Sea stories and stories. Sea Tales: Our fleet is invincible

This incident happened on the roadstead, in Strelok Bay, where, after providing state or factory tests of the next submarine, we whiled away the night at anchor and at the same time prepared to carry out our submarine.

Everything proceeded quite peacefully and sedately. After the morning cranking, the BC-3 commander, who was also the officer on duty who led him, was preparing to hand over the watch to the BC-2 commander and at the same time, standing on the superstructure deck, on the gangway in the starboard TA area, trained his excellent BP and PP torpedoists in preparation for the upcoming practical shooting.

So everything went on as usual, and nothing foreshadowed anything out of the ordinary, the ship and almost all of its crew lived their usual lives, of course, except for some characters, about which we will talk below.

In the meantime, I went down with a morning report to the commander's cabin, where, in addition to him, there was also the division commander. We started to refine the plan for the coming day, when suddenly something strange and incomprehensible happened, some kind of whistling, noise, sounds similar to the grinding of metal mixed with screams and obscenities and ... silence. We ran out of the cabin at once, the commander - to the GKP, but I - to the waist, through the officer's corridor.

On my way to the waist and back, I watched the next scene, or rather, not one, but many scenes, each of which was more colorful and even more implausible than the one I had seen before, but, of course, they were all united by one common idea, which is not was not in one daily plan.

In the third cabin, the commander of the BC-2, on the one hand, tries unsuccessfully to fight with the washbasin that unexpectedly fell on him (he looks rather dashing: his hair is tousled, in one hand is a comb, which he tries to manage and comb his hair in between the struggle with the washbasin, before how to take over the watch, and the second one is free - pushes the washbasin to its rightful place, provided for by the project), and on the other hand, he cannot understand what is really happening - perhaps all this is just a nightmare. A little further away, on the top bunk, the head of the RTS is sitting in some pants and looking in surprise at a colleague ... Having learned from me that our own torpedo had driven into our starboard side, he slowly took out a cigarette, lit it, and then realizing, he jumped from the bunk and rushed out of the cabin (in the same underpants), that only one obstacle could stop him - the railing on the poop, however, if the ship had not been at anchor, it is difficult to say where it could have ended up, given the incredible speed of its movement.

In the cabin of the political officer, his understudy is a “retrainer”, who honestly worked out all the training camps and practically after this going to sea, waning into his civilian life, sitting astride a torpedo, he tries to calm down a civilian specialist - a navigational equipment adjuster, who a few days ago was late for the evening boat , asked us to go to the city with us to the fuel pier, where our ship was supposed to follow before going to sea. But, of course, something changed in the plans and instead of the fuel pier, the ship, and with it the civilian specialist, got straight to the support of the submarine. At first I could not understand who the understudy of the political officer was talking to, and then I noticed a silhouette that barely betrayed itself on the bulkhead. From fear, he not only shrank, but also practically merged in color with the bulkhead, recently painted by the boatswain who had guilty before the deputy in an incomprehensibly pale color. Only one thing was written on his face - “who the hell will tear me off this bulkhead and bring me even a centimeter closer to the torpedo that pierced the cabin.”

At this time, the foreman of the gas turbine team and the cook instructor crawled out of the dining room into the corridor, where, by the way, they committed a “double” violation of military discipline: firstly, they were absent for cranking, and secondly, they ate scrambled eggs with sausage at an inopportune time. By the way, they didn’t look as combative as just a few minutes ago, they groaned, but, in much the same way as real infantrymen habitually overcome a minefield, they crawled up the corridor towards the outpatient clinic. Of course, not every day and not everyone in a row does a torpedo break a leg, so they certainly inscribed themselves in the glorious history of our ship. A little later, already in the outpatient clinic, where the paramedic injected them with a horse dose of painkillers, when the ship was rushing at full sail to the pier in Strelok, the chief gas turbine operator kept lamenting: why is it so slow, is it possible to go faster, to which I answered him ( trying to raise morale among subordinates): “Now, if we had a turbine in service, for which you, as a foreman of the team, are responsible to the Soviet people and the Communist Party, we could go twice as fast.” He calmed down a little, and sometimes even rushed to the car to repair the turbine ...

