Ahoy there shipmates on the shipman

We have come across the old bulk of a great hulk adrift on the high seas. It looks like the SS Great Britain, once built by Isumbard Kingdom Brunel, and seems to be full of coals for Glasgow. Nobody on board except for an old sea dog that has gone gaga called Captain Murphy VC DSO CH. Says he is the last survivor of a long line of old seadogs from Co Cork and Montinotty. But full of gibberish poor old blighter. Says all his seamen jumped overboard one by one. Could not put up with the pressure of all of his Glasgow coals. He says his trusted amanuensis was Capt Chestikov, an old Russian hand at his helm that he has trusted for many years in an orange scarf and four-quarter hat, he also jumped over-board too in a storm and swam away to a desert island with a haversack containing all of Capt Murphy's collection of old songs from Co Cork with the addresses of all his old friends there from Bunratty and the old Blarney's castle. Capt Murphy is distraught - he never really wanted to betray all his old friends - not really. But there you go, that's what happens when the Russians old style take over an old Glasgow steamer like this one full of old coal. His chief petty officer Sir Paul Gilhooley too has gone the way of old flesh and jumped into the sea too and is now on the same desert island with Mr Chestikov as his Man Friday. Don't like fish though. Sad. Capt Joe Keenan too jumped overboard - too much coal. The SS Opus magnum is the sister ship now pulling alongside to rescue that old wreck.

Shivver me timbers

Well there's a sprightly lass, somat we could never say around Anglesey these days, but out here in the southern waters, we have just run into a big old fat tugboat freighter thing, called the MV Chestikov, which is advertising its wares as oily fish, but actually on closer inspection is just another tub from a banana republic offering bananas to Africans. No change here on these Russian or shall I say Hanseatic ships bound for exotic ports in Africa. Good on slaves though. The captain says he speaks English, but it is all broken Russian and Portuguese. The usual freight. Nothing ever changes in southern Russia on the Black See.

Auch aye ahoy there

Well here we are approaching the coast of Albany upstate, hunting the SS Antoine Petit Pince-Nez, which has been hounding our traffic for sometime between Canada and Britain, and this lean-to frigate is captained by a very able seaman called Capt Antoine du Fromage, a stickler for discipline and routine, but who is keen on firing broadsides at the east coast of the American colonies. A troublesome chap this one. Educated far beyond his ability at the Naval College at La Rochelle, and an all-round payne. Like the sailors on the ill-fated Neptine he has a titanic opinion of himself. Terentius the poet would agree.

Ahoy there

Ahoy there shipmates. It's a long haul back to the Canadian reefs and shrimp beds of home sweet home. Yes aye we have a long way to go on the HMS Repulse. And we have taken our fair share of the odd grapeshot from the French and their ongoing and interminable revolutions. We have just missed two frigates steal out by night from the waters of the Galapagos Islands, in hot pursuit of Capt Fitzroy. These two fast attack boats, a solid idea for our own coastal defences back home, called the SS Bon Nuit and the SS Brione de Brioche, are a very fast couple of cutters that know how to make their escape from our long range guns. We shall leave them at it till the southern lights of the aurora australialis arrive. Adieu my fine weather but feathery friends.

Well ahoy there

Well ahoy there lads, shivver me timbers, tis a grand high sea out there tonight. Huge waves crashing over the decks of the Repulse, and just ahead of us wrestling with mighty seas, there is the SS Hudson River and the SS Hadden de Nouveau Maulden, a tiny speck of a couple, mere jetsam and flotsam actually now in a great grand sea, full of the usual leviathans, this pair sporting Brit colours but looking decidedly french below decks. A two-faced lot the french navy. Frenchies beware. Even napoleon wd despair of this couple.

Ahoy ahoy

Ahoy there shipmates of the HMS Boulavogue and HMS Tipperary, tis time we all packed up our kitbags and got into the fair winds that will blow us across the Atlantic and into calm waters in the Us colonies. Lovely weather here and tis mete to find a little landfall at the Azores. We'll all be singing It's a Long Way to Tipperary by teatime. The old napoleon is probably hiding up the Hudson river this weather. He always hightails it out to the French colonies when he is bombarded.

Well well well

Well my hearties and shipmates we are pressing north now into the mellowest of yellow seas, the South China Seas, in the footsteps of the great explorers of once upon a time like Marco Polo, who had to survive so many ambushes and prison sentences from dubious westerners and travellers of an Irish and French kind that it is a wonder he ever made it to China. His memoires he wrote in prison. We are hot on the tail of another ship of the Napoleonic hordes, a square rigger called the SS Adrienne Toffeenose and another bigger belle called the SS Aoife Kennedy, as the franglais delight in naming their warships after French and Irish defectors and wannabes. Irish defectors to the armies and navies of Napoleon alas are endemic, and they do their country no service, as they brownnose their way to the top in Paris. These two belles above have put in a lot of damage over the years especially to one of our newer ships the SS Garde le Foi, and an older ship the Fay ce que, which we have given French names though these are just epithets which mirror the dedication on the house of Lady Foyle of Londonderry. Ahoy.