First of all, note that we have dedicated a sub-forum dedidicated solely to Safmarine, found on our forum pages. Please be so kind as to make a visit and leave your mark. We welcome your stories and you can upload pictures as well. You may ask why we have added a forum of the navy into our pages well the answer is simple – they transport parts, they need parts and this is also a community network. I don’t find many pages dedicated to ex or current mariners that want to communicate with each other on the net besides possibly Face Book. In time we want to incorporate a sub onto this website dedicated solely to the navies throughout the world. Time has flown, just like the time flies on modern ships which no longer spend lengthy stretches in port where sailors get up to all sorts of tricks and pick up unmentionable diseases. My first ship was the S.A. Morgenster and my last the S.A. Waterberg, in September 1988. I was the most talented radio officer on board – mainly because they only had one. There are numerous websites dedicated to morse code/CW transmission. http://cw.hfradio.org/ is one.
In order for me to compile a log of all the seafairers that travelled our oceans as a Safmariner please register on this website – you can use your FB or Twitter details as well and drop me a line through we*******@********ng.com. Depending on the authenticity and interest I will compile a fact sheet(vessels, people of interest etc) to go with the pages of parts-ring.com. Of course I will be doing the same with all interested parties from other shipping lines as well as the defence force. This is an international network so I really don’t have any qualms in making up pages of content as we go along – but in time this will be automated. I want to add an extra mySql database to our host site to control the input. What am I getting at? Well for starters my intention is to allow subscribers to add a shipping line, vessel, registration details, service details, date and crew member. Also, intentionally if a seafairer requires assistance in some manner away from his home port he can also use our pages to look up a service provider. Just look for instance at the issue of having a faulty laptop and the user needs it attended to. Parts-Ring subscriber network will provide the user a look-up facility. Right now, in South Africa, if a tourist visiting for the FIFA world cup requires technical assistance in some manner our pages would help. Have you ever tried to get assistance through the Yellow Pages. In my real job I only use the Yellow Pages but it’s a bind. A lot of companies advertising only have a cellular number – I drop those like a red hot poker because of the lack of address details. I’m sure everybody at some stage or other travelling overseas has been conned by some unscrupulous land-lubbing service agent. I recall an incident where a service engineer for Decca radar in Marseilles had to keep going ashore to get more spares and each time he came back he was more pissed. Eventually we had to escort him off the ship. And we still got billed for his time.
Thank you for your time and hope you come back soon.