In which your humble correspondent takes a modicum of verified fact and makes sweeping generalizations

This is a tricky post, and I’m going to attempt to walk a fine line between offering some potentially useful observations and being an uninformed jerk of an armchair quarterback who wasn’t even there.

I was there, sort of.

Saturday afternoon a fierce squall blew through Mobile Bay. That, in itself, is not newsworthy. It’s that time of year, and over the past couple of weeks I’ve watched the anemometer peg 40+ knots more than once as a line of thunderstorms passes over.

This is actually a frontal boundary, not a thunderstorm, though
they can sometimes look similar. Both can carry devastating
winds -- thunderstorms through convection (winds being pulled
into the cell) or through downdrafts known as "microbursts."

Saturday was also the day of the annual Dauphin IslandRegatta, a 100-boat event. As of tonight, two people are confirmed dead and five are still missing.

Coast Guard Sector Mobile is still routinely issuing “Pan-Pan” and “Sécurité” messages on Channel 16, and AIS shows the Coast Guard Cutter Cobia just inside Mobile Point.

Out here in the Gulf, just four miles off the beaches of Dauphin Island, we clocked gusts of 57 kts and snapped the line that was holding us to our mooring buoy. Or so I was told – I slept through the entire episode.

It’s always much easier to look back at a tragic event and say: “You should have done this or that; that was a bad decision ….” than it is to make the correct decision at the time. 

There is always some sort of cost-benefit analysis, which in this case probably involved the relatively low probability of an adverse weather event balanced against guest revenue for the local economy, tradition, credibility of the race organizers, opportunity costs for participants and who knows what else.

It does seem clear that the race organizers were aware of at least the possibility of a severe storm. According to *news reports, they cancelled the regatta early Saturday morning, only to reverse course a short time later. (*On the Mobile Yacht Club’s Facebook page, the commodore says the website was “hacked.”)

And while it’s not easy to look back in time on the interwebs and see exactly what weather forecasts they had in hand at that time, it is no work at all to see the forecast discussions from Saturday. Here’s what the 0400 and 1200 discussions said:

THE PROSPECTS FOR CONVECTION ARE MINIMAL ACROSS MOST INLAND PORTIONS OF THE CWFA TODAY. THE EXCEPTION MAY BE NEAR THE IMMEDIATE COAST WHERE A WEAK AFTERNOON SEABREEZE MAY DEVELOP... SO WILL KEEP A SLIGHT CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND STORMS GENERALLY SOUTH OF

THE I-10 CORRIDOR THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON. IF ISOLATED CONVECTION DOES MANAGE TO DEVELOP...A STRONG TO SEVERE STORM CANNOT BE RULED OUT GIVEN THAT MLCAPE VALUES COULD RISE TO 500-1000 J/KG ALONG WITH DEEP LAYER SHEAR VALUES AROUND 50 KNOTS.

The forecast discussion released at 1603 was a bit more bullish on the possibility of severe weather:

SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS WILL INCREASE IN COVERAGE FROM THE SOUTH AND WEST. AN ISOLATED STRONG STORM IS POSSIBLE LATE IN THE DAY AS THE STORMS TO OUR WEST BEGIN TO MOVE INTO THE AREA.

But, by then, it was too late. As early as 1530, unprepared boats were broaching and sailors were swimming. Many without lifejackets.

Inflatable PFDs are light, comfrotable and increasingly
inexpensive: a model like this, with manual-only
activation, costs as little as $75.

So, if, in hindsight, the first problem was inadequate attention to the weather forecast or a lack of skill or experience by individual sailors to identify the developing hazardous conditions, the second problem was the fact that so many participants in the regatta were not wearing their PFDs.

I don’t know what the race rules stipulated, and I wasn’t at the skippers’ meeting so I can’t say what the organizers recommended to the participants. I do know that it is quite common for “big boat” club sailors (as opposed to dinghy racers) not to wear PFDs while racing.

The lifejackets, in fact, are most likely stashed on the v-berth (beneath the spinnaker or the #3 genoa), or in a cockpit locker the helmsman is sitting on – somewhere out of the way, anyhow.

In news reports, some participants mention that they “didn’t have time to grab a lifejacket.”