The story would not have been fully told if we had not returned to the political officer's cabin. As soon as the ship stood at pier number 2 in b. Abrek, and the puddle party had not yet had time to set up the ladder, almost lifeless and pale, like the white enamel from our boatswain's candeyka, the tuner suddenly, unexpectedly for all those present, resurrected, tore himself from the bulkhead and, flying over the deck and the ladder not yet completely installed, disappeared where - something in the checkpoint area (one of the sailors later said that he was offered to go to Vladik by ship) ...

And yet the most courageous sailor in this story turned out to be the understudy of the political officer. When he was removed from the torpedo, both of his legs were broken, and therefore his early demobilization was in jeopardy and he healed battle wounds for another six months, but he will have something to tell his grandchildren about ...

In fact, I have the most distant relation to the merchant marine, except for the fact that my favorite writer is Viktor Konetsky, whom sailors clearly do not like.

And yet I happened to spend on Russian merchant ships a total of four months as a passenger and not quite. Three times I sailed on a huge container ship - to Australia, back and back to Australia. Twice of them with my family. In every journey, something extraordinary happened, which I want to tell you about.

Bike first

Long journeys are always difficult, especially if you don't have your family and friends with you. And in the sea, where around, except for the water, nothing can be seen for weeks, and even more so. The only thread that connects the ship, lost in the vastness of the world's oceans, with the house is a walkie-talkie. The ship communicates with the base by radio, and the sailors with their families. Usually - this is in the form of telegrams, and if you're lucky, you can talk on the phone.

So let's go. The first couple of weeks everything went like clockwork. Every couple of days telegrams home and from home. But, the farther the native coast remained behind the horizon line, the less reliable the connection became. And now it's time to switch to the latest more powerful walkie-talkie, which, moreover, was modified on the eve of departure to improve the reliability of communication. I don’t know why, but after the modification it was not tested, but sent to the sea at random. And of course, as my reader already expects, it turned out that it does not work.

The radio operator, gray and sleeping with his face, sweated for three days in the radio room before turning to me for help. True, I did not insist, because even though I am a radio engineer by education, I have never worked with walkie-talkies in practice, and in general for the last two years I have not worked with electronics at all. Nevertheless, when all the resources of the radio operator's knowledge were exhausted, he had no choice but to turn to a specialist, though not a marine one, for help. After puffing for half a day (I still had to figure out how it, the infection, works), I found a fairly simple malfunction in the teletype interface. But in general, the system still continued to be stubbornly silent. I won't bore you with the technical details of my research, but I will only say that in the end I was forced to question the authority of the engineers of the shipping company who modified the radio.

After analyzing the modification scheme, I found that theoretically it cannot work. The decision was simple - to cut one wire, to which Pasha, our radio operator, categorically said no. Of course you can understand it. State equipment, under his responsibility. And then, some land slob came and wants to break it. For a couple of hours I convinced Pasha that this wiring was not connected to the detonator of the time mine, and the worst thing that could happen is that the radio still would not work. Of course, she earned, which incredibly raised my credibility in the eyes of the crew, and I was rewarded with a free telephone conversation with my wife. After that, until the end of the voyage, the captain asked me to fix the echo sounder. But there was not even a circuit diagram on board, and I'm not a god.

Second bike

The fact that sailors drink on a voyage is a well-known fact. After all, they have a normal working day there, and why not relax after work. But they drink differently. On my first flight, they drank regularly, but not much and, usually, two or three people a day. closed doors. A completely different picture appeared to us (this time I was already sailing with my wife and son) a year later, when we returned from Australia. I must say that we were accepted into the crew immediately and unconditionally.

There were two reasons for this - on this steamer there was the same electrician with whom I sailed to Australia and became quite close friends. Another reason is that while the ship was in the port for 3 days, I took sailors for a ride around Adelaide. And one day, when they were taking cigarettes off the ship to try to sell on the shore, customs ran over them. While I was talking some nonsense about the fact that these are my cigarettes, and it was I who tried to sell them to the sailors, but they did not want to, etc. etc., one of the guys slipped back on board and warned the crew about a possible “black customs” raid. One way or another, but my "heroism" was appreciated, and we were accepted on board with open arms.

