Laat maar lullen – Go with the flow

It was on the “Straat Johore” that we had a change of command and the departing Captain, found it necessary to give me some advice, to carry with me in the future. This was after working on the paperwork for the handover, which contained a lot of information I had to supply, when completed he was so relieved and had a drink with me on a ratio of five beers to one.

I had sailed with him on the “Tjitjalengka” towards the end of 1956, not quite two years earlier, when I was a senior 3rd Officer. That old ship, built in 1939, with a proud history serving as a hospital ship during WW2, was not a happy ship as all human elements were replaced by the Company Regulations, all nine volumes of it.

It happened when we sailed up the River Plate towards Buenos Aires in the very early hours of the morning. I had been on watch till midnight and was not pleased to have been called out for stand-by duty on the focsle deck, just in case of emergencies if we had to drop the anchor. The uniform of the day was “white”, white shirt, white shorts and long white socks and white shoes (black after sunset!). On the way forward, I had grabbed my thick blue duffel coat, “Houtjes-touwtjes jas”, from my cabin because it was freezing cold. At daybreak the Captain shouted from the bridge, reminding me the uniform was “white”. I asked a sailor to go up to my cabin and get my thick white jumper. Putting that on brought another shout informing me to take the jumper off and adhere to the Rules with the thread of being removed from my post, which was very serious.

When I came back on the bridge the Captain and I had a big argument about Regulations and Common Sense, where I unfortunately lost my temper and with that consequently the argument as well. He promised to report the matter to Head Office, but because of my quality of work, he would not make me sign my Conduct Statement, which would leave a dark mark on your record, for as long as you were with the RIL and even it could even be carried on if mentioned when leaving.

He kept his word. Arriving in Hong Kong I had passed my contracted time and I had ideas of going on European Leave, but was called in for a serious talk instead. That turned out to be not too bad as the Captain and his strange ideas were well known by his Superiors. The whole thing was an experience for me to take with me, but because I was officially reported, the Nautical Super Intendant, found that he had to dish out a suitable punishment, and so he did. It was to be a complete round trip to Japan, which included an extended dry docking period in Yokohama. He smiled when he spoke the words, knowing full and well that I would enjoy every single minute I would spend in Japan.

Because of the winter in Japan and the ship high and dry with no facilities on board, we had to stay in the little Japanese guest houses, kept by the Dockyard for that purpose. All bachelors soon had their girls looking after them and early in the morning you would see the silly Dutch men in their overalls on little bicycles going to work, carrying their lunches in neatly folded napkins hanging on the handle bars. What a punishment that was!

Except that I ended up by having to see the Doctor in Hong Kong Head Office, who only grinned and chuckled, surely remembering the time when he was a lot younger and was let loose in Japan. Beside that, the little bit of money I had manage to save to get through my European leave was all but gone.

Back to advice that was offered to me. The Captain leaving a ship had to make up the Conduct Statement of all the Officers. He said mine were excellent and I had nothing to worry about in my career if I carried on the way I was handling things then. But he wanted to give me a private and fatherly warning about something; he had a lot of problems with when he was my age. It all came down to the fact that “I still seemed to have the problem, accepting criticism or punishment for things, when I did not think they were warranted”.

The strong advice was to for me to go with the flow, without getting upset or even excited about things I could not change anyhow. He advised me to follow the “LUL” system, “laat maar lullen” i.e. let them twaddle”, as that was what he had taken on board to live with it. He was quite right, except that it had not really worked for him either, as he later had more problems with it.

The concept of LUL is good, as it seems to be the only way to accept what is happening as millions of people around the world are experiencing to day, they have to go with the flow.

Hans van Weel

Safety Beach VIC

6 September 2009