I was interested to read the news item about the decaying FSO Safer (SM, Oct). I was one of Safer’s early mooring masters and pilots, flying out to Hodeidah in North Yemen in December 1988 about eight months after the first Marib crude flowed through the system. We were employed by Ocean Inchcape Limited (OIL) of Woking and so lived in Hodeidah and not on board Safer. I had been piloting ships in Africa and the Middle East since 1978 and had over 4,000 ships ‘under my belt’. Before joining Safer I did a Manned Model Course at the Warsash facility.
To clarify a couple of things in the article: Safer was converted in Korea but not into an oil barge, as she remained
