I'm a couple of years off doing my 50 years in the yards.
In that time things have happened which would have kept Billy Connolly in material for years.
One of my favourites was a chap who will always and forever be known as Bungee.
The true story begins at a senior management meeting where cost savings were being discussed.
Drag chains, that we use to slow down and direct a ship at launch came up.
These go into the water and have to be retrieved after a launch, an expensive item.
Ideas were bounced around (literally as it turned out), when the bold Bungee stated his idea.
Bungee cords, massive scale of course, would replace the chains and give the company an instant saving.
Silence, for a few seconds until the laughter began, poor Bungee had got it right, that cords of a given strength would indeed slow down a ship.
Unfortunately it would also reach the final point of stretching and begin contracting.
Can you imagine the Royal personage having launched the ship, seen it slip down the stocks, only to see it rebound up them again at a fair old rate of knots?
And so a star was born, and a name to take to the grave.
