Day of the Seafarer

Today is International Day of the Seafarer.

Ok, you say.. so what?

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you should by now, have a pretty good idea of what it is I do for a living. I drive ships. At the moment I drive cruise ships. But with the ticket I have, I could quite as easily drive tankers (oil, gas, chemicals), or container ships (er... pretty much all the shiny stuff you buy in shops), or bulk carriers, (grain, ores, scrap metal, coal, cotton... anything solid in BIG quantities) or ferries (cheap way to pop to any number of places on this continent, and you can take your car), or cable/pipe laying ships (how oil gets from the north sea to here, and you like your communications don't you!), or car carriers, (I don't need to tell you what they transport do I?) or any number of small support type vessels (buoy tenders, tugs, standby vessels for oil rigs, etc).

All these vessels, basically, make your life possible. 90% of the world's trade is done by sea. Real trade, not hedge funds and mythical money that moves about mysteriously without anyone ever seeing anything tangible, but real trade. Stuff you can pick up and hold and use and enjoy, your clothes, your gadgets, even a lot of your food, all comes to you by sea.

We used to have a proud seafaring tradition here in Britain, everyone knew who we were and how important our jobs were to the country. Sadly, these days, I tell people I am in the Merchant Navy and they leap to the conclusion that I am in the Royal Navy. These are not the same thing. No. The Royal Navy, gods bless them, are a fine and wonderful lot of people who are part of our nations defences, and work alongside the Army and Royal Air Force. The Merchant Navy is difficult to define in some respects, if you're going to get finickity about things, but, when it boils down to it, all ships, unless they are part of a county's military defence, are part of the Merchant Navy.

As you can imagine, there are thousands and thousands of ships, and each of those is crewed by people: people of all nationalities, people of all religions, races and creeds, people like me, and like you. And you never see us. That is what today is about. To remind you that we are here, and how much you rely on us to make your life happen. Seafaring is, statistically, the most dangerous profession in the world (out of this, fishing is the most dangerous). At any given time there will be some of us out there facing terrifying storms and high seas: or piracy; or simply the loneliness and heartbreak of being far, far away from those we love, for months on end.

So spare a thought for those at sea today, take a moment to appreciate how that shiny computer you are reading this on got to you (Made in China?), how the food you ate tonight reached your table (look at the label, New Zealand Lamb? Danish pork? Veg grown in Spain? Bananas from Dominica?), the toy your child adores (made in Taiwan?)..... It's a career we chose, but without us, your life would be much emptier, so please take a second to say thank you for seafarers.

A couple of videos for you to peruse...

Follow @IMOHQ  and @SeafarerDay on twitter to find out more. And me of course @size4riggers

Real life vs Ship life: Part 1. Ship life.

Life has been happening, at an alarming rate it seems, I'm over halfway through my leave already and am only just starting to feel like I'm catching up with real life. Guess I won't be learning to drive this leave then...

Generally, for me, life stops when I am at sea and then kicks in when I am on land. Well it doesn't stop, it just comes under a completely different heading. At sea it's all about whether the lifeboat is going to work (or at least not fill with water), or when the life-jacket lights last got changed, or which life-buoys are in desperate need of replacement, or why the immersion suit got mouldy, or trying to get something that is out of date or knackered or  degraded replaced. It's a never-ending fight: to stay on top of things, to stay sane, to get enough sleep, and to do all that while looking presentable. We have an open bridge policy, so watches aren't just about driving the ship, (that does come first though, and if it's busy I'll happily kick people off the bridge so I can concentrate). I also end up playing the role of tour guide and star expert, I end up repeating my life story ad-infinitum, (the Quartermaster could just as easily tell it by now), explaining the bridge equipment over and over again, and being given verbal pats on the head by a good 70% of those who visit the bridge just because I'm a girl.