The alcohol was purchased in Holland immeasurably, and by the time of departure back to Russia, not even half had been drunk. It should also be noted that all this happened immediately after the putsch. The team, on their own initiative, raised the then not yet approved Russian flag, urgently re-made from the Dutch one on board. Under this "Jolly Roger" of our day, the spirit of liberalism and permissiveness has blossomed incredibly. Started from the first day. Every evening a company of 5-6 people gathered in the electrician's cabin and drank alcohol. I did not notice how we ended up at the equator, where the revelry reached its apogee.

They drank already in the morning and in the afternoon, after which they went to the bridge, hooted SOS, launched red rockets and checked the ship for stability, laying steep tacks. One evening, in the midst of the fun, they painted the entire cabin of the electrician with greasy indelible felt-tip pens, and the next day, after sobering up, they washed for three hours with the same valuable alcohol, the stocks of which had already noticeably decreased ..

But in spite of everything, the steamer came home on schedule without incident. And this whole story is only a prologue to the third bike.

Third bike

Almost a year and a half passed, and here we are with the whole family, with all the household belongings, including the car, again on the ship. Now we are going to Australia for good.

The crew turned out to be very friendly and affable, contrary to our expectations that we would be treated as emigrants with hostility. A fact immediately caught my eye: in contrast to the previous crew, this one looked completely non-drinking. No, really, I had it with me, and a couple of times I invited a doctor and a mechanic who looked after our car in the hold. But is that called drinking? However, this did not bother me much until the moment when the crew showed their true colors.

And it happened at the equator. Unlike the previous two voyages, this one was a real celebration of Neptune with devils, mermaids, the lord of the seas himself and initiation, that is, bathing beginners. We managed to avoid this fate, because. we have already crossed the equator twice, although some of them obviously itched their hands to smear us with soot and dip. In general, the holiday turned out to be wonderful, smoothly moving from a costume show to a barbecue on the back deck. And this is where it happened. Several cases of cognac and an unmeasured amount of beer were dragged out onto the deck. Well, the people pulled back. They drank until they could no longer drink, then they crawled around the cabins, taking the rest of the beer and cognac.

I woke up late at night, and at first I could not understand what was happening. The first thing I saw was the frightened eyes of my wife. Getting out of bed, and realizing that these were not the tricks of my vestibular apparatus, I realized that the ship had listed to starboard by 20-25 degrees. And as far as I know, containers begin to pour overboard at a heel of 27 degrees. We went out into the corridor and found there the frightened wives of sailors (at that time sailors were already allowed to take their wives on a voyage) in a half-naked state, which I did not even notice at that moment. None of the team was anywhere to be seen.

After ordering everyone to put on life jackets, I went up to the bridge. In the darkness, I did not immediately find the watch navigator sleeping in his chair. Pushing him aside, I asked what was going on and why we had such a roll. In response, it sounded rather incoherently: “Nich-shivo ... An haughty little roll ...” But, apparently, something nevertheless sunk into the brain poisoned by alcohol after a long abstinence, and the navigator slowly crawled to the instrument panel. The sobering came instantly. First, he gave out a phrase that sounded something like this: “No;?**)(?%No. 246*)123-5.” You can use all your non-printable Russian vocabulary and still you won't get anything close to the original. After that, he grabbed the phone and called the engine room. Another phrase: “123-5, what are you eating there, what is going on with you?” After a few minutes the steamer slowly began to level off.

As it turned out later, the engineer on duty, having taken up his duty immediately after drinking, decided to slightly level the steamer, which, in the opinion of his vestibular apparatus, was slightly listing to the left. After turning back and forth a little to find out for sure which side he had left and which right, he found the right switch and turned on the ballast pump. After that, he fell asleep safely. He was awakened by a call from the bridge.

I never found out if they had a system for automatically shutting off the pumps when a critical list was reached, or if only my wife's vigilance and complete calm saved us. And the crew again switched to non-drinking mode.

Tour with a non-professional.

