This tale of courage and friendship is a timely reminder that while worse things happen at sea, it also brings out the best in man and his seafurring shipmates. On this occasion, the true grit award goes to the volunteer RNLI boatmen from Clacton and Margate who risked their lives in heavy seas to save the Hawkesdale’s crew. Read more
Shipmates & Mateship
Freddy and the Hawkesdale
This tale of courage and friendship is a timely reminder that while worse things happen at sea, it also brings out the best in man and his seafurring shipmates. On this occasion, the true grit award goes to the volunteer RNLI boatmen from Clacton and Margate who risked their lives in heavy seas to save the Hawkesdale’s crew. Read more
Joining ship
How do seafurrers become seafurrers? The real deal on joining ship from Able Sea-cat Bart along with Tubby’s true tale of Tom the Seafarer in another action-packed instalment including five kittens. Read more
Better together
Able Sea-cat Bart shares a heart-warming, better together ship’s cat story that hits the trifecta in one action-packed episode – friendship, kittens and escaping a shipwreck. Read more
Baby boom
Without any fuss or bother, the ship’s cat calmly delivered a litter of nine healthy kittens in a cosy corner of the chart room while BHP steamer Iron Monarch was riding through a storm off Wilson’s Promontory and huge seas were breaking all over the ship. Read more
Eating etiquette
Trim dined well thanks to his (mostly) good manners as almost every officer and man on board fed him. Able Sea-cat Bart reveals Trim’s successful table strategy and the fact that Matthew Flinders may have trimmed a couple of years off his age and shares Bruce Watson’s musical tribute to Trim the circumnavigating cat. Read more
Friend or foe?
When ships’ cats met seadogs was it war or peace? Depends, says Able Sea-cat Bart sharing happy families snaps of shipboard life plus Matthew Flinder’s Trim being rather a troublemaker to prove he was the undisputed master of the dogs onboard. Read more
Warming up
Able Sea-cat Bart looks at a war-time photograph in Warming Up showing the ship’s cat on HMAS Australia tucked in a shipmate’s vest. Seafaring felines, the sailors’ pest controllers, shipmates, mascots and pets, always had to be ready to perch on a shoulder or sit on a hat for photo opportunities. Read more
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