The first thing I discovered when I joined the Merchant Navy afer serving in two countries Navies and a Air Force was discipline was practilly non existant.

I was on the oil tanker "Ragusa" belonging to Gulf Oil and we were on our way to Italy from the Persian Gulf, when I was ordered up to the bridge where a couple of drunk engineers had confronted the Captain and were demanding that he release more beer as they had run out.

The Captain had refused and they had attempted to hit him but both being drunk he easly avoided them and had locked himself in the chart room.

We managed to overpower the two engineers and more or less dragged them down to their living quarters and kept watch on them for the rest of the night.

When we arrived in Genoa waiting on the dock were two engineers sent out from the UK to replace the two mutineers as the Captain had radioed head office in London and explained what happend and also gave them two bad conduct discharges which would make it harder for the two culprits to get another ship. Mauri