Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Sea Breezes Article 1989 - 'Boyhood Days on the Bristol Channel' . . .

At most Bristol Channel ports the tides have to be worked, with sailing and arrival times arranged to suit and it might have been late in the forenoon before passengers were embarked for the day's first excursion. The entire deck crew stood-by at the gangways when passengers were coming on board. This done, we went to our stations for singling up and letting go. My job was to attend the forward backspring which was led ashore from one of the paddle box sponsons.

Once underway the mate would be relived at the wheel, most likely by an AB (Able-bodied Seaman). The remaining deckhands would prepare the mooring ropes for our next port which, if it was Penarth, only occupied half-an-hour's steaming time from Cardiff.

A typical day's activity may have gone something like this: Depart from Cardiff at, say 0800. around to Penarth to top up with passengers and then across the channel to Weston where another load of passengers would be shipped for Barry. On this slightly longer crossing an ordinary seaman would collect our dinner from the amidships galley and take it to the fo'c'sle in a pile of mess kids stacked one on top of the other and secured, after a fashion, with a kind of slotted handle arrangement.

The food was good and well prepared but, sadly, it wasn't every dinnertime that the meal arrived safely on the fo'c'sle tables. The 'Ravenswood' didn't have much in the way of freeboard forward and even with a moderate sea running she was particularly wet. On a number of occasions, when my timing was at fault, I fetched up in the scuppers amid a mess of food and containers. Having to face men of my father's age with nothing but an excuse for their dinner was no joke!

Having discharged passengers at Barry, more would come aboard for an afternoon cruise. The word "cruise" in this context is used to describe a passage when it was intended to return to the port of departure without calling anywhere en route. Normally our cruise would take us around the islands of Flatholm and Steepholm and a look at any shipping anchored in Barry Roads. It was during these cruises that we ordinary seamen went to the wheel to be taught how to steer by an AB. More often than not a compass course would be ordered but sometimes we were told to steer by the land.