Duh. That’s why you wear them. Technology is a wonderful thing, and the lifejacket you have on is better than the one you didn’t have time to find and don. To that end, I heartily recommend inflatable PFDs – even the belt packs, which after testing I’m not sure should even be Coast Guard-approved, 

But it's still better than f*ck-all, which is what many of the people in the water had.

Waterproof, submersible, hand-held VHF
radios are handy on and off the boat.
Around $125, depending on features.

Once in the water, what next? You are a tiny, volleyball-sized target in a maelstrom of foam and water. It would be nice if you could call someone and let them know, huh?

One victim who was rescued by the Coast Guard actually called them on her cell phone, which she had in her hand as she went overboard. Another mentioned his great fear when he found himself adrift in the Mobile Ship Channel in near-zero visibility.

In both cases, and possibly in the cases of the victims who have not yet been recovered, a waterproof, submersible, hand-held VHF radio would have been a grand thing to have at hand. In fact, if it were my regatta, I believe I would require all the boats to carry one, especially since the *route of the race carries it across a busy commercial channel.

*And no, a sailboat, even on starboard tack, and even in the middle of a race, does not have “right of way” over an inbound container ship when that sailboat is crossing the channel.

Pelicans in ground effect, Mobile Bay, Saturday morning.

It would be easy to carry this to an extreme, and suggest that anyone who participates in a sailboat race in coastal waters should have a personal locater beacon (PLB) or wear a Type I PFD with SOLAS reflective tape and a strobe light, or that a race should never commence with even a hint of a fraction of a possibility of adverse conditions.

That’s nonsense, and wouldn’t pass the flip side of that cost-benefit analysis.

On the other hand, I know from personal experience (and also from four years and probably 130 boating fatalities worked while at Texas Parks & Wildlife Department) that: 1.) lifejackets really do save lives and are nearly 100 percent effective when worn; 2.) VHF radios beat yelling into a gale, whether it’s to warn a ship that you’re in the water near beacons 35 and 36, or to let the Coast Guard know you can see their lights and could they please come right 40 degrees; and 3.) Weather ain’t no joke. Especially spring weather when conflicting, unstable air masses can result in huge, highly localized updrafts and downdrafts.

There has been no discussion in the news coverage thus far about what role alcohol may have played in participants’ response to Saturday’s events, but I know – again from personal experience – that an integral part of many sailboat races is a cooler of ice-cold beer.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Hard to say. It’s so ingrained in the culture it’s tough – even for me – to imagine a regatta without beer. On the other hand, I also know that if I’m toodling along on a reach with a nice buzz, I might be a little slow to douse the sails, get my lifejacket on or even notice a wall of wind headed my way.

Aviators are cautioned to remember one thing above all others: gravity – what goes up must come down. As a matter of course, or so some pilots have told me, they are always prepared for the engines to quit.

Mariners should be no less prepared, because: Water. We don’t breathe it and we can stay afloat without assistance in it for only so long.

Any of us who go out on the water, whether for work or play, would do well to remember that it is, fundamentally, an environment that is inhospitable to human life and prepare accordingly.

Becoming ....

I recently ran across an article online with this headline: Mark Knopfler: This getting older stuff ain’t for wimps.

That resonates for two … no, three reasons: first, I had a birthday this month. Second, I think Mark Knopfler is a fine songwriter and I’ve always enjoyed his music. Third, it echoes something my cousin Bobby said to me several years ago: “It takes a stout heart to grow old.”

Past a certain point, getting older has certain drawbacks, particularly if you are overly concerned with how the prevailing, youth-obsessed culture regards you.

The fact that in my mind I’m still a 20-something in the absurd and inexplicable situation of being trapped in a 40-something body is beside the point.

That thing your parents and grandparents told you – it goes so fast – is increasingly clear. The clock seems to tick a bit faster with every passing year. You realize that there’s something rather final just over the horizon; the bearing has not in fact changed, and the range is decreasing rapidly.

It’s not all bad. There also are advantages. I’ll admit that it took me a long time – way too long, at great cost – to “grow up.” To accept that those legendary adult responsibilities had my name on them. 

And then figure out how to meet them.

It wasn’t until my fourth decade or thereabouts that I finally started to get a handle on what is really important to me. Or even what I really thought about a lot of things.

The good news in all that, at least for me, is that the model I had in my head in my youth: grow, learn, take what I’ve learned and go do, coast into retirement with a genteel hobby or two…. has turned-out to be not terribly accurate.