Let's start with the fact that each watercraft must have (and has) a proper name. The main place where the name of the ship is written is a bronze tablet, somewhere inside the room, in a conspicuous place. There is also carved the name of the shipyard, the year of construction, registration number and other important things. On the bow, where we are most often used to reading the name of the vessel, it can be written in mother tongue. All in the past years Soviet ships were signed in Cyrillic. Now you can find many ships where the nose is decorated with some kind of hieroglyphs and their dubbing in Latin. Also, in the native language, the name is written on the stern of the ship, only the name of the ship's home port is still present. On land - his registration.
The name of the ship in Latin must be written at the level of the upper deck, just behind the captain's bridge. This is necessary so that any foreigner can read the name and not rack his brains with an unfamiliar alphabet. Although, some names already made many pilots and dispatchers beat their heads against the gunwale (railing). in Georgian maritime shipping company was the tanker "Fiftieth Anniversary of Soviet Georgia".
Here he is:

Can you imagine some Spanish pilot calling "Pyatidesyatiletie sovetskoy Gruzii" on the radio? There were many stories about this in Batumi.
Ships are built in "families", called "series". In English it sounds like "sistership". And in our opinion - "of the same type." Inside the type of vessel, they differ from each other in some trifles and features - somewhere additional equipment is installed, somewhere they improve something, based on the experience of operating the first ships of the series. But they look very similar (they are often even painted the same way) and bear names from the same sphere.
In Soviet times, there were series of "cities", "republics", "cosmonauts", "rivers", "engineers", "revolutionaries", etc. ad infinitum. Although, within one type, say "pioneer heroes", one of the ships could be named, for some reason, in honor of an urban-type settlement. (Probably confused the enemy))). There were also numerous series of practically unnamed "Volgotankers", "Lenaneft" and "Volga-Don", differing from each other only by serial number. But that is a river fleet. At sea, I don’t remember such a lack of imagination.
Although now many shipowners do not puzzle over the names of their property. And thousands of "Sea Star-88" and "Morning Breeze-56" plow the oceans
The name of the ship was assigned by its "godmother" - a specially invited woman who solemnly named the ship after him and broke a bottle of champagne on its side. And now, in the age of priests and their obligatory rituals, no one canceled the participation of the "godmother" in the ceremony of naming the vessel.
In the course of life, the ship can change its name many times. The latter, as a rule, is given to him before being sent to last flight- to the place of its dismantling.

Have you ever wondered how life works on a ship?

Land citizens go to work, return home, sleep (usually) - at night, and (usually) in their bedroom. Every day they bring up children and, sometimes, they are brought up by their halves. What if you are a sailor in the merchant fleet? (I practically did not communicate with military sailors, so I can’t say anything about them). For me, from early childhood, the profession of a sailor was close, loved, and I could not imagine myself anywhere in life except on the captain's bridge, so I can tell you something that you may not have known.

What does a person feel when they board a ship? Please note: even if the side of the vessel is located below the level of the pier, then you are CLIMBING aboard. Accordingly, leaving the ship, you DOWN ashore, no matter how high it is. The first sensation is pitching. I have never seen a ladder that was rigidly fixed and did not swing (the ladder should gently “play” when the ship is rocking, and not beat against the pier from each wave). This feeling is enhanced by the fact that the steps on the ship's ladder are not flat, but convex, so that the foot gets up confidently at any angle of inclination of the ladder to the horizon.

When climbing the ladder, you will hear the splash of water in a narrow gap between the pier and the side of the ship, from falling into which you should be protected by a stretched safety net. In addition to the splash of water, you will definitely hear a dull rubber grinding. It is the fenders that do their boring job - cylinders, circles, thick rubber balls, and often old tires that soften the friction of the metal side of the ship against the fixed concrete wall of the pier. The vessel is always in motion - even if it is securely moored. It is rocked by waves, currents, of which there are a lot in any port, it rises or falls, depending on the ongoing cargo operations, it can even heel and move the wind. The ship is connected to the land by thick hemp or synthetic ropes, which are called “ends” in the Navy and each time, depending on the characteristics of the port, form an original web pattern that braids metal hemp-bollards.

