Page Eight

Hans Knot shares
"A very strange episode in the history of offshore radio"

I have received two photos from Marc Jacobs, who worked for offshore stations Mi Amigo and Radio Caroline in the seventies. The top one is a photo of a control-wheel aboard the MV Mi Amigo before August 15th 1978. The second one is taken on May 2nd 2004, at the home of Marc Jacobs.

The wheel was bought on April 30th from a flea-market in Nijkerk, by a friend of Marc. He saw it and was told by the seller that he had bought the wheel in the late Seventies, having been told that it once belonged to an offshore radio ship. As Marc had worked on a radio ship, this friend thought 'well maybe a nice present for Marc' and bought it, not knowing what had happened on August 15th 1978.

That was the day when the late Germain Axck, the skipper of one of the tenders from the Mi Amigo, stole the wheel and the compass of the radio ship! It's unknown if Germain did this because he was dissatisfied with the organisation or if he had other reasons.

Hours after the tender had left the radio ship, Marc Jacobs came on the bridge and found out they had been stolen. He told what had happened on Radio Mi Amigo on August 15th 1978, in the programme Baken 16.

Now, after more than 25 years, I think the wheel is on the right place as a memory to his days on the MV Mi Amigo.

Hans Knot, May 2004

"A very strange episode in the history of offshore radio"

Shortly after the above feature appeared, the story became stranger still! Hans wrote:

Marc Jacobs has again sent some photos and he now thinks his is not the Mi Amigo wheel. So now the question, is he right in his conclusion and if so which ship did the wheel come from?

Give me your opinion,

Hans

Radio London comment:

Marc's two close-up photos of the two ships' wheels are reproduced below, show the Mi Amigo wheel at the top, photographed when it was attached to the ship.

To begin with, it seemed that Marc was pretty certain that his wheel was genuinely the original from the Mi Amigo. However, we do not know what caused Marc to reach this conclusion in the first place, or what has now made him change his mind about its validity.

It is virtually impossible to draw a positive conclusion from looking at a photograph, but if anyone would like to express an opinion on the subject, please contact Hans hknot@home.nl


All contributions for our offshore scrapbooks will be gratefully received. Radio London scrapbook here.