This fog-shrouded aluminum asylum has got me thinking: what
if someone built a crew(boat)
company?
Newcomers to the industry, if they are paying attention, at
some point will marvel at the quirky cast of characters surrounding them.
You realize pretty quickly that it takes a special kind of
person to spend two-thirds of the year on a boat. And when I say “special,” I
mean “strange,” or at least
estranged.
Quirks range from the amusing to the annoying to the downright …
what the hell
did he just do?!
You spend more time with these people than you do with your
spouse or significant other. You spend more time with them than you spend with
your besty, your kids, or your parents. And for 28 days at a time they are
always right there. You can’t get away.
Think about it a little more, and you realize that you are
pretty special yourself, or you wouldn’t be here.
There is, at this moment,
a lively discussion on gCaptain in
response to a prospective mariner’s question about how to start or maintain a
relationship or a family. The comments run the gamut from hilarious to
heartbreaking.
My response would be that it depends on what kind of
relationship you have or want with your significant other, and what you are
willing to sacrifice – not just for your
family, but of your family as well.
My wife, for instance, is an independent professional who
doesn’t feel the need to be welded to my side all the time. Like the Gipper, we
have a policy of trust but verify.
She’s busy, I’m absent, and we try to make the most of the
time we have when I’m home.
Still, we miss a lot, and miss each other a lot. I didn’t
marry her, after all, to be away from her eight months of every year.
My 3-year-old takes a photo of me off the wall every night
and carries it around until he goes to bed. My 1-year-old, last time I was
home, called me “Mama” for an entire week.
I asked him: “Where’s Daddy?” He
turned and pointed to a picture.
True story.
Clearly this is insupportable in the long run.
The old lady and I keep telling each other: think of it as a
deployment; we’ll suck it up until I upgrade and get a bigger boat and a better
schedule.
In the meantime, there is this boat, and every boat I’ve
worked on to date, which brings me back to my modest proposal.
If you browse most boat companies’ web sites, you’ll find
pages of information about the vessels in their fleet and very little about the
mariners who operate those vessels.
In the 100-ton world, at least, crew members – even captains
– are largely seen as interchangeable.
I’ve actually heard
these words from one company’s operations manager: “Deckhands are a dime a
dozen. It’s a McDonald’s job. We can get a new deckhand any time.”
I have yet to see a formal career ladder, continuing
education or meaningful retention plans anywhere I’ve worked.
And so the mill churns, people come and go, things get lost
in the shuffle and other things fall between the cracks and that inanimate boat
the company is so proud of never operates at maximum efficiency.
If I owned a boat company, I wouldn’t be writing this. But
if I did, knowing what I know now, I would consider doing these things:
1. Make building crews a priority over building or
buying boats; take the time to put together six or eight people with
complimentary (not necessarily identical) abilities, sympathetic outlooks and
ambitions, etc.
Do this one crew at a time and never, under any circumstances,
disperse that crew. If another boat needs a key crew member, move the entire
crew.
I can imagine this would be
extremely difficult and time-consuming. I also know it is possible. A friend who
is a captain on another of this company’s boats – a boat no one would ever ask
for – was telling me just the other day how great his entire crew is. “That
is,” he said, “about 90 percent of the battle out here.
2. Even time: yes, I know …. broken record, right?
It is insane to believe that anyone can maintain a normal or healthy family
life on a 240-day schedule. It’s a good schedule for work-release.
It’s a fine
schedule for youngsters who a.) don’t have families of their own, b.) want to stack some green, and c.) couch surf with
friends or crash at mom and dad’s in their scant time off. Pay everyone just a little more so
there is only an incremental loss of
income.(Consider: even at current, mid-range 100-ton rates, a captain could
make $50,000-$60,000 per year on a 180-day schedule; pretty damned good for
someone with an eighth-grade education. Pretty damned good for anyone in this
post-unionized, post-manufacturing American economy.)
Do a complete crew change every two
weeks with an adequate (mandatory) handover meeting. This would mitigate any
additional crew change costs. The only additional costs to the company would be
benefits for two additional persons per boat. Man days on the vessel remain the
same.
An additional benefit is that there
would likely be a larger pool of people to work over if necessary, more time
for customer-required or employee-desired education, and a fresher, sharper, less
stressed-out and
quirky work force.
3. Provide continuing education and a formal career
ladder for entry-level employees. Maybe even partner with a reputable company
operating larger vessels. The truth is, some people will – for reasons ranging
from native ability or ambition to temperament to health to cost – never get off the 100-ton boats and move “up.” That’s okay.
But many people see the 100-ton boats as a
stepping stone to an AB or QMED rating or a 500-ton master’s or mate’s license.
Recognize that, help them out and get the best out of them while they are here.
On a practical level, a couple of days in the
shop each year going over common CumminsK-19 or K-38 or Cat 3512 issues, troubleshooting and
onboard repair would probably save tens of thousands of dollars in third-party
mechanics’ labor.
Many of a crew boat company’s best
and brightest will move on. Provide some incentives to stretch the service of
those employees, and become the employer of choice for people getting started
or folks who simply want to operate fast, aluminum hulls.
“Boat Company Boss for a Day” is a fun thought exercise …
kind of like “What would I spend my millions on if I won the lottery?”
I’m about as likely to get to play the former as I am to
spend the latter.
Out here we joke among ourselves that our office staff
should be required to ride a week with us each year. Then, we grumble, they
would understand.
The flip side, of course, is that most of us have little idea
the sort of hell 20 boats are giving our crew coordinator or operations
manager.
Illuminating my ignorance would only kill the dream, though.
It’s nice to dream.
This week, on my fourth boat of the past eight months at
this company, we are working out of a dock in Port Fourchon alongside two other
boats I’ve worked on. 
