Seismic in the 60s
Two clapped out vessels
One drunken skipper
100 ton of Nitramon

An explosive combination!

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Summary:

Set in the early days of marine seismic in Australia, December 1966 to February 1967

I spent 3 months as a summer student. It was a 2 boat survey – both clapped out coastal freighters MV Merino and MV Paul Markson.

An incident filled trip.

Ballasting the kerosene filled streamer with lead and gaffer tape at midnight on a pitching deck 30ft above the water with no rails whatsoever (OHS was an unknown acronym). Deck awash with kero which rotted all our footwear (and feet).

Skipper was a drunk, Party Chief was an idiot.

8500 foot streamer cut in half by a freighter because the skipper couldn’t signal properly with his Aldis lamp (he could hardly hold it!).

Streamer sections blown up because the shooting boat couldn’t keep position.

Streamer sections bitten by sharks.

Spanish deckhand almost dead from carbon tetrachloride poisoning because he couldn’t tell anyone what was wrong.

Drunk found down in the hull complete with wine flagon just before we headed to sea.

Heading back to Portland in a Force 10 gale knowing that the Sedco 135G had slipped its tow and was somewhere out in front of us.

And to cap it all, we found that 50% of our powder (about 25 tons) would sometimes not explode so it was jettisoned overboard – 1,000 yellow canisters bobbing off into the Tasman Sea.