Tricks you have played on your crew

[sailortjk1]

What the heck, seems like a slow Monday around here, I thought I would just throw this one out there.

When sailing, I do take things very serious. We do, after all, as Captains have the lives of all the individuals on board in our hands. But, when the time is right, I have been known to play some trickery on my unsuspecting crew, mostly my wife.

Midnight watch, calm seas, sailing beam reach at about 5knots.
Wife is down below, sleeping in the main salon.
I pick up the ram mic in the cockpit, switch to intercom, and start harassing her. "Anybody there?", "Can you hear me?", "Can you hear me now?" "How is this?" "Better?"

The poor thing drags herself out of sleep, crawls into the cockpit and says, "I think some one is trying to contact us on the radio. Did you hear that?"

"No, I didn't hear anything."

She goes back to bed. I repeat the same thing over again.
She picks up the mic, not knowing its only on intercom, "This is the vessel Julianna. How can we help you?" Silence

Back to bed. I Repeat.
Finally when she figures it out, there is hell to pay.

I know pretty lame. But what the heck else are you gonna do?

You guys got any good ones?
We are gearing up for a summer full of cruises. I need some more ammo.

[Giulietta]

I have a few...not many

Millions of them

But I am leaving now to go home..maybe next time...

Alex

[km2x]

I started racing in some club fleets and had a brand new crew. We were starting to prep for the race so I blurted out some commands like...

"Hey George, Could you find me the manual down below?"

"Which one"

"Sailing for dummys, I need to look something up."

My crewed just starred at me......I thought it was funny.

[chucklesR]

Being an experienced Navy veteran I must tell you that tricks at sea are dangerous and we would never do things such as:

Send newbies off in search of:

Rope stretchers, (also known as leg pullers)
Cans of Back Blast on a aircraft carrier,
A box of ST-1 (stone) from supply,
A tube of GR13F from the goat locker (Chief Petty Officers quarters).

or have them man the Mail Bouy watch on the weather deck (with line and a grappel hook) at 2am, in the artic.

make them stand mast lowering duty while transiting the straights between Sicily and Italy - because you must lower the mast to get under the cable that spans the straight.

The worst thing/trick that ever happened to me is being assigned to forward engineering during field day (clean up) duty. They had me work the forward bilge pocket, which you get into by going head first down under some deck plates and weaving thru assorted pipes and equipment protuberances. It takes 5 minutes of wiggleing to get in. It's greasy, damp, dark and stinks. Spending a hour in there scrubbing and rinsing, dodging spray from others hoses is bad enough.
After cleaning and spraying, towards the end of the field day time slot the captain orders a down bubble. This was on a 640 class submarine, a down bubble is when you put dive on - it allows all the water used to spray and clean to drain forward. Normally the guy in the bilge is supposed to have been told to come out long before then.
Guess what. I damn near drowned. I had all of 3 inches of air pocket to breathe in while the bilge was full because the damn drain was so slow.
Funny as hell wasn't it.
I've been claustrophic ever since, wonder why?

[retclt]

I know this doesn’t count but I can’t think of any onboard pranks at the moment. I imagine sailing with the Portagee would be like . . . waiting for a prank not in progress.

Anyway . . . . . . .

On a recent trip to Houston the wife was asleep in the passenger seat. I pulled up really close to an 18 wheeler (5 feet off the bumper) and then hit the brakes while screaming “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”. She opened her eyes to a high level of horror and I now sleep with one eye open. I know there’s going to be payback. I wish Cheri had the same since of humor I have.

. . . oh wait . . .here’s a boat related one I’m sure everyone has experienced on one end or the other. Maneuvering the boat in such a was as to knock someone off the head.

That Sub bildge is spooky . . . I'd hate that one!

[Boasun]

Have sent newbies for a couple of fathoms of water line or for a can of relative bearing grease, a sky hook and left handed monkey wrench. And for electronics (before they were solid state), sent a boot technician for a set of fallopian tubes to install into the HF transmitter.

[sgkuhner]

This one was played on the captain by the crew. In 1973, when we were in Capetown SA we met a German boat that was going east about under all three capes and had just come from Germany. One night in the middle of the South Atlantic when the captain/owner was asleep the crew all climbed up into the rigging above the spreaders and then let out a loud yell. The captain woke up and came running up on deck to see what had happened. He saw no one on deck nor did he see anyone down below (of course not they were all in the rigging). Just as he started to panic, the crew all started laughing. Needless to say, the captain didn't join in the laughter.

I never knew what happened to that boat if, in fact, they ever completed their circumnavigation

[US27inKS]

When I was in the Marine Corps, we used to send the newbies out for an I.D. ten T form, aka the ID10T form. They could always be sent out looking for 10 feet of flight line, or a bucket of rotor wash (helicopters).

My all time favorite took a little setup. On the CH-46 helicopter two common jobs for the avionics shop were to change the chip detector or the temp sensor for the forward transmission. If you have a chip detector job come up, make sure you take the new guy. You can then demonstrate that when removing the chip detector from the bottom of the transmission, a very small amount of fluid comes out - maybe a teaspoon. Then when a forward trans temp sensor goes bad, make sure you take the same newb. The temp sensor is accessed by entering the very narrow comanionway to the cockpit, turning around in the companionway and sitting on the console. The newb will remember pulling the chip detector and assume the temp sensor works the same way. Unfotunately (for him) there is 26 quarts of bad smelling synthetic gear lube waiting for him when he pulls the sensor out. The stream will hit him in the chest, then spray all over him when he's trying to stop the flow, and there's no getting out of the companionway without being hit in the face with the flow of gear oil. Then, right after he cleans up his mess, we tell him that we have to report him for misappropriation of government property.

My second favorite, testing the emergency ICS (intercom system). Under each pilot seat there is a tube with a funnel on the end of it. We told the newb that this was the emergency ICS. We told him that the pilots would talk to one another through this tube. The experienced tech would hold the funnel well away from his ear while the newbie would talk into the other funnel. We told him that the aircraft is very loud, and we had to hear him clearly so he should hold the funnel up to his mouth and speak very loudly.
The actual name of this device is the Pilot Relief Tube.

[sailaway21]

The VHF and a quiet night watch on the open sea is a situation fraught with possibilities. I've detailed one or two of those elsewhere but suffice it to say that answering a very persitent, or obtuse, radio caller as the station he's trying to reach can be rather entertaining-especially if you have them keep switching channels.

Surprising someone, or vessel, that doesn't know you're there can be fun if you like Chinese fire drills and you're on an 80,000 ton tanker and they're on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. The ship's horn has a galvinizing effect on them.

Dead and slimy fish placed under the covers of the bunk can produce amazing feats of self-propulsion.

A piece of mushroom, canned seems to have the best texture, placed in the night watch's coffee mug get's great results, albeit in the dark. There's just something about something slimy in your mouth when you cannot see what it is that makes the imagination go wild.

Placing any kind of marbles within a confined space, such as an overhead, will generally induce insanity in whomever's sleeping area it is within an hour. If on a boat, you don't put them in a drawer-you put them behind a drawer! Similarly, you may hang something over the side that will regularly bump the hull as the boat works, which you remove as you hear them coming on deck to investigate. If you can carry it off to where they come topside three times and not suspect you you'll be worthy of an Oscar.

[hertfordnc]

Another relief tube prank played on pilots- technician installs BRAND NEW funnel for relief tube. On the next flight as the pilot is in his seat, engines turning, technician climbs up to check the tube by running his tongue around the inside. SLaps it back in the clip. gives the pilot an upturned thumb and walks away.