It’s more like: grow, learn, do; grow, learn, do; grow, learn; grow, learn … hopefully right up until the end, whenever that will be.

That is to say, people change.

Scott Miller sings: “How am I ever gonna be me? How am I ever gonna be me, Lord? How am I ever gonna be if I’m not who I’m supposed to be?”

I learn new stuff every week: about being a dad, a husband, a son, a mariner, a man. Some of the lessons are bitter and I’m ashamed it’s taken me so long. Sometimes I feel smug, even triumphant, after mastering something, only to discover I’m still not done. Not by a long shot.

So … mid-forties, certainly with more years behind me than ahead of me, here’s what I know today.

1.  I’m not as smart as I used to think I was.
2. But I’m smart enough to realize that much of what I learned in school and in church as a kid was just flat wrong, or at least does not accord with the world as I have found it since.
3. Having a kid takes the skin right off a man, to quote a friend of mine. It’s the hardest thing in the world, and the best thing, and nothing is the same after.
4. Kindness matters more than almost anything else.
5. The practice of kindness notwithstanding, some people are just assholes, or mentally ill, and in either case unless there is a familial or professional (i.e., you are a proctologist or a psychologist) obligation, you should get the hell away from those people.
6. Despite #5, most people are mostly doing the best they can most of the time.
7.   The things you think are really important when you are 25 may not be the same things you think are really important 20 or 30 years later.
8. Friends matter. Especially the ones who have stuck around for 20 or 30 or 40 years, through all that learning and growing.
9. Of all the things I regret, and there are many, among them I cannot identify a single day I spent fishing or birding or just sitting somewhere watching water move. That’s some good shit.
10.  This list will change in the future.

One of the things I have not learned yet is how to splice a plaited (eight-strand) line. We chafed right through an eye during weather the other night, I had printed directions in hand, and I thought: “Well, how hard can it be?”

A couple of hours later, I can tell you it’s pretty hard. At least with this ratty line and in poor light. Maybe I’ll try again in the morning, if we’re not busy at the platform.

One down, one to go ...

Halfway through the hitch from hell and I am really, really looking forward to getting home.

Except that I won't get all the way home until just before I come back. A long weekend with the family at the folks', then back to Louisiana for more training.

These short hitches are nice, but this one already feels three weeks old. It's been one thing after another since just before crew change.

Some of it stuff I don't want to write about in detail here, now, though I do subscribe to Ann Lamott's dictum that: "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."

Stuff I will mention: downflooding, bilge pumps not pumping, electrical malfunctions, bad starters and 32 hours straight on DP ("...that ain't nuthin' ..." some of my buddies on big mud boats say).

The customer has finally released us from the site for the morning, and we've taken care of the other issues over the past week with no recorded downtime, and some things we didn't even know were broken are now fixed.

We fixed some stuff we did know was broken, too. Stuff that's been broken for months. And by "we," I actually mean someone else, but it happened on my watch. And I spoke words of encouragement, nodded my head sagely and affirmed good decisions.

Yay team!

And there's only a week more to go.

On the other hand ... I've spent more time than I would like this past week playing armchair psychologist, trying to understand a couple of things that cropped-up.

I'm no doctor, and  I have never even played one on TV, still ... I'm fairly certain that in the past ... oh, let's say 10 days -- I've had to devote some time to dealing with one individual who suffers from untreated schizophrenia, or a schizophrenic disorder, and another individual who almost certainly suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.

Either one of these is a terrible burden to bear, and I'm sympathetic (particularly to the former), but unless the affected individual is a family member or close friend, I'm not very inclined to stand in the line of fire.

Let me be clear: we don't worry overmuch about strange out here; we're all a little "different," or we wouldn't be on boats. When oddness becomes physically violent, or in some way a career impediment to someone else, then it's time to perhaps change the situation. Just sayin' ....

On the other, other hand (I have three) -- I'm sailing this hitch with a couple of guys I really like and respect, so that kind of blunts the drama trauma.

Talking to someone about all this the other day, she said: "Well, I guess it's not so different than an office environment ... you get all kinds ..."

True. But at least in a shore-based job you get to go home at the end of the day.

In other news, I just finished a great novel, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel (on sale now for Kindle at $2.99). Even if you're not into post-apocalyptic, dystopian worlds, you'll probably still like this book. It even manages to poke some good-natured fun at behavioral psychologist business consultants. Which is what my sweet wife is in her professional life.

