A Sad Day In Royal Navy History

[swaghauler]

IF my forum friend Ian is actually right, then today is the 50th Aniversary of a truly sad day in the history of the Royal Navy...

August 1st, 1970 marks the final day that British Sailors were issued their daily ration of RUM! That's right men. No more Rum on British warships from the 2nd of August 1970 onwards. No wonder they are facing a Manning Shortage today.

I'm hoisting a glass of Captain Morgan's for all those RN sailors and their missing Rum rations!


Swag.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Interesting! I had heard that the rum ration was still issued up to the 1950s but didn't realise it lasted until 1970.

Just to clarify though, while the rum ration is no longer issued, alcohol is still available on British warships as it is in the navies of many Commonwealth nations. They are not "dry ships" like the US Navy has been (still is as far as I know).
Every mess onboard has alcohol for sale, the old joke is that each sailor is allowed beer allocated as "two cans, per man, per day... perhaps!"
It should be noted that this joke also persists across the other branches of the military in many Commonwealth nations (I heard it a number of times about the Army when I was in the Australian Army Reserve in the 1980s-90s).

[Legbreaker]

And this is why everyone in my section (and about half the others in the platoon) carried a hip flask. Our company cook also had a habit of finding out where we were heading before time and "pre-positioning" various libations. This was before he was cook though and still a driver. I think you can see the reason for the job change....

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

And this is why everyone in my section (and about half the others in the platoon) carried a hip flask. Our company cook also had a habit of finding out where we were heading before time and "pre-positioning" various libations. This was before he was cook though and still a driver. I think you can see the reason for the job change....

Hehehehe, yes indeed!

One of the units I was in, we had our own lingo for alcohol. We had different grades of "water" so for example, "dam water" was low strength drinks like Stones Green Ginger Wine (which seemed to be a favourite right across the country) while higher potency booze was, if I remember, "muddy water".
Often one person in the Section would elect to carry a canteen full of said "water" for sharing among the Section at the appropriate times.

[Louied]

It was actually July 31....Black Tot Day

Though the daily ration is gone a ship’s Captain (or the Queen) can still signal
“Splice the Mainbrace” for special occasions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tot_Day

https://www.forces.net/services/navy...end-rum-ration

[Louied]

Swag,

Captain Morgan’s is swill compared to this..,,.

https://pussersrum.com/

Get the Gunpowder Proof bottle