Does anyone know of any merchant mariner clubs? I’ve heard of Mariner’s House in Boston and the website of the Soldiers’, Sailors’, Marines’, Coast Guard and Airmen’s Club in NYC says that they serve merchant mariners as well as the uniformed services but as best as I can understand these are sort of like hostels for mariners who are just passing through. What I’m wondering is if there any “clubs” out there for people like us in the older, perhaps more traditional, sense of the word: somewhere with some sort of bar/lounge(s), restaurant/dining room(s), maybe lodging upstairs, and the occasional programming directed at the theme of the club, i.e. speakers, industry professionals, etc. The place I imagine is somewhere for like-minded individuals and professionals to meet, relax, converse, connect, and anything else you can think of.
Maybe this is little more than wishful thinking but I thought I’d throw the hook out there and see what I pull in for information. I am currently a student at a maritime academy and have just crossed the half-way point in my education. This hardly qualifies me as a member of the greater “club” that is the industry itself but this way of life is something that I intend to actively participate in for a very long time to come so I guess you could say I’m just doing a little bit of investigating into my future.
If no such place exists perhaps the time has come to create one? Food for thought.
This isn’t likely exactly what you are looking for, but it does provide some of the services you mention. There are several international organizations providing services to the mariner in ports throughout the world.
Here’s a blurb from their Walvis Bay, Namibia location:
The centre is 50m from port entrance. Money exchange, Library/Book exchange, Television /Satellite TV, Meals, Snacks, Soft Drinks, Indoor Games, Garden, Telephone/Phone cards, Bar, Transport, Shop, Swimming Pool, Postal Service.
Evening Prayer : Every Sunday 1800.
Communion Service/ Holy Mass on request in the Chapel.
Yes, you are on the receiving end of a mission, but it is nice to have a place to go to when you have a chance to go ashore. They don’t force religion on you.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;70843]Does anyone know of any merchant mariner clubs?.. The place I imagine is somewhere for like-minded individuals and professionals to meet, relax, converse, connect, and anything else you can think of.[/QUOTE]
No such place. We have instead the gcaptain forum where like-minded individuals meet, not to relax or converse, but to try to convince other forum members that, no, it is not I who is possibly the most thick-headed lame excuse for a mariner that deserves only to have their credentials pulled immediately if not sooner and, be banned from the forum for life; and who has just left what could possibly be the stupidest thing posted on the internet ever, but instead it is in fact the person with whom I am arguing who should have THIER credentials pulled, if in fact they have any, which I doubt by the way…
Anyway, I’d never belong to a club that would have me for a member.
The Merchant Mariner clubs that I am most familiar with are dive bars within stumbling distance near the docks in just about any port anywhere. Often smoke filled “dens of iniquity” filled with low life types of all nationalities and tarty girls wanting you to buy them an overpriced drink.
Being a native northwesterner, Ballard in Seattle was the mecca for fishermen’s wateringholes and in the bad old daze of the great King Crab boom in the 70’s you would find all types in their sweats and Xtra Toughs throwing huge piles of cash down in such famous dungeons as the Lockspot, Hattie’s Hat, Blaze’s Broiler, the Sloop, Mike’s Chili House, the Copper Gate, the Valhalla, the Smokeshop and the list just goes on forever it seems. Ballard Avenue was a sailor’s bar crawling paradise! Of course, there was also Fremont as well with the Dock, the old Fremont Tavern, the Pacific Inn (which still has awesome Halibut and chips!)
I myself, remember more than once coming back from Alaska on some tugs I used to be on and tying up at Ballard Oil and making a beeline to “the Sloop” right across the street and pounding them two fisted!
Bars and dive bars I am thoroughly aware of. Every port has a varied selection of them, even such a small place as Castine. I think I’m looking for something a bit more rare and a bit more sophisticated. Maybe I’m still just a naive member of the industry but life has yet to become all about getting hammered, as I’ve heard rumors it can be for many professionals out there, and I sincerely hope that that is a place in my maritime career that I never find.
