otnmbrd wrote:

I remember a picture which was making the rounds of the web, showing a
tanker in heavy weather, going to Alaska. I have been Master of that
tanker, on that run, and seen the same .... sometimes you are stuck
dealing with what you are dealt, and in the case of a rogue, you
generally have no fore warning, which means, in your case, odds on, we
wouldn't be having this discussion if you had ever run across one.
BG Try as you might, Neal, you will never see the conditions, I've
seen.... and to be honest, I hope you don't.

All of us who have sailed on the Valdez run had a more than a fair share
of that kind of seas. When we started running from Valdez to the Far
East is when it got really nasty and on one trip we really did have 30
meter waves for several days straight with winds steady in the 80's and
gusting to over a hundred. Could hardly tell the difference between sea
and sky most of the time. Nil would have crawled into a lifeboat and
cried if he could have made it that far.

Would love to have Nil experience that sometime. Would shut the fool up
maybe if he didn't move to Kansas. Either way if it got him off the
water the seas would be a lot safer. Of course by the sound of his
seamanship and general nautical knowledge I am not sure he has much
contact with the sea aside from buying canned tuna anyway.

Rick