After Dartmouth instead of a holding at a Lynx Squadron I was posted to a minehunter (HMS ar&e) for 2 months at the start of a JMC in the minches (in November).... nice intro to life at sea .. not - literally
all the time ...
After the JMC, we cruised down to the south coast and were just about to visit Poole when I was invited to drive the ship on a man overboard exercise. So the dummy goes over the side, I steer the ship round the circuit and am just on "finals" when it all goes horribly wrong and we run over the dummy
. Props stop turning, puzzled looks for about a nanosecond then the Captain orders the anchor down. Out go the divers to clear the man overboard dummy from the props, delay the ship for about 3 hours. Captain dismisses me from the bridge with the stern words "Midshipman Oggin, you are never driving my ship again!! ....... to which I reply "Thankyou very much sir" - Best moment so far
Worst moment - being "invited" to suit up and be chucked into the North Sea a week later for a live man overboard exercise .......