LIFE ONBOARD RMN PATROL CRAFT (PC) IN THE 80'S

Written by:

Hj Zulheimy Bin Maamor

Veteran of the Royal Malaysian Navy

I joined the Royal Malaysian Navy when patrol craft were still the workhorses of the fleet — small, noisy, salt-caked, and always moving. This is not an official history. It is a deck-level memory of two hulls, two squadrons, and one year that taught me what “small ship, big sea” really meant.

Introduction — The PC Era

In the mid-80s, if you were posted to a Patrol Craft, you understood two things: you would be wet more often than not, and you would see more of Malaysia’s maritime borders than any staff officer in KL. The PCs were old by then, but they were honest ships.

Between 30 March 1987 and 28 March 1988, I served on two very different PCs — one on the east coast facing the South China Sea, the other on the west coast facing the Strait and beyond. This is that year, told as it was lived: watches, boardings, anchorages, and the quiet moments in between.

KD PANAH

14th Squadron Patrol Craft

Tg.Gelang, Kuantan, Pahang

30.3.1987 - 11.10.1987

My first Patrol Craft was a Kris class PC, KD Panah (P42) of the 14th Squadron Patrol Craft (14th PC) based at Tanjung Gelang, Kuantan, Pahang.

KD PANAH was a Kris-class, one of the batch built in the United Kingdom in the 1960s that formed the backbone of RMN’s coastal force for two decades. She was not fast by modern standards, she was loud, and her mess deck leaked when we took green water over the bow — but she could stay out.

I reported to Tg. Gelang, Kuantan. 14th Squadron. Our patch was the EEZ in the South China Sea. The job was mostly invisible: deterrence, presence, boarding. The real traffic then was Thai fishing boats — deep-hulled trawlers that worked our waters at night, lights off, nets down.

Two Commanding Officers in my time: Lt Kdr Zainal Murad and then Lt Zainal Rashid (Diver). Different styles, same seamanship. With Lt Kdr Zainal Murad, I learned how to read a contact not just on radar but by its behaviour — the hesitation before a turn, the sudden change in engine note.

Life on a Small Patrol Craft

Life on a PC is measured in small mercies. A cold drink at Pulau Tioman after a week of ration water. A quiet anchorage at Tak Bai, Thailand, where the smell of Tom Yam from the galley could make the whole upper deck forget we were on patrol.

You learn to sleep through diesel vibration, to shower with a bucket, to write letters that take three weeks to arrive. And you learn that 22 men in 96 feet becomes a family, whether you plan it or not.

One day we had a near-ramming. We had ordered a Thai boat to stop for boarding. She pretended to comply, then at the last 50 yards put her helm hard over to run between us and our RHIB. The smell of diesel, the shouting, our coxswain pulling us clear. On a PC, there is no margin. You feel everything.

You don’t really “sail” a PC. You live on it. We anchored off islands not for scenery but because the hull needed rest and the crew needed a night without rolling. Pulau Tioman was a favourite — then still quiet, water so clear you could see the anchor chain vanish into blue. We would scrub the hull waterline, swim around the ship, and the coxswain would tell us not to go too far because of current.

The most unexpected run was the border: from Pengkalan Kubur, Kelantan to Tak Bai, Thailand. On paper it was a routine riverine and coastal check. In reality it meant crossing into a different world for half a day. We secured alongside and walked to a Muslim stall near the market. The Tom Yam — sour, salty, with catfish and young tamarind — still sits in my memory as the best I’ve ever had. The stall owner knew we were TLDM. He just smiled and added more rice.

Pasukan Kadet Bersatu Malaysia (Laut) during Sea Training at South China Sea in 1987. 

Hari Raya at Sea — South China Sea, 1987

Hari Raya at sea in 1987 fell while we were underway. No ketupat from home, no family. Hari Raya Puasa came while we were at sea. There was no going home. The cook had kept nasi himpit and rendang in the coolbox since Kuantan. We ate after Maghrib on the upper deck, paper plates bending. 

“At sunset we fired flares — red and white falling slow over black water. Everyone on deck, in clean jerseys. Nasi himpit, rendang from the galley, eaten with hands that still smelled of grease. Then solat Raya on the aft deck, the ship hove-to, and a silence I have never heard again at sea. No engine, no radio. Just breathing.”

At night, the Captain ordered flare firing — not for distress, but for celebration. Parachute flares hanging like small moons. A white star hung over the South China Sea for forty seconds and we all looked up like children.

