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SubTitle: Old-fashioned Skippers
Posted by: DAN BLAINE (100.53680@germanynet.de) on 11/25/1997@23:28hrs:
In Reply to: Re: The Staten Island Ferry posted by: Anonymous on 11/25/1997@16:14hrs:
For a while in the 60's I worked for an electronics place out on Hylan
Blvd. that had the contract to maintain the ferry boat radars. A lot
of times I'd get called in fix a "problem" on one of the radars that
wasn't a problem at all...the old time captains didn't have much faith
in the radar and would turn the "gain" down on the scope in the pilot
house because the background light would interfere with their vision
and the "grass" on the scope was not pleasant to the eyeball. When it
was foggy, they always sent a lookout up on the bow, not having faith
in the new-fangled electronics. I read somewhere this was one of the
contributing factors in the Andrea Doria accident...except they didn't
even have a lookout and there was a 15year old kid at the helm of the
other ship...I think a Swedish freighter, but I can't remember the
name...DAN