Fog Warning!

 It was towards the end of the 1960's on the T/S "Johannes Fritzen", travelling
 from Sept-Iles Canada to Rotterdam.  Loaded with approximately 35,000 tons
 of ore we had passed Anticosti and were near Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
 It had not stormed once, but we were in a fog so thick that we could see
 only the first two hatches from the bridge.  The front hatches and the
 fordeck had disappeared into the gray soup.  The view amounted to at best 50
 meters from the bridge.  This was logically an emergency situation.  Both
 radars were in use, and the ship's horn roared every two minutes for 4 to 6
 seconds.  The captain was on the bridge from the beginning of the fog, and
 the ship was travelling slowly.  In short, it was an uncomfortable
situation.

 I sat in the radio room doing routine stuff; weather reports, listening
 traffic lists from coastal stations, weather chart signals, disturbed only by the
 ship's horn on the funnel.  Suddenly I heard a call on 500 kHz, the
 international medium wave calling and emergency frequency for telegraphy.
 It was so loud that the headphones nearly fell off my head.  It went, "TTT
 TTT TTT CQ DE SVZZ NX QSW 425."  I must explain that this was a Greek ship
 which was going to transmit a nautical warning on 425 kHz.  (The callsign
 SVZZ is my invention, as I cannot remember the name of the ship or the
 callsign.)  Anyway, I quickly tuned the receiver to 425 kHz with curiosity,
 as nautical warnings are normally only transmitted from coastal stations.
 The contents of the message gave me an enormous fright.
      M/V KAPITAN PAPADOPOULOS/SVZZ  1 12 0800GMT
      NAVIGATIONAL WARNING
      DENSE FOG STOP POSITION AT 0745 GMT 48.31N 62.06W
      COURSE 310 DEGS STOP RADAR OUT OF ORDER
      SPEED 17 KTS
      PLEASE KEEP SHARP LOOKOUT
      MASTER
 
 I ripped the message from the typewriter and took it to the captain on the
 bridge, and I have seldom seen a rosy face so quickly turn white.  Without a
 word he rushed into the chart room, and returned after a short time,
 obviously relieved.  He said, "If the position is correct, the Greek passed
 us 15 minutes ago at approximately two nautical miles."  I don't like to
 think what would have happened if we collided, and even today I get cold
 chills on my back when I think of this episode.
 
 Those Greek seamen must have been brash young men.  What could have
 possessed them to go charging blindly through the fog?