Morning was different. We performed Solat Raya on deck. The ship was stopped, drifting. After the takbir, no one spoke loudly. The sea was flat. I remember thinking, this is what fitrah feels like — nothing between you and horizon.

The boy who drifted 29 hours

In that same deployment, the fleet was still talking about LK1 Abdul Jalil Bin Saat from KD SRI SARAWAK. He had fallen overboard — or been washed — and spent 29 hours adrift before being found alive. On a big ship, man overboard is a drill. On a small PC at night, in monsoon transition, it is a different fear altogether. We checked lashings twice after that story. We counted heads three times.

Ref : Utusan TV : Wira Tidak didendang - 29 Jam Terapung di Lautan.

KD SRI NEGRI SEMBILAN

12th Squadron Patrol Craft

Lumut, Perak

12.10.1987 - 28.43.1988

On 12 October 1987,  I crossed to the west coast. KD SRI NEGRI SEMBILAN, pennant P3146, 12th Squadron Patrol Craft (12th PC), based at Lumut, Perak. She was a different pedigree altogether: built by Vosper Ltd, Portsmouth, England, commissioned on 28 September 1964.

Her first Commanding Officer was Lt Kdr Mohd Zain bin Mohd Salleh — a name every junior sailor knew, because he would later become Chief of Navy in 1977. To serve on a ship that had been his first command felt like stepping into a lineage. The wardroom had a faded commissioning photo. You could see the same gun mounting, same bridge, twenty-three years earlier.

I was posted as Laskar Kanan. In truth, that was a mis-posting. A PC’s complement called for Laskar Kelas 1 for my trade. But the Navy in those days was pragmatic: if you were qualified and available, you went. So I learned quickly. On a PC, rank is less important than whether you know where the emergency steering is without looking.

The Commanding Officer when I was at KD Sri Negri Sembilan was Lt. Mior Rosdi bin Dato' Mior Jaafar, who was also a Navigation Officer when I was onboard KD Ganas at Woodlands, Singapore in 1981. 

PULAU BIDONG

Our patrol box often included Pulau Bidong, 45 kilometres off Terengganu. Since 8 August 1978, when 121 Vietnamese landed and were taken in, the island had become a UNHCR transit camp. By June 1979, at its peak, there were 40,000 people on an island barely a kilometre long.

In July 1987, KD Sri Negri Sembilan was tasked to patrol the waters around the island - at that times the largest Vietnamese refugee camp in the world, administered by UNHCR with Malaysian Navy support. 

By 1987 the numbers were lower, but the camp was still there — long atap sheds, laundry lines, church and pagoda. We were not there to administer. We were there to watch the water: to deter pirates who preyed on refugee boats, to prevent unauthorised landings, and to report movements.

“From the bridge at 0200, Bidong looked like a small city with no streetlights — cooking fires flickering, dogs barking across water. You could smell the island before you saw it. And you understood: these people had crossed the same sea that was now rocking us to sleep, but for them it was not a patrol.”Station off Bidong — Night Watch

We also saw Cambodian families, including some Khmer Rouge remnants who had drifted after the collapse. The politics were above my pay grade. Our orders were simple: ensure safety of life at sea, and ensure Malaysian sovereignty was respected. We gave water when needed. We shadowed suspicious boats until they turned back.

The pirate threat was real. In the late 70s and early 80s, refugee boats had been attacked in these waters. By ’87 we patrolled with live ammunition and strict searchlight discipline — never illuminating the camp directly, always the sea approaches.

Pulau Bidong in 1987 was not a headline anymore. It was a daily routine of humanity - births, deaths, lessons under trees, letters home that might never arrive.Our job was to keep the sea lane safe and the island supplied. 

OSTEX & Goodwill to Belawan / Medan

November brought OSTEX in the Strait of Malacca, followed by a goodwill visit to Indonesia. We sailed in company with KD SERAMPANG (41). Two small PCs in formation, doing manoeuvres that bigger ships would find trivial, but for us it meant everything had to be precise — station keeping at 4 cables in a 3-metre swell is not comfortable.

We berthed at Belawan, the port town 24 kilometres from Medan. Medan in 1987 was — and still is — the largest city in Sumatra: noisy, hot, full of becaks and kretek smoke. For a sailor from Lumut and Kuantan, it felt like another continent, even though it was just across the Strait.

Part of the goodwill programme was a trip inland to Lake Toba — the largest lake in Indonesia, formed in a supervolcano caldera. We went in a bus that had no air-conditioning, through palm estates and Batak villages. The lake itself was vast, like a sea at altitude. We stopped at a market near Parapat.