First step on passenger liner you are unlikely to remember - everything is even, smooth and covered with carpets. Another thing - cargo Ship. There, most likely, you will need to jump from the ladder to the deck. Not high. No more than half a meter. Maybe less, but the ladder is made in such a way that it always “sticks out” above the deck. Do not be shy about the hand given to you by the sailor on duty. It's a sign of a good maritime upbringing to shake hands with someone coming on board, even if you're a drop dead tough dude. It's on the shore - you're a drop dead cool dude. There is already such a dude on the ship - this is the Captain. But more about him later. In the meantime, having accepted the help of a greeter, you land on a soft wicker or hard cork rug, called the "mat" at sea. Don't forget to wipe your feet on it. Even if your shoes are clean. Show that you don't want to carry land dirt around the ship. Even if the deck is covered with a layer of iron ore dust, which is now being loaded into the hold. Entering any room do not be lazy to trample on the mat. (When boarding a fancy yacht, 99.9% of you will be forced to just take off your shoes and forget about it until the moment you go ashore).
The cargo deck smells of what this ship carries. I have been most often on oil tankers and smelled the aromas of gasoline, diesel or aviation fuel. I always wanted to visit a wine carrier (yes, there are such ships!) and smell the air on its cargo deck.
The ship has wonderful high rapids - coamings. This word came from the English "come in", which was heard by everyone who knocked on the cabin door and waited for an invitation to cross the threshold. Poseidon forbid you step on the coaming! No, you will not be sent to feed the sharks, but it will definitely not add respect to you. There is a rule in the Navy: do not step on the threshold, but step over it, no matter how high it is. And do not forget - you can enter any room on the ship only after receiving an affirmative answer after the question "Permission?"

Having penetrated inside the superstructure, as the “building” that rises above the side is called on the ship, you will feel how the ship smells from the inside. If on the outside you hear the smell of sea salt, rust, paint, transported cargo (if it is not in containers), then inside you will be met by warm, air that has passed through the ducts of the ventilation system, and changes its taste depending on which part of the superstructure you will be.
If you go down to the engine room, you will feel the heat and hum of the main engine of the ship - the machine. The air there is filled with the aroma of fuel, grease, oily rags. Artificial bright light burns there around the clock - as a rule, there are no windows in the engine room. The rumble and clatter of machinery is strong, and is repeatedly reflected by metal surfaces. Talking to the guides, asking them questions is practically useless. Your question will not be heard. And you won't get an answer. UNLESS YOU SHOUT IN EACH OTHER'S EARS. In some distant corner you can easily find a couple of machines - drilling, turning, milling.

If you walk along the ship's corridors, on the walls of which there is always a handrail, which you must hold on to during a storm, then, passing by the infirmary, you will feel a slight smell of something medical. Next to the artel worker's farm, it will smell like ship supplies - flour, cereals, vegetables and canned food. Approaching the ship's galley or dining room, you will smell food. There is always a ready portion of food in the galley - despite the fact that the crew's meal is on schedule. Every minute there is a possibility that the crew members who have changed from the watch will come to eat. Entering the dining room - wish everyone a pleasant appetite. And when you finish your meal, thank with a simple word “Thank you” those who served you: the cook and the barmaid. The menu on the ship is varied. But during a strong pitching, first courses are not prepared - they will splash out of boilers and plates. And during a storm, tables are covered with wet tablecloths - plates do not slip on wet fabric. And one more feature of the ship's tables is a low rim along the perimeter of the tabletop. So it is less likely that every little thing will roll and fall to the floor.
The corridors and cabins of the ship can never be confused with other rooms. They smell like plastic of thin walls-bulkheads, vibrate with a small tremor in time with work. power plant ship, creak from the rocking of the ship on the sea waves.

Next to the captain's bridge is the navigation cabin - a room without sunlight, with a large table on which the running map is laid out, illuminated by a table lamp. Whatever the degree of automation, computerization and satelliteization of the navigator's profession, a large-scale paper map, on which the ship's route is drawn with a pencil, with time stamps for passing control points, will not go anywhere.
Also nearby is a radio room. What it looks like now - in the age of the Internet, I have no idea. And earlier there was a smell of soldering rosin in it, tube radio transmitters were buzzing, and in the most prominent place a radio key was installed for transmitting messages in Morse code, and a clock hung with three-minute sectors of silence allocated every quarter of an hour. At this time, all the transmitters fell silent, and the radio operators listened to see if the SOS signal sounded on the air.