And J.J. Grey's new album, Ol' Glory, is out -- bluesy southern soul that's just about perfect listening overnight on a boat in the oil patch in the spring of 2015.

'Pre-loading,' Funny Math and Other Stuff

We are bobbing around just offshore of Dauphin Island right now, on safety standby as the liftboat we are working with pre-loads.

There is a really detailed explanation of pre-loading (and some other interesting liftboat stuff) here, but basically it means that the ballasted liftboat is very slowly and carefully making the transition from vessel afloat to work platform.

Meanwhile, we drift with engines idling. The wind is out of the southwest at about 8 knots, the current is headed southeast at about 3 knots, and we're hanging between the two, slipping gently astern at about one-third of a knot.

Every hour or so I put the mains in gear for a couple of minutes and point us back toward the liftboat.

Last hitch we spent the last 10 days or so transferring cargo and pumping water. By the time we got back to the dock for crew change we were so light I felt like I was back on a crewboat when I looked over the bulwarks. Our laden freeboad of about two feet was suddenly about six feet.

Back home we had a nice mix of warm, sunny days and cool nights. I got the lawn mowed, we celebrated the teen son's 16th with family, we had company, and then had company again. In the second round the daddies took the youngsters down to the river while the ladies got pedicures. Followed by a double-date for German food and lounge time.

All in all, it was  a pretty satisfying two weeks off work.

My wife sent along a link to a news story yesterday: 5 reasons why you shouldn't work too hard. It got me thinking about my job, and I did a little math: on this new, and hopefully not temporary, schedule working 180 days/year, I end up working 2,160 hours/year.

That's equivalent to a full year's worth of 40-hour weeks plus two more. And I spend a minimum of another two weeks commuting or training.

So, 56 weeks of work every 12 months.

That's a lot better than a 240-day schedule (28 days on, 14 days off or 14/7), which totals 2,880 hours per year, or equivalent to 72 weeks of 9-to-5 labor.

In the context of the Washington Post article linked above, I wondered for a moment if I work "too hard."

Probably not.

A 12-hour watch in bad weather or with continuous cargo operations or a difficult approach in zero visibility is as draining as any physical labor I've every done, especially when there is only broken sleep between watches.

Shipyard is pretty hard. But other times -- tonight for instance -- those 12 hours are mostly just tedious. I'm more likely to die of boredom than heat stroke or mental stress.

On the other hand, and to the point of that article, when I am off I am really off. There are no emails to check or answer, no teleconferences, no quick trips back to the office for a can't-miss meeting or last-minute report.

Talking to a friend, another captain, about this earlier, he said: "So, have you broken that down to an hourly rate?"

No. No I haven't. I decided not to do a little more math at that point, because I figured the answer would depress me.

Earlier this morning I came across another maritime blog I had not yet seen -- it was linked on Lela Joy's site. The blogger, who lives on the West Coast, is about my age and, like me, made a dramatic career change a couple of years ago.

One of his posts, from February of last year, is called "Maritime Reality," and in it he touches on some of the same topics.

I guess some facets of this career are pretty universal, no matter which coast you're on or segment of the industry you work in.

Anyway, it's a great blog: Back to Sea With Me -- definitely worth a look. In his latest post, the writer mentions that his application for mate is being evaluated and wonders how long that might take.

I was pretty pleased with the turnaround time on my raise-in-grade application over the holidays: about a month from submission to my approval to test. Only, my evaluator missed a couple of important (to me, anyway) items on the application.

Some were fixed with an email and a phone call. One, though, was not. I think I've written before that I applied for both master and mate and hoped to test for both the same week.

My evaluator could not at first understand why I would want to do that ("But Master is the higher license!" she said.) and then told me she would have to check with management to see if it was even possible.

My view: Of course it's possible. Maybe not routine, but there is nothing in the CFRs that prohibits it. And if I qualify to test for master, then surely I qualify to test for mate as well.

Actually, I didn't come up with this all by myself. The fellow who writes merchant mariner credential policy for the Coast Guard heartily recommended it in a public forum -- both for efficiency, and to take advantage of the shrinking window of opportunity to be grandfathered under the rules pre-STCW 2010 implementation.