The incident at Toba

There, one of the sailor from KD Serampang,  suddenly became kerasukan — possessed. He shouted, eyes rolled, collapsed among the fruit stalls. The market went quiet. Our chief tried to hold him, but he was strong. An old Batak man pushed through — a bomoh, or datu — and asked us to step back. He spoke softly in Batak, sprinkled water from a bottle, placed his hand on the boy’s forehead.

Within minutes, the crewman calmed, then wept. The bomoh said nothing more, just waved us away. On the bus back, no one joked. The CO later said: “When you are a guest abroad, guard your mouth, guard your manners, guard your thoughts. You are not only representing yourself.” That lesson stayed longer than the lake.

Fate of the Ships

Years pass. Hulls that were once home become statistics. KD SRI NEGRI SEMBILAN served until 2006, when she was decommissioned from TLDM and handed over to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) as KM NYIREH.

Her final service was perhaps her most beautiful. On 20 April 2017, she was sunk off Pulau Payar Marine Park as part of the biodiversity reef project — an artificial reef. No ceremony that I attended. Just a controlled sinking, water filling the compartments where we once kept charts and rice.

KD PANAH? 

She went earlier, broken up after years in reserve. Kris-class PCs were never meant to last forever. KD Panah (P42), is currently active and back with the Royal Malaysian Navy but it now operates under the new name KD Sri Sarawak (P48).

But for those who served, the smell of bilge and paint stays.

Hj Zulheimy Maamor

26 August 2026: 2.22 a.m

FROM LEMBAH KERAMAT TO REJANG RIVER

Title: BROWN WATER NAVY - Daily Life on the Patrol Boat: Morning and Night on the Rejang River (1983/84)

By: 809025 Ex-LK KMR Hj Zulheimy Bin Maamor

Ex-Crew of Riverine Craft, KD Sri Rejang

I grew up in Kuala Lumpur, in the narrow lane of Lembah Keramat, far away from Sarawak. As a schoolboy learning about Geography, I memorised the name 'Sungai Rejang' as the longest river in Malaysia, 563 km from the Iran Mountain to the South China Sea. It was just a line on a textbook map. I never thought that life would take me there. I never imagines that one day I would end up far from home, in the heart of Borneo, wearing the uniform of the Navy, patrolling the mighty Batang Rejang. 

In 1983/84, while serving with the Royal Malaysian Navy River Patrol Boat at KD Sri Rejang in Sibu, Sarawak, during Ops Jala Aman 1, I found myself patrolling that very river I once only read about it in the school textbook. 

People ask me, what was it like to be Brown Water Navy?

We were Brown Water Navy, not the Blue Water Fleet at the Open Ocean, not Frigates or Landing Ship Tank. Our sea was brown. Muddy, fast, and alive. Sungai Rejang — the longest in Malaysia, 563km of muddy water from the hills of Kapit to the sea at Sibu. We were the only permanent Royal Malaysian Navy riverine base in Malaysia, operating under RASCOM (Rejang Area Security Command), which was established March 25, 1972, and our job was simple: patrol, interdict, and support. Morning and night.

0500H - Dawn at KD Sri Rejang, Sibu

Life started in the early morning. The base at Sibu, at the convergence of the Rajang and Igan rivers, woke to diesel smoke. We were a small crew — 5 to 6 men only. A Skipper (Boat Commander), 2 Seamen, 1 Motor Mechanic (TMK), and 1 Radio Operator (RO) — that was me. We operated three types of Bot Lancang: RCP for combat patrol and escort, LCP for swift troop insertion, and LCM for heavy logistics.

Breakfast was Roti, Sardine and black coffee in a tin mug. Radio check with KD Sri Rejang COMCEN before take off, "KD Sri Rejang, this is RCP7, Radio Check, Over,".... the answer always cracked. Then we cast off. No fanfare and Sibu was still asleep. Our boat was small, but our Job was big, to show the flag, to keep the river safe during the last years of the communist insurgency. 

My skipper remind me as I'm new here, " Zul, jangan main-main dengan sungai tok. Hormat sungai, sungai akan jaga kitak." He is a Sarawakian Malay from Kuching.

This Riverine Patrol Boat, or we called them Bot Lancang, were our homes. Our boat was heavily armed — 20mm Oerlikon cannon forward, 7.62 LMG and L2A1 on the sides. But our biggest enemy was sound. We carried everything and everyone, personel from 24 RAMD, 8 RRD Rangers, 11 RGK Commandos, 17 PPH (Police Field Force), Sarawak Border Scouts, 105 mm Guns of the Artillery, rations, mail, sometims a chicken in a basket from a longhouse. 