To be honest, that's the only bit that really gets me. I'm proud of my job, and what I've achieved so far in my life, I'm only too happy to educate people about what we who drive ships actually do and how we do it, I love stars and learning about the constellations and sharing that with people: one of the best bits of the job is standing on the bridge wing on a clear quiet night being utterly overawed by the night sky. If you've never seen it from the deck of a ship away from land, you've been missing out.

But, to be told "Well, good for yoooou" over and over again, is something that really gets my goat. None of the other (male) junior officers get that, you certainly wouldn't hear the Captain being told that, (and believe me, my last Captain slogged his backside off to get where he is), no it's because of one thing and one thing only that I am singled out as the plucky little soldier who deserves a patronizing comment congratulating me for doing what thousands of other seafarers do every day, many of whom, I'm sure, have had to fight bigger battles that I have. My gender. And that pisses me off.

It's not just on ship though, for example, my mother related a conversation she had with an acquaintance recently, while not exactly verbatum, it went something like this:

Aquaintance: And what do your daughters do?

Mother: Well, my eldest lives in Reading with her husband, she works in *some sort of IT related place* and they just bought their first house.

Aquaintance: Mmm lovely.... And your youngest?

Mother: Well she's away at the moment, she works at sea.

Aquaintance: Oh really, how adventurous, what does she do?

Mother: Oh she's working on a cruise ship a the moment.

Aquaintance: Oh wow, that must be lovely, what does she do? Stewardess? Croupier?

Mother: No, no, she drives she ship, she's the 3rd Officer.

Aquaintance: GOOD GOD!! 

The shock and incredulity that I, a 30 year old woman, could be left in charge of not crashing a whole ship for 4 hours at a time makes me sad. Are we still so steeped in inherent sexism that it's that crazy an idea? Yes, the Merchant Navy is still a male dominated industry, but haven't we as a society finally reached the conclusion that ability is not based on gender? Apparently not.

Anyway.

The rest of my trip can be summed up fairly succinctly: Wet dock. This was not a refit period while tied up alongside in some out of the way dockyard. This was a complete rip out and replace of the entire hotel side of the ship, while en-route from Panama to Barcelona, stopping for about 3 days in St Maarten and Algeciras. It was... interesting. It's not something that I wish to repeat. Ever.

There were up sides, such as being able to go for a drink in the Pool Bar after watch at midnight. (No passengers on ship, just 50 odd British contractors) and there were downsides, such as working 14+ hour days and getting massively behind on my planned maintenance because other things had to take priority. I spent most of my watches crossing the Atlantic navigating around rain clouds - rain + holes in deck and/or wet paint does not mix well. Somehow, it pulled together, the night before we arrived in Barcelona, the spa girls were polishing railings, the VP of hotel operations was wielding a paintbrush, we had Quartermasters scrubbing decks at midnight and floors being waxed. The next morning the new 2nd officer was varnishing the pool surround and the pool bar still looked like a bombsite. However, by 1300, when I took the new crew around on their familiarization tour, the place was spotless.

The last month of the trip was spent catching up on my planned maintenance, catching up on sleep and wondering who, if anyone, was going to relieve me.

Overall, despite all the whinging I have just done, I had a ball this trip. I had fantastic people to work with, in particular, the last Captain and C/O I had, who ripped the piss out of me almost constantly, and ensured that I almost cried with laughter at least once a day. And the first C/O I had too, who took me under her wing and mentored me through my first few weeks as a new officer. (Mostly by standing about chatting shit while smoking too much and occasionally giving me a kick up the backside if I screwed up). She also threw me the first proper birthday party I've ever had. (And, more importantly, gave me the watch off the morning after!).

Other highlights of the trip were:

Swimming off Coiba beach on several occasions, where I also met a crocodile, got stung by tiny jelly fish, saw a ray, saw a shark, chased vultures and ate a lot of delicious bbq food.

Going for a post work swim off the stern platform.

Eating fresh out of the oven warm mini chocolate cakes.

Getting her up to 8kts with no engines.