The captain's bridge usually smelled of tobacco. Even the constant draft from the two side doors that gave access to the wings of the bridge did not dispel the smell that even one watch officer or sailor who smoked in the crew left behind. The fact is that smoking on the wings of the bridge was unsafe from a fire point of view. So they smoked inside. Cigarette smoke penetrated the installed equipment, impregnated the signal flags rolled up in rolls and laid in wooden cells, settled on the wooden gunwale railing, which ran along the entire row of wheelhouse glazing. The navigation bridge has never been silent. Even in the calmest hours of the night, the silence was broken by the measured quiet hum and buzz of the equipment, each apparatus of which emitted the sound of its own timbre, eventually merging into a monotonous quiet hum, which you get used to very quickly. The on-duty ship's radio station clicked with discharges of atmospheric electricity. The seat creaked under the weight of the watchman's helmsman.
This is how people live on the ship, nowhere, for six months, without leaving work. Can you imagine living in your office or factory for half a year? At the same time, your office (at best) will constantly buzz, vibrate, sway ...

The working day on the ship is divided into four-hour shifts. Those who are not on watch usually work from eight in the morning until the evening with the obligatory "admiral's hour" - lunch and the opportunity to take a nap from noon to one in the afternoon.

Each watchman has two shifts per day for 4 hours after 8 hours of rest. Each watch had its own name:
8:00 - 12:00 - "children's" or "pioneer" watch. Morning, the beginning of the day. No difficulty. You can put the most inexperienced sailor. The Captain will look after him.
12:00 - 16:00 - the time of the second officer and his helmsman on watch. It's called "doggy". Why? - I'll explain below.
16:00 - 20:00 senior assistant watch. Remarkable watch in terms of time: I defended and managed to have an evening team rest: a movie, dominoes or a leave on the shore for dancing with the girls. Therefore, it is called "Good" or "Royal".
20:00 - 0:00 Again the Captain, or his third (if any) assistant, "rested after a working day", and his inexperienced young sailor, who is still too early to go to the shore with the girls. Therefore, this time is called - “Farewell to youth!”
0:00 - 4:00 Again at the second assistant "Dog". The entire crew went to bed after a hard day's work, and those on duty had to struggle with sleep. You squat - you fall asleep. Therefore, this watch is also called "flat-footed". During the day, the story is the same - the crew is on a lunch break and rest, and the "second" is again deprived - it costs "Dog".
4:00 - 8:00 - romantic senior officers named this watch "Diana" - after the name of the morning star. Although for me - the same "Dog"!
In general, the topic of naval humor and slang is so vast that it deserves not only a separate post, but a whole book!

The Captain's assistants, in addition to the watches, each also bear their own burden: responsibility for the moral and psychological climate in the ship's team, for cargo and cargo documents, for navigational calculations, equipment and manuals, for the use of the material part of the ship, for rescue and safety equipment.
The boatswain, also known as the "Dragon", leads the deck crew. This is a kind of foreman of sailors. All deck and hold facilities are in his area of ​​responsibility.
The chief mechanic rules in the engine room. His name is "Grandfather". The importance of Grandfather is evidenced by the fact that his salary is often equal to the captain's.
All electrical facilities are managed by the Electrician. It is hard for electronics - he, as a rule, is alone on the ship. And, if something happens, there is no one to ask for advice. Since no one wants to understand electricity. And there are more and more circuits, boards, sensors and other wiring every year.

Captain. He is: Master, Cap, Uncle or Dad. But he is alone on the ship. With the right organization of work, the Captain can do nothing. Just take responsibility for everything. Do you think this is not enough? But even after that, the captain has a lot of duties, the fulfillment of which, except for him, no one on the ship can take on.
The captain has a beautiful uniform - a cap with a "crab" and oak leaves on the visor, a tunic with embroidered sleeves (three straight stripes and a fourth, upper one, with a monogram), shoulder straps with the same four stripes and an elegant badge - Badge of the Sea Captain .

In his hometown The captain is called not just by his last name, but with the addition of his proud title. And if the Captain dies, then on his gravestone they will definitely indicate that not just a person lies here, but the Captain.

If I were the Captain, then I would be happy to receive guests on board and organize for them educational excursions. Probably because when I, as a kid, got on board the ship, the sailors gladly took me around all the nooks and crannies of the ship, talking about their life and work at sea. But I did not become a Captain, and I have to spend virtual tours, using the memories of more than a dozen years ago.
I never had to become a captain of a sea vessel. Paradoxically, my most beloved Captain, who made me fall in love with the maritime profession, dissuaded me from this - my grandfather. But that's another story...

