Ok let’s have them… what are your favorite nautical pranks and april fools jokes<span style="font-style: italic;]<span style="font-weight: bold;]?</span></span>
I was 21 yrs old and in the Air Force stationed in the Republic of Panama. I was talking to my Mom on the phone and she told me she had something important to say. She told me my 15 yr old sister was pregnant. I went off the deep end asking who was the culprit, and I was coming home immediately to whip his A!$. I couldn’t even listen to hear that my mom was laughing and I said what is so funny. April Fool’s! Hook, line and sinker!
Don’t forget about the raise last year…Leeroy<br><br><STRONG>This is Lee last March:</STRONG> “Hey man. I heard we’re getting a raise April 1st…and it came from a real good source”.<br><br><STRONG>This is me thinking:</STRONG> “Lee is an idiot”<br><br><STRONG>This is me telling Lee:</STRONG> “You do know what April 1st is,… well do you?”<br><br><STRONG>This is Lee responding:</STRONG> “Man, he was real serious…it’s true, man”<br><br><STRONG>This is me thinking (again):</STRONG> “Lee is an idiot”<br><br><STRONG>This is me telling Lee:</STRONG> “I can’t believe you would even fall for that”<br><br><STRONG>This is Lee thinking (rarity): “</STRONG>He might be right…as usual”<br>
<P>You just ain’t right man> LOL. I did forget about that.<br><br>And my good source’s nick name is pervert! I should have known.</P>
Funny I had a similar experience when my brother emailed me on the ship asking when I was arriving in Vegas for my 21 y/o sister’s wedding… only this happened in June and I was 1,000 miles from the closest airport ;(
I worked on a small island ferry for a year. 364 days of the year, the men’s heads are on the North side of the ferry, women’s is on the South. Come April 1st, we would “swap-ends”. Only the very observant would notice our rescue boat was facing the landing that day. <br>Lots of the islanders, out of force of habit would accidentally wander into the wrong head. It was good for laughs all day, except for the fact that it messed me up a few times making my rounds.
Best boat prank… U/W the mate was a heavy sleeper. I went into his room when he was sawing logs and tied a 1/4" line to his blankets, fed it out his open porthole, tied the other end to a 5 gal bucket and tossed the bucket over the side. He woke up from the noise of the line going out the window and turned the bunk light on just before the blanket went out the porthole. Half the crew and I were outside laughing our a**es off.
Put a marble underneath someone’s rack, or under the closet…anywhere that’s tough to get to. <br>When the boat starts rolling, the noise drives them up 4 walls. Screws, BBs, anything round.
eThib: That’s a classic!<br><br>Cheng: My favorite for people sleeping is to whisper the danger signal in the persons ear a few times… each time get a little louder (don’t wake them up!). At this point the usually start dreaming about watch. Then bang something loud, flash the spotlight in their eyes and yell MAYDAY!<br><br>I swear to god, they have to check their pants and the best part is (because your working on their subconscious) you can do this 5 nights in a row and get the same reaction!
Let’s see, what are some others…Sea Bat, Mail buoy watch, Tuning the radar (which involves <br>the victim standing on the bow wrapped in tinfoil, while everyone takes pictures of him from the bridge).<br><br>Sending the FNG (F%$#@ New Guy) on a fools errand is always fun. Call ahead so he <br>gets bounced from person to person. What he’s looking for is always funny, such as<br><br>Left handed monkey wrench<br>5 Gallon Bucket of Prop wash<br>Bulkhead remover<br>Bucket of steam<br><br>They got me in the Navy, looking for ‘Brass Radar Contacts’. Luckily, the second person <br>they sent me to liked me and told me they were yanking my chain. I went upstairs and <br>napped for an hour. When I returned, they said, “Thibodeau, where the hell have you been!?!?”<br>I said I was looking for brass radar contacts, of course.
Don’t forget the “Bosun’s Punch”… or are today’s Bosuns to scared for their jobs to strike anyone?
What makes the starboard running light red? The lens or the bulb?<br><br>Don’t forget the many cans of relative bearing grease needed to lubricate alidades.<br><br>Sending someone for a can of 2" Red Striping to paint danger lines.<br><br>Cranking the mast down before going under a bridge.<br><br>Sound-powered phone batteries.<br><br>JED sends
B 1 R D’s or G U 11’s fine off the bow …(best part is watching the guys sit there and try to figure it out)… once they give up, ya tell’em to write it down, and you can sit there and watch as they spell it out and the light comes on!!!
eThib - Tuning the radar is a classic. During cadet cruise the mates talked the NOAA Observer into “helping out” during Sunday formation. They actually got him to stand on the Flying Bridge wrapped in Tin Foil but couldn’t talk him into climbing the mast.
Well, I was actually on a ship that had to lower one of our 3 masts before going under a bridge…but it was such a process that I’d pity the poor sucker that did it unnecesarrily.
ds… I got our OS (NFG) to fall for the “Bosn’s Punch” today! The Bosn actually kinda owed him one cuz the OS accidentally gave the Bosn a fat lip. <br>We were hooking up some rigging and the OS swung his leg over the top of the payload to straddle it… kicking Bos in the chops… <br>Our Bosn is a good guy, and he likes to roughouse a bit. The OS got a good chuck in the shoulder, the OS and the Bos both laughed it off…<br>Maybe now I gotta watch MY back?<br>Play at your own risk.
Thib don’t forget about the key to the sea chest. We send freshmen down to the e/r during our gangway watches. One time the engineers actually sent them back up with a little tiny padlock key on a m/e piston ring.<br><br>During a training cruise they kept on finding one freshman 30 degrees off course while he was on the helm. Finally the senior cadet watch officer decided to send the freshman down to the officer’s mess to ask the captain for a key to the relative bearing grease closet. The captain chewed him out for five minutes just for interrupting his meal then finally asked what the freshman wanted. By this time all the officers were watching. When the kid asked for the key to the relative bearing grease closet the entire place busted up laughing. Needless to say, the kid got another earfull from the captain.
100 fathoms of water line.<br><br>When the FNG forgets to complete his laundry, put his wet clothes in the freezer.<br><br>As ChEng I always do hot water system repairs 2 minutes into the Captains shower.<br><br>Once installed an alarm bell on the underside of a FNG’s rack, would just pulse it occasionally. He’d come bounding out all wild-eyed and want to know what was up, the rest of the gang was in on it and say “What Alarm?.. you were just dreaming”. That was good for several months before someone rang it to long and he caught on.<br><br>Have the entire gang wear life vests and crowd the stateroom door and just stare during wake-up call.<br><br>Hide several hand held VHF’s in the victims stateroom, use different channels so he finds them one at a time.<br><br>Call the wheelhouse before your watch and tell them you’re stuck in traffic and will be late for work.<br><br>…idle hands are the devil’s workshop.<br>
once had a green deckhand in void #2 on a sternwheeler for 4 hours looking for the boat plug
Senior cruise one of my roomates decided to apply for Chief Safety Officer… the joker thought it was funny until he got the rate and was woken up at ungodly hours to fix extinguishers, life rings…<br><br>So we started telling people he was in the laundry (6 decks below). After doing this a few times and getting calls like “He’s not down here, did I miss him”. Soon the lightbulb went on and we replied to one guy “Yeah you just missed him, hey since you’re down there mind brining up the laundry from #6 dryer?”<br><br>Stunned that it worked our buddy started being other places like the galley (when we were hungry), or the Library (when we wanted a movie). <br><br>We basically had free room service for 3 weeks until word got out!