Turning 30: this is because it involved a party, dancing so hard I ached the next day, a lie in, cake and presents.

A free hot stones massage.

Zip lining in Nicaragua.

Free Nicaraguan rum.

Being able to afford Raybans and a pair of swanky binoculars.

Seeing humpback whales, leaping, breaching, fin slapping and tail slapping as we left St Maartin. (New binoculars were very useful at this point.)

Portoferraio, where I climbed a hill and admired the view, then sat in a cafe with a small glass of white, overlooking a picturesque little harbour. On the way home I bought the biggest ice cream I could find: Waffle cone, 4 scoops - blackcurrant, mango, tiramisu and ricotta with burnt caramel. (The Italians really do make the best ice-cream in the world.)

Amalfi, where I visited the Cathedral and bought chocolate and pizza.

Santorini, where I took the cable car to the top and had lunch while admiring the view.

Myknonos, where I simply wandered through the back streets.

And Kusadasi, where I went on tour to see the ruined city of Ephesus.

There are photos, and I will get around to editing them and posting them on flickr, once I have edited and posted up the years worth of pictures that are also waiting to be done.

I was going to rant about all sorts of real life things today, but it seemed necessary to put some kind of chronological order to things. So I will write about real life next time.

Meanwhile, I'm always on twitter.

I wrote this a month ago, I just haven't had the time to post it....

I’ve been here a month now, and things are settling down into a routine. I have a LOT of work to do, but so does everyone else, I thank whatever gods there may be for AMOS, despite it being the bane of my life at times it does help me keep track of what I need to do next! (AMOS is our planned maintenance system and tells me what jobs I need to do each week) I haven’t yet quite been through a full month’s worth of jobs, but February is a short month, so things have been crammed in even more. The inspections and checks I have to do on a weekly or monthly basis lead me to making notes on what maintenance I need to do, most of which is more cosmetic than anything else, but by keeping on top of things I can make sure that a small cosmetic issue does not become a more serious damage issue. There are only 4 members of the bridge team on here, and so all the maintenance is split between three of us. The Captain, obviously, does not have to do such things – he has plenty of paperwork to keep him busy, does every arrival and departure and is on-call 24/7 should anything happen.

So as 3/O, I do the following: 8-12 watchkeeping; Inspections and maintenance on all LSA (Life Saving Appliances); safety familiarisation training for new joiners (which we get weekly) and inputting all crew certification into the on-board database; I do a weekly SOLAS training session on LSA; I am Fire Team 3 leader, and therefore need to do training for my team whenever someone in the team changes, or when we need to pull our game up; I am the bridge administrator (daily stability calcs, PASIS (Port Authority Ship Information Sheets), checking the night guard’s rounds, general filing, organising the Captain’s training sessions, etc etc) and I am also responsible for maintaining and distributing PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and the SOPEP (Ship Oil Pollution Emergency Plan) gear.

The 2/O does 12-4 watchkeeping; Navigation (Passage planning and chart and publication corrections); FFA (Fire Fighting Appliances) inspections and maintenance, and FFA SOLAS training, and the official log book, sails hours and Watertight Door testing.

The C/O does 4-8 watchkeeping; she is the deck crew boss (I/C of not only me and the 2/O, but the sailors as well, so has to organise all the daily maintenance jobs such as sails maintenance, chipping and painting, deck cleaning, tender drivers and probably a million other little jobs); she is SSO (Ship Security Officer), Garbage Officer, Safety Officer and Training Officer, and has overall responsibility for Stability and tanks (so does a lot of clambering into dark smelly tanks!). She also has to go to a heck of a lot of meetings about planning, generally for the upcoming voyages, but we also have a 4 week wet dock coming up, so there’s even more planning going on!!

