PattyRonca

Hello everyone! My grandmother took me on the Bremen during the summer of 1965 from NY to Bremerhaven. I was 15 years old at the time. My Granny had sailed on numerous occasions aboard the Bremen to where she had made friends with the Captain.... I believe his name was Captain Rossing? We had an adventurous passage in that we were caught in a storm during the first couple of days. It was the worst because, as you all might suspect or otherwise know, there is no escaping from it. I spent a good deal of time out on the deck with my head over the rails. I recall that my Grandmother came looking for me one afternoon. She was so excited that the Captain had invited us to tea in his quarters. She must have had a stomach of steel because the motion of the ship did not affect her one iota.... For me though I couldn't bear the thought of going indoors and she was horrified telling me what an honor it was to be invited by the Captain and couldn't I please pull myself together! She felt if I did not show up that the Captain would be insulted. In the end though, she went and described my situation which he totally understood. Throughout the crossing we were honored to be invited to sit at the Captain's table for dinner, at times when I was otherwise not seasick. I had to wear a long formal dress for the occasion! After we had made it through the storm I recall that we had received word of a freighter that had had a terrible accident or some sort of explosion on board that injured a few of their crew members. Since the Bremen was the closest ship with a 'hospital' on board they'd asked if we could rendezvous with them to take the injured on board with us. Our Captain agreed and I can fully recall as if it happened yesterday (I'm 72 now) seeing the freighter approaching us in the distance through the dark. The sea was still a bit rough so exactly how they were going to accomplish this had the decks filled with passengers witnessing the feat. The freighter approached and began to make, for lack of a better description, a U turn only their ship didn't have enough room to accomplish it and the nose of their ship scraped alongside the hull of the Bremen for what seemed a lifetime. The noise was horrendous with people running and screaming and crew members dishing out life jackets. It wasn't until we got to port in Bremerhaven that we were able to see the damage. There were a couple of fairly large holes in the hull right above the waterline. Had we had that accident during the time we were waiting out the storm I would probably not be here typing this out right now. When we were finally able to see the damage, it was being hurriedly covered up with large tarps. In retrospect now, I have a feeling that the stress of this unfortunate incident weighed heavily on Captain Rossing and may have contributed to his demise on the return trip to NY following our crossing. My Granny was very upset after having learned that he'd passed as she was looking forward to sailing with him again on our return trip at the end of the summer. Such memories.