Our sector was Sibu to Kapit, to Kuala Rejang or Kuala Paloh, the heart of the Rejang river. We will often stop at Sarikei, Kanowit, Kapit, Song, Durin, Belaga, Binatang (now Bintangor) and a few longhouses in between. 

In Song, the jetty was our second home. The kids knew us by name on my nametag. "Bang Zul, kitak ada gula-gula kah?" they would ask. I always kept some in my pocket. "Aok, ada. Tapi jangan bising-bising dalam kelas, faham?" I would answer, and they would laugh and run away.

Sometimes we would be invited up to the longhouse for a drink. Tuak. We had to be polite. "Saudara, minum sikit. Untuk perpaduan," the Tuai Rumah would say. We never refused respect.

The river was our road. No tar, no traffic lights. Only the brown water, the green banks and the occasional batang kayu besar floating dangerously close. Our Skipper was a Sarawakian Malay from Kuching who could read the river like a book. He khew where the sandbank was,where the current was strong . 

Life on the patrol boat was tight. Four or five of us, sleeping side by side, eating from the same pot, sharing the same mosquitoes. But there was brotherhood. True brotherhood — whether you were Malay, Iban, Indian, or even the Sarawakian Chinese boys attached to the boat.

Our boat crews were not permanent. They always changed, especially for a Radio Operator like me. I was not attached to just one boat; I went wherever the operation needed me. So I had the chance to serve on the RCP, the LCM and the LCP.

The acoustic signature of our engines was so loud, the thick jungle along Sungai Assan, Sungai Naman, Sungai Setabau and Sungai Nyemah would hear us minutes before we arrived. Ambush was always in our mind.

The Rejang is a highway, market, bath and battlefield. Longhouses on stilts, kids swimming next to our patrol boat, women pounding rice, old men watching us with eyes that had seen the Emergency, Confrontation and now this. 

We would cast off as mist lifted off the water. The first SITREP (Situation Report)  at 0800H had to be transmitted — usually from Nanga Gaat, where there is a war memorial erected by the British for 21 Commonwealth troops killed during the Confrontation.

The Route: Our Villages, Our Jetties

Patrol was not non-stop running. We were the river bus, the ambulance, the gunboat, the grocer — all in one.

Song — a quiet riverside town, capital of Song District. We would tie up at the wooden jetty for a short break, buy ice, kopi O. The Iban folks knew us.

Kanowit — dominated by the Iban community, a place of old stories like Tragedi Pendam Bungkang told by the Border Scouts.

Binatang (now Bintangor) — famous for oranges. Renamed Bintangor by Tun Taib after the Bintangor tree.

Sarikei — the fruit basket of Sarawak, pineapples everywhere.

Kapit — deep interior. Four districts: Bukit Mabong, Belaga, Song, Kapit itself. The river gets narrower, hills become mountains, longhouses on stilts watch you from the bank.

Belaga — the end of the world for us. Isolated, home to Orang Ulu, and later the site of Bakun Dam.

At every jetty, kids would run down. "Navy! Navy!" Old folks would bring pisang. We carried Army boys from 24 RAMD, 8 RRD Rangers, 11 RGK Commandos, and 17 PPH Police Field Force, plus artillery and Sarawak Border Scouts. We inserted them, extracted them, brought their rations and 105mm howitzers.

Night Patrol — The River Changes

At 1800H the river changes colour, no  lights, no moon sometimes. Just black. We switch the interior light to preserve night vision. The order was clear - listen, watch and be ready. In those years, the threat was still there. The communists used the same river too. It was cold at night. Very cold for us boys from Semenanjung. 

At 2000H, second SITREP. Night patrol was a different animal. No lights on the longhouses. Only the moon, our running lights, and the searchlight sweeping the riverbank. The jungle was pitch black. We ran with red light inside the wheelhouse to keep our night vision. Second boat behind us, 100 meters astern, always.

One night, near Nanga Poi, we heard an engine - different from the normal express boat. We cut our engine and drifted. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would come out. 

"Diam... jangan buka lampu."whispered our skipper. We waited for 20 minutes. Nothing. It was probably just a fisherman longboat. But in that moment, you learn what fear and duty like together. 

It was during those night runs you felt it most — we were alone on a black river, engine roaring, responsible for the whole basin.The river at night was a different animal. Mist, moonlight on brown water that looked like oil, cicadas so loud you could not hear the radio. That was our night patrol, not just fear of ambush from 20mm Oerlinkon range. Sometimes, we feared the river itself. 