Each of those lists is a heck of a lot for one person (and I’ve probably missed a few things), and while we are all contracted to work 10 hours a day, we only technically have 2 hours a day to do most of that in, as when on watch we are navigating. Thankfully though as we go to anchor almost every day we are able at least to get through some of the reams of paperwork that accompany each and every one of the above jobs. The C/O definitely gets the biggest work load, and while the 2/O’s list may sound like the shortest, the Nav aspect of it is huge, chart corrections come out weekly and we have a large on-board portfolio! He spends a lot of time on watch doing charts, and his 2 hours of day work is mostly spent going round checking fire detectors, fire screen doors, extinguishers, hoses etc. (The downside for me is that he does this while I am on watch, so if he’s doing alarms or doors, I have to stand by the appropriate panel and press buttons instead of getting on with my own work). When we are at anchor or berthed though it’s not simply a case of getting on with the paperwork, at anchor we constantly monitor our position, watch what’s going on on the gangway (we do a lot of tendering operations), or in when berthed in port, monitor the moorings and keep an eye on any loading that going on (stores, water, fuel..) and there’s constant calls to the bridge both by phone and radio asking questions and telling us what’s going on too. If you get 10 minutes peace to get on with what you’re doing it’s a miracle!!

In short, I think it’s simply not possible to do everything that needs to be done within the hours we’re contracted to, but I keep getting told to watch my hours. I don’t get paid for overtime, but if I don’t do it I’m going to end up behind. The ILO (International Labour Organisation) rules that we MUST get 77 hours of rest per week (this has recently gone up from 70 hours rest a week). So I could do 13 hours a day and stay within the legal limits, but, I’d be working for an hourly rate that most people would scoff at, especially considering the responsibility for other people’s lives that my and my fellow officers job entails. And, especially in this heat (it gets up to 40 degrees regularly here in Costa Rica) I’d be a wreck. Plus, don’t forget that one has to eat when one is not working, and to be on time for duty you need to get up and sort yourself out in order to be there 5-10 mins before you start watch (You have to be there 10 mins before you take over watch at night so that your eyes can adjust to the dark), handing over the watch takes a few minutes too, so you generally end up leaving the bridge at 10 past the hour. Then you get to go to your cabin, wind down, shower etc. So if you can actually get to sleep within 30 minutes of officially finishing work (on the hour) you’re doing blooming well!  So actual rest time is shorter than it sounds, at the very most, I get 8 hours between watches. Take off time the time spent getting up and ready, handing over etc and I’m realistically getting 7 hours rest, max. The legal minimum is 6 hours continuous rest in a 24 hour period and the remaining 4 or 5 hours rest period cannot be split into more than 2 periods.

....... I would kill for a solid 8 hours kip these days!!

I realise it could well sound like I’m having a moan here, but I don’t mean to, I truly and honestly love my job, and hope sincerely that that never changes. But I do find myself wondering at the high level Industry Management’s, (i.e. the IMO and related bodies) perception of what “Minimum Safe Manning” is (how many jobs can you realistically expect one person to do?), and whether they realise that we have to spend so much time on the paperwork that we have so much less time to do the jobs themselves. I understand the need to provide evidence that things have been done properly, but it’s a vicious circle – if we (as an industry) fail to do the job properly, more checklists and paperwork is brought in, ostensibly to help us not miss anything and do things right. But, there’s so much emphasis put on the paper trail that it risks ending up as a mindless box ticking exercise and the important part, the whole point of it all, (i.e. contentiousness about safety and the environment) gets lost in the process. I fear that people reach a point that they have done the job so many times and just go through a checklist ticking and ticking without paying attention to what they are ticking and signing off - I will never forget the time as a cadet (on a vessel that shall remain nameless) when I had been told to fill out a permit to work for a job that needed doing immediately. I was going round carefully checking each item on the list, when an officer snapped at me, “It’s not a list of what has been done, it’s a list of what will be done, just tick it all and get it signed!” This guy was newly qualified too, so I was doubly horrified at this attitude, but I guess he must have learnt it from somewhere.