About the Propeller Clubs, they are indeed organizations of maritime professionals but in my (limited) experience they usually don’t have any kind of a clubhouse, they just meet for dinner once a week or once a month, or whatever the case may be, in a local function-room or restaurant. I am already a member of one myself, the Maine Maritime Academy chapter, which itself is sort of an extension of the larger, older, and more well established Belfast, Maine chapter. There’s nothing wrong with the Propeller Clubs of America, they’re just not exactly what I had in mind. I think what I postulated might have been something akin to a propeller club with a clubhouse of its own, sort of anyway…
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;70861]Bars and dive bars I am thoroughly aware of. Every port has a varied selection of them, even such a small place as Castine. I think I’m looking for something a bit more rare and a bit more sophisticated. Maybe I’m still just a naive member of the industry but life has yet to become all about getting hammered, as I’ve heard rumors it can be for many professionals out there, and I sincerely hope that that is a place in my maritime career that I never find.[/QUOTE]
We’re talking about merchant mariners here not the bloody Royal Kings Point Navy! There are no Merchant Marine “Officers Clubs” to hang around in uniform singing “Heave Ho Me Lads” all around a piano with gin and tonics if that’s what you want. A real bona fide merchant marine officer is a seaman first and an officer second and when ashore he’ll go to the same dives as the crew and all pound them together. It’s called “team building” with your shipmates and it not only works but you get to have a fine time hoisting some cold brews in the process. Try it sometime, you’ll learn a valuable life lesson (or maybe two even)!
Goddammit…I hope you’re not one of those reggi-mental KP wannabe types who’s all into the spiffy uniforms and marching and swords and everything and wants to be effing Richard Gere in “Officer and a Gentleman”
Only pretty boys would wear dress whites riding! Look at the effing effeminate hands on him. Just pathetic although a Triumph Bonneville is a VERY COOL BIKE!
Get it in your head right now…the merchant marine IS NOT THE NAVY! Officers in the merchant marine do actual work, get dirty and want to drink when ever possible just like all other working stiffs out there. Son…just go to the bar, learn to get hammered, crawl back to the ship* and be a seaman for Christ’s sake! Your crews will respect you for it!
*I passed out in a drainage culvert once near the docks in Kahului, Maui and was awaken after it started to rain…I damned near drowned!
[QUOTE=cappy208;70853]Trying to think of the name. I have heard of them referred to as ‘Propellor Clubs’. Small private, invite by existing members etc etc.[/QUOTE]
Um, not so much. Propeller Clubs are local entities that focus on the Port and all it’s players. It’s a way for EVERYONE involved to meet others that they would under normal circumstances NEVER meet. Legislation, commerce etc.
I don’t think there is enough mariners in one area to support a club like you described. Most of us a spread out. Economically it makes a lot more sense for interested people to meet in an established business.
My experience with large groups of mariners in one place is they tend to separate in groups according to which academy they went to. The biggest bunch of people you are ever going to see together with common interest is where you are right now.
Aw Christ! This thread has now got me reminiscing about all the great waterfront dives I’ve been able to “splice the mainbrace” in. So many now in more than three decades out there in this crazy goddamned industry. I honestly have to say that some of the best memories are all the bars along the way. What a journey it’s been!
We need to have a “Sea Story” section to gCaptain for us old timers to yarn a bit about pitchers downed. Of bars filled and emptied. Of bones broken and teeth extracted. Of rabble roused and insurrections mounted. And of course…of virgins cured!
[QUOTE=c.captain;70878]Aw Christ! This thread has now got me reminiscing about all the great waterfront dives I’ve been able to “splice the mainbrace” in. So many now in more than three decades out there in this crazy goddamned industry. I honestly have to say that some of the best memories are all the bars along the way. What a journey it’s been!
We need to have a “Sea Story” section to gCaptain for us old timers to yarn a bit about pitchers downed. Of bars filled and emptied. Of bones broken and teeth extracted. Of rabble roused and insurrections mounted. And of course…of virgins cured!
cheers y’all…
.[/QUOTE]
This one got me to thinking about the different waterfront dives that are more or less unoffical Seamen’s Clubs in the various ports that I used to haunt. Probably the subject of another thread. Are you up for it, Capt?
Which reminds me of a chief I had a long time ago. His avocation was to publish a book of seamen watering holes from Maine to Texas, of course doing research along the way as needed.
For me, being addled with add the best recollection has to be ‘stoneys’ in Tampa, and the ‘black horse’ Staten Island. Where sailors can (along time ago) go act like… Sailors.
Frickin’ Cousins had to go screw the pooch on that whole deal!
