Sea Stories and Tall Tales of the Seas by Forum Members

That's gotta be a Test question for first year Electrical students!

 

What is with you guys and ladders photos?

Ok, I know two people who died from ladder accidents. But the stuff posted here and in a couple other threads is pretty much everyday working conditions. I've used ladders in pools building screen enclosures over pools. Yes running corded tools. You can run the cord though a pool noodle if it makes you feel better. Yes in bare feet on an aluminum ladder. I spent six hours cleaning gutters this week. Extension ladder in back of golf cart.

Ladders out third story windows up a tree to prune palms.

Ladders in moving trucks with a chainsaw.

Ladders over stairwell banisters to change light bulbs. I had 22 stairwells.


The two who died- A college friend's dad working maint in a major factory. Totally OSHA compliant. Fell changing lightbulbs. Died three days later when a bloodclot went to his head.

The second was my parent's neighbor Richard Versalle. He was the guy who fell off a ladder at the Met. The only time the show did not go on. We all ate Christmas dinner together a week before he died.

Ever see a group of apple pickers in an orchard? Those folks are scary. They use a special three-legged ladder. Plasterers working a ceiling from a balcony
on stilts and taping with a banjo? You need to be familiar with your tools.

The absolute dumbest ladder stunt was changing out a couple streetlamp lights with an extension ladder in Florida. I had a 38' ladder and I had to stand on the top rung hugging the pole. I did that once. The ladder was nearly vertical because the pole was only about 2" in diameter at the top. Told them no the second time. In the Air Force in North Dakota, we didn't usually bother with the burned out site lights on missile silos in the middle of winter. These were on regular utility poles. But we had a rare injury accident and the fact that the site light was out was listed as a contributing factor, and the IG was due in a week. So I set up a team of five to change out light bulbs in minus 25 degree weather. Screwed an extension ladder to the top of a box truck. One guy took out the screws. Second guy took off the cover...... Spent an entire day doing this.

 

Metal ladders make great electric conductors !!!! I saw a workman do the Herky Jerky after one " wont do that again " incident

 

I had a ladder pulled out from under me.
Almost three stories up, doing Facier work. The guy thought it'd be funny to watch me slide down the wall at the top of the ladder.
There's nothing funny about a ride like that. He was gone by the time I hit the ground.

 

I hate this stuff ... You cant make the world safe for a dork. I hate being told not to do something because some kid health and safety says so.

Basically he is saying he could not do it and he therefore thinks its dangerous.

Well--- when the whole world is set up for the dumbest person on the planet what do we do then --live in caves again?

Have they made driving and smoking illegal yet? smoke in your eyes a burning ember in your mouth while driving.

What a stupid world.

 

Working on a sign at first floor level off one of the main streets in Manchester uk.It was the Era of Ladies freedom and burn your bra.
It was a lovely sunny day,loads of bra-less ladies.I was footing the ladder while my mate was working on the sign.There had been a short rain shower, this Tasty lady,wearing only a tee shirt on top was caught in it,revealing her "Rusty washers". I spotted her first,and gave my mate's trousers leg a tug to let him know,he shifted his position on the ladder and stood on my hand,I dragged my hand from under his foot,and we both ended up in a heap at the Ladies feet.She stopped,smiled and said."Serves you right you pair of perverts"

 

Damnfoolery

This is a slightly edited version of a posting I made to Sailing Anarchy several years ago. The topic was "shooting the gap" in the Berkeley Fish Pier in San Francisco Bay. If you're not familiar with that structure, you can learn about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pier


Sixty years and a couple of thousand martinis ago, I was a skinny Sea Scout boating out of the People's Democratic Yacht Harbor in Berkeley. There were two Sea Scout ships in our little burg, the SSS St. Ambrose, which was pious, well-behaved, and well-funded, and my ship, the SSS Argonaut, which was anything but. Our boat was a converted Higgins landing craft, not the ones with the drop ramp you see all the time on the Hitler Channel, but the *real* early ones with the spoonbill bow. She was powered (if you could call it that) by a Gray diesel, had a cabin built by person or persons unknown, and carried a little clinker-built dinghy known affectionately as The Sieve. She'd pound the fillings out of your teeth heading home through the Carquinez Straits, but she was ours, an escape from the streets, and we loved her for all that.

For a while my father was the Skipper of the Argonaut. He had been a merchant seaman, and had strong opinions about safety on the water (he was for it). We'd go out with the St. Ambrose on some occasion or another and they would purr smoothly homeward, shooting the gap in the Berkeley Pier while we chugged and slammed the long way around. We'd finally arrive and there they'd be, neat and shipshape with fenders properly out and lines flemished on the deck.

In the course of things they got a new boat. One fine day we came back in to the harbor and found them inspecting a fairly large chunk that had been ripped out their gunwale. They had forgotten that their new boat had about 18 inches more beam than their old one, and had traded splinters with the pier. My father called us all to the deckhouse, pointed to them, and said: "Sooner or later, damnfoolery will catch up to you." Words to live by.

Cheers,

Earl