Alexander Sergeyevich Suvorov ("Alexander Suvory")

Photo chronicle book: "Legendary BOD-SKR" Fierce "DKB Navy 1970-1974".

Chapter 311 Naval Base "Baltiysk". BOD "Fierce". The world and us. Marine stories. 01/27/1974

Photo illustration from the open Internet.

In the previous one:

No one believed that the cause of the extremely strong roll was the stabilizers. Only my story about “how I discovered enemy sabotage in the Albatross steering column” saved me from the inevitable promised “dark” in the cockpit.

ABOUT! These maritime stories or as they are usually called - sea tales! This phenomenon of naval and ship life is the most remarkable thing that can be in the mood and attitudes of sailors.

Telling sea tales or, in a sea way, “poison”, is an undisguised traditional pleasure and pastime of all sailors of all nations, all navies and all countries of the world. Moreover, marine tales are almost the same as jokes, only more colorful, entertaining and more fun.

The naval service almost daily “invents” or “composes” many different situations, deeds, inactions, deeds and corresponding words and phrases, which immediately become a source and material for various marine tales. Some of them become immortal literary works, for example, as sea stories, stories by Sergei Adamovich Kolbasiev (1899-1942), a Russian and Soviet sailor, marine prose writer, poet, radio amateur, and jazz enthusiast.

Several of these sea ​​tales-stories I have already told in my short stories-memoirs, for example, in the short story 155. North Atlantic. BOD "Fierce". Lead codpiece. 10/04/1973

Here is another real story, one of my first so-called "sea tales", that is, related to the naval service.

It was back in November-December 1971 in the 9th naval crew of the DCBF in the village of Pionerskoye, where the autumn recruits were delivered by a passenger train that gathered all the recruits along the route: Crimea - Ukraine - Moldova - Belarus - Lithuania - Kaliningrad.

We, the youngest “newbies”, who had previously studied at DOSAAF naval schools, as the most prepared, were freed from boring classes and sent to work in the galley kitchen and dining room of this primary naval “ educational institution"for recruits to pass the" young fighter course ". Me and my friends were specifically "charged" for peeling potatoes.

The cleaning of potatoes for 1000 military personnel of the Crew took place in a short time and in a huge volume. "Potato peelers" sat on stools and benches in a huge cold and damp basement, where dump trucks dumped mountains of wet and semi-rotten potatoes through a large hatch.

Part of the "cleaners" with home-made knives, carved from hacksaw blades, peeled potatoes, and the other part of the team cleaned the peels and carried huge pots with peeled potatoes to the galley kitchen.

The potatoes were wet, cold, frozen, half rotten, so there was a huge amount of waste. At the same time, before peeling, the potatoes were washed in huge stone baths, in three waters. Dampness, dirt and gloom were complete…

Naturally, young inexperienced conscripts barely managed to clean the required amount of potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so they came to our aid experienced workers kitchen-dining room or additional teams of sailors.

I haven’t smoked since childhood, so during breaks the sergeants-year-olds or foremen-year-olds, who were also with us, as commanders of our departments and teams, had to peel and peel this hated potato again ...

True, it was much easier for me, because since childhood I also helped my mother in the kitchen and not only knew how to peel potatoes, but I could already cook food quite tolerably, for example, cook cabbage soup, soups, fry potatoes, scrambled eggs and even fish. Therefore, I peeled the potatoes with a thin skin, leaving almost the entire potato.

My ability to peel potatoes was noticed by cooks-cooks, and they began to put me a separate pot-pot for potatoes for officers, midshipmen-ensigns and "years". For some time, all I did was silently peel potatoes and listen to the tales of the surrounding guys.

Traditionally, when several or a group of young guys or men get together, the conversation invariably starts about adventures, about funny occasions and about relationships with female girls. Moreover, these conversations and tales, as a rule, are very frank and "thickly flavored" with traditional Russian obscenities.

I remember one sea tale told to us, young recruits, by an experienced and elderly midshipman-coke ...

