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1986: Life on a Coaster Ship | Forty Minutes | BBC Archive
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February 8, 2026
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February 8, 2026
307,416
5,461
464
1.93%
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39:38Now Playing"I resent people calling my ship a rust-bucket. She's an old lady who needs the occasional helping hand." - Rick Waters.
Carrick is a dirty British Coaster - a 30-year-old relic carrying unglamorous cargoes from port to port in the Channel and the North Sea. Her skipper and owner is Rick Waters, once part-time butler to Edward Heath. George Norman, the mate, looks after the cargoes - the ship could capsize if a cargo shifts at sea. Deckhands Alan Jopling and Victor Gauld turn their hand to almost anything, and young trainee, Dele Okukenu is getting his sea legs. Tom Owen, ex-Royal Navy, struggles with Carrick's dodgy engine, as we follow its uncertain progress through the mad March days, carrying fertiliser to Exmouth, grain to Antwerp, and spuds, improbably, to Wisbech.
Clip taken from Forty Minutes - A Passage to Wisbech, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 17 April, 1986.
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