In November 1983, we learned how dangerous even our own boat could be — an RCP suffered a gas leak explosion at Sri Igan Jetty and sank. My friend LK PPP Montaza Hj Amin suffered second-degree burns. After that, safety regulations were tightened drastically.

And on Jan 8, 1984, KD Sri Perak sank in the South China Sea. KD Hang Tuah and KD Sri Terengganu had to shelter at our jetty in Sibu. We were on 24-hour alert.

Gawai Dayak 1984 in Song District — The Girl at the Jetty

Gawai Dayak 1 June 1984. We had stopped in Song for a short break. The jetty was crowded. The whole longhouse had come down for Gawai — tuak in bamboo, everyone in full Iban dress, ngajat dancing on the jetty planks.

I was buying cigarettes at the shop when I saw her — an Iban girl from the longhouse, carrying a basket of pua kumbu cloth. 

Rambut panjang, senyum manis. Ya nanya aku dalam Melayu Sarawak "Abang Navy, sudah minum tuak kah?" "Belum Gawai kalau belum minum!"

Aku malu, aku Radio Operator biasa main morse code, sik biasa bekelaka dengan dara. "Aku Islam, ndak minum tuak"... Ya ketawa "Takut mabuk kah?minum sikit jak." "Bot Navy selalu lalu, tapi jarang singgah lama"

She asked again, "Abang Navy, kitak orang Semenanjung kah? Jauhnya datang ke Song. "

I replied, "Aok, kamek dari Semenanjung, tapi kinek tok. Song tok pun rumah kamek juak." She laughed. 

We talked only for 10 minutes before the whistle blew. "Boat mau jalan!" I never got her name properly. But I still remember her laugh. That's the thing about Rejang — you remember the faces on the jetties more than the patrols.

Aku masih ingat sampai kinek tok.... Di Song , 1984.

But in Song, during Gawai, even the river stops being a war zone. For one afternoon, there were no insurgents, no RASCOM, no patrol. Just music, rice wine, and the Rejang flowing brown and slow behind us.

That is the life of the Brown Water Navy. Not glamorous like in the movies. It was sweat, diesel, rain, and long hours on a brown river. But it taught me about Malaysia. The real Malaysia. From Lembah Keramat to the Rejang River, we are one.

If you were that girl, or her family from Song District in 1984, this photo essay is for you. Terima kasih for letting us be guests, not just Navy. 

That was our life. Brown water, brown skin, brown river. People ask what we did in Sarawak. We were not famous, we were not heroes. We were just boys from across Malaysia, 20-23  years old, given a boat, a gun, and a river we had to keep safe — morning and night.

KD Sri Rejang was decommissioned on 3 Nov 1991, after the peace agreement on 17 Oct 1990 when the last 52 guerrillas laid down arms. 

Today, the Rejang river is quieter. The insurgency is history taught in books. When my family and I attended the Navy open day at Lumut on 2 May 2026, one young sailor who I met and I showed him a photo of me as a crew of Riverine Patrot Boat at Sarawak,  ask me, "Pakcik, Is it true that the Navy has ever been in the river?

"Yes, we were there, Brown water Navy. Mud on our feet, diesel in our lungs, Oerlinkon grease on our hands. 

We are not forgotten. The river remembers, the jetty is still there and the brown water still flows. 

Now it's Kem Sri Rejang, home of 510 Askar Wataniah. But for us who served 1983/84, it will always be the Brown Water Navy base.

**Al-Fatihah to our soldiers who did not return from Assan Naman on April 24, 1983.**

Other Readings:

1. Zulheimy Maamor: My Note Book - Brown Water Navy, KD Sri Rejang (1983/84).
2. Zulheimy Maamor: What is Brown Water Navy?.
3. Zulheimy Maamor : Kalau hutan tiba-tiba sunyi, apa maksudnya?.
4. Zulheimy Maamor : RASCOM HQ MIl - Ops Jala Aman 1, Sibu, Sarawak (1983/84). 
5. Zulheimy Maamor: KD Sri Rejang - Memoir seorang Veteran. 

About the authors:

809025 ex-LK KMR Hj Zulheimy Maamor, served at KD Sri Rejang in 1983/1984. This essay is self-published for family, comrades and the river villages of Batang Rajang. All photos from my personal collection. 

Hj. Zulheimy Maamor

Lembah Keramat, K.L

Ex-Crew, Riverine Craft

KD Sri Rejang (1983-84)

24 August 2026: 11.05 p.m