It was back in the Japanese-Russian war, - the gray-haired midshipman told us. - Japanese diplomats delivered our Russian sailor to the Russian embassy with a proposal to take him away from them as soon as possible. At the same time, the Japanese diplomat read out the protocol of the interrogation of our sailor. That's what was there...

Who are you?
- Fuck knows who I am!
What ship are you from?
- Fucking soon? Why would I fucking? I don't need to fucking, I'll get by!
- What is your title?
- What the hell is my title? Even without a title, I myself have one, big hell!
- Where did you come from?
- From there, from where the horse-radish passed oud!
- Where were they going?
- There, hell knows where!
- Answer questions accurately and clearly!
- How the hell is it clearer, and so the hell can you say it clearer!
- We are losing patience and will force you to answer clearly!
- What the hell are you doing? Be direct about what you need?
- We want to know where your ship came from?
- Wanting is not harmful, you want to hell further, as much as you like.
- And your captain said that you sailed from Vladivostok.
- Your captain crap like a female dog, I did not sail, I came.
- For what purpose did you come, how do you put it?
- Walked, but what, you can’t walk a damn thing, right?
- On a Russian warship?
- What the hell is the difference?
- For what purpose did you have a weapon with you?
What the hell is a weapon?
- Japanese officer's dagger and revolver.
- It was given to me by some corrupt woman.
- What else "selling woman"!?
- Fuck knows, I didn't ask her name.
- What were you going to do with a dagger and a revolver?
- Hell knows.
- Who is this "fuck"?
- Well, I speak more clearly: "Hell knows!".
- Do you have a wife?
- What the fuck is your wife?
- Whom in Russia should I inform about your detention? Just do not answer: "Hell knows!".
- Listen, fuck from Mount Fuji, you fucked up to hell, let's fuck this shit up, and who the hell needs it, I'll tell you myself!

We laughed for a long time and merrily twisted this uncomplicated tale in different ways for even longer, coming up with new and funny intricacies of questions and answers from a Japanese investigator and a Russian sailor.

The next sea tale was the famous jokes about the captain and the boatswain. The funniest was the famous and traditional joke about the jokes of the boatswain ...

Boatswain! Play your tune! A torpedo is coming towards us. Go to the sailors and cheer them up in the end!
- Guys! Look what happens when I fart!
Bang bang! Ship in chips. Two emerge - the captain and the boatswain.
- Well, how healthy are you boatswain to fart! The torpedo passed by!

The resulting pause was filled by one of the most strict, gloomy and cocky "years", the foreman of the Marine Corps.

During the evening verification, - he began to tell, - our first mate, a lover of jokes and a trick, gave us such continuations to the answer "I!". For example:

Ivanov!
- I!
- Buoy head!

Petrov!
- I!
- Horseradish from rags!

Sidorov!
- I!
- To hell with the nightingale!

Suvorov!
Involuntarily, I instinctively tossed my head and answered: “Me!”.
- Rumple from the steering wheel!

Everyone laughed, and I was the happiest of all, because all this time I, as a "rookie", had to keep quiet and not interfere in the conversation of the elders. In addition, at that time I was really thin and thin, like a tiller handle from the steering wheel of a six-oared yawl.

Warmed up by tales and anecdotes, sailors and recruits began to vied with each other to offer different answers to this famous “I!” ...

You have no life!
- Drink in your mouth!
- Here's a draw for you!
- The tip of the spear!
- A jet from an ant!
- Foam from washing!
- Splash from me!
- Baba is not yours!
- Harmonica lackey!
- At the goat milking!
- Fish scales!
- Shaving foam!
- A gift from junk!
- Do not forge a horseshoe!
You are not my judge!
- The basis of life!
- Elastic band from linen!
- Criminal article!
- Your mine and me!
- Feather from a sparrow!
- The smell of a gun!
- Spray from the stream!
- Fable from reality!
- A burr thorn!
- Valuya's hat!
- Pop and popadya!
- Nonsense!
- You are a beer tub!

The last notion turned out to be successful, because after it everyone vied with each other to tell how they drank in civilian life, how much, with whom, for what reason and what happened next.

Then, of course, there were meetings with girls and women. It was about this that a cheerful and serious, detailed, detailed conversation began ...

Yes, sea tales about girls and women, this is a special conversation ...