the first work party we did, and after seeing us on the news some of the visitors were actually phoning up to ask if we were still on board, before they came to do the tour. We have a fantastic interaction with all the tourists who come from all over the world to see the Yacht, while they are in Scotland. Not only do they stop to talk to us and have a laugh, they also like to ask us questions about what it was like on board, and ask us to pose for pictures with them for their albums.
I think it's because we all wear white overalls with the Yottie crest on them, along with our white plimsolls, like we used to wear in the old days, that we tend to stand out from the rest of the staff and guides. The only sad part about it all is that our numbers are reducing with every year that passes due to our old shipmates passing on, and of course there won't be any more new members in the future as the Yacht was decommissioned back in the nineties. We have a thread on our website where they are all remembered and we have their photographs along with a brief story of their time on board in there as well, lest we forget.
The atmosphere on board during these work parties is simply amazing, just like the old days really. We never had a Tannoy loudspeaker system for communication with the crew, all we had was a simple notice board system, which we had to read every morning to see what we had to do, and where we had to be at certain times throughout the day. This board could be modified in case of any last minute changes, by a colour system, Red, White and Yellow, with White hot being the most important, superseding any other colour.
It was quite an amazing system, when you consider that there was a crew of around 300, with many events happening the same day. When we were on Royal Duty, we used to have Banquets on board with up to1,500 guests, all of whom had to be ferried to and from the ship, along with the normal daily routine. It was hard work, yet everything that needed doing was done, quickly and silently. I think that was what made being a Yottie special, and that bond has stayed with us all ever since, and even to this day after all these years.
An example of this team work is when we used to 'dress ship', which means a 3/4 inch wire cable with some 120 flags attached to it would appear from nowhere, then be raised right up to the top of the masts, all three of them, and run the whole 360 foot length of the ship. This took a lot of team work and effort from around six groups of Yotties on the upper deck and another two inside the funnel itself, to release and then tie down the middle section of the cable, and all done in perfect silence, with just one hand signal from the bridge wing.
It could a really tricky situation if there was any kind of side wind, as six of the Yotties would pull the cable at their various sections, while the seventh man would insert the locking pin into the shackle, when it reached the right position. The end result would look really impressive to anyone watching from the sea or shore, and in fact was filmed by many spectators wherever we went in the world. The dress ship routine would be carried out while entering a harbour, or anchoring offshore, while we were on Royal Duty, which means that members of the Royal Family would be on board.
I was going to finish this Snippet off when I got back home, but to be honest I don't think there is any need to add more to it, as I have written everything down that needed to be said. So I will go on-line when I get home on Friday and post this up, and hope that I will still be around to tell you all about next year's one.
