Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "The Drydock - Episode 227" video.

  1. Oberst (Colonel) Birger Eriksen: best damn call back to arms ever.
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  2. If you haven't hand turned a shaft with a spanner or chipped paint topside, while underway, you're only a "special guest" in any "age of steel" navy. Snipes and Deck Apes forever. Yeah, yeah, we'll keep a seat in hell warm for our gunners' mate friends, too.
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  3. Love the content, Drach. A Wild Bill opinion piece. "Press gangs, press gangs, Stuff you in the mess gangs, Press gangs, press gangs, Beat you up, yum!" Thing is . . . a man could pull his pistol or sword and do his drunken best to kill you dead if you assaulted him. Why drunken? That's how press gangs-and voting-worked in those days. A captain would enfranchise a press gang with enough money to get a half dozen men passed out drunk. The press gang'd buy the first round and then select potential sailors and buy them drinks until they passed out. The potential inductee's new "friends" would offer to carry him/them home . . . to the ship, where a thumbprint signature (or rudely drawn "x") would enlist him/them. The rum/grog ration was exactly like today's methadone program. A serious addict would stay in service as long as he was nominally functional.
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  4. "I'm gonna walk inland with an oar on my shoulder until someone asks: 'what the hell is that?" -Mike Fink. How did a sailor escape the sea? He didn't. The last night on board, your mates would give you a party, drinking until dawn, until you passed out and then, when you finally dragged yourself awake, present you with your "X" signed re-enlistment contract. A quick taste of the cat to remind you of the consequences, and you were back in colors before your short timer's chain lost its last link.
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