The efficiency part is that while master and mate exams involve some different modules, much of the material is the same or very similar. And while the exam for Master 500 GRT Oceans will get me to Master 1600 GRT Oceans and Master 500-3000 GT without further testing, the Mate exam will carry me all the way through 2nd Mate all gross tons.

Anyway, it's been six weeks since I sent in my letter requesting reconsideration of that decision and still no answer. I checked back earlier in the week and I received an emailed apology and assurances that I would have an answer on where my answer is and when I might expect it.

If my request is denied, the next step is an appeal, and that goes to the same guy who suggested we do this to begin with.

Meanwhile .... the clock is ticking, and I really should be studying. Harder. Or ... at all.

I've had time to reconsider my strategy, and to weigh whether I want to take a terrestrial navigation and review course and ask the Coast Guard to amend my application to Near Coastal, or if I want to take that course immediately followed by an approved celestial navigation course and ask the Coast Guard to amend my application to accept the course in lieu of testing at the Regional Exam Center.

I'm now leaning towards the former, because I'll test sooner and get the credential I need this year and I can always increase the scope later. Plus, a couple of my captain friends may be able to take the same course at the same time. Which would make things cheaper, if we could share accommodations. It would definitely make it more fun.

Either way, nowhere in my plans is the notion that I'm going to walk into the REC and take the celestial navigation exam cold.

Figuring this stuff out is some sort of analogue to the time-speed-distance formulae we use in plotting. Only this is a time-expense-opportunity formula.

The opportunity part is important, because the oil patch slowdown is now in full effect, with several hundred boats cold-stacked. Things are tight, and I'm happy my boat is working. Even if this particular watch this particular morning is a little bit tedious.

Hey, I just noticed: 17 seagulls on the starboard beam. Why 17, and not 16, or 18, or three or 30? The mystery ....

Sittin' on the dock of the bay

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time ...

-- Otis Redding, "Dock of the Bay," 1967

Things are quiet in Theodore, a compact and capable deepwater port on the western shore of Mobile Bay, about halfway between the Gulf and Mobile proper.

We're waiting for the liftboat we are working with to get situated at a platform just southwest of the sea buoy, and then they may or may not call us for some of the equipment they put on our deck before they left.

We've passed the time catching-up on paperwork and a bit of deferred maintenance, cooking meals appropriate to the weather outside (yesterday was my turn: pot roast), counting down the days 'til next we go home.

Which, for the officers anyhow, is sooner than some would like. That voluntary 14/14 schedule I mentioned last post? Well, it's mandatory now. Suits me and the family fine, I can tell you. Even if I did have to come back to work two weeks early.

The boat now essentially has two crews, and I'm happy with the one I'm working with.

Back at the office, seven of our shoreside staff were let go this past month as a cost-cutting measure. The supply list is being trimmed. I'm fighting a rearguard action to keep water on the requisition and not have it transferred to our ever-shrinking grocery budget. It's a safety issue, to my mind.

It's awfully quiet over here, at least compared to Port Fourchon, where the radio chatter never stops and there may be anywhere from 20 to 40 boats in motion at a given time. What radio traffic we do hear is remarkably polite and friendly. Even the shrimpers in the bay routinely come up on Ch. 13 without any prompting. 

There are live oak trees literally a stone's throw from the back deck, and a curtain of tall pines behind those. 

An osprey is building a nest in one (is it that time already? Maybe that was a snake it had clutched in its talons ....).

Coots and cormorants bob around the boat. Someone caught a sand trout -- they call them "white trout" over here -- off the back deck the other night. And this morning there were snow flurries.

It's good to come to work at the beginning of a job, for a change. We had opportunities to meet the crews of the other boats and the customer representatives we'll be working for. We reviewed JSAs and traded phone numbers and email addresses and got a jump on some of the confusion that ineveitably happens once a job is underway.

The field we'll be working in is an active hydrogen sulfide field, which necessitated trips to the occupational health clinic on our way to work. 

It also necessitated the delivery of a dozen self-contained breathing apparatuses, two big supplied-air cascade units and a whole bunch of H2S sensors and alarms.

The other captain on my hitch worked over here for 13 years on a production boat, so knows the field and waters well; he even spent a few years working with the company man on this job, which makes everyone happy. 

This job, which is slated to last up to three months, is for one of the majors -- I guess it's actually the major oil major -- and I think our sales guys have high hopes it will lead to additional contracts.

We'll do a bang-up job, because we always do. And because this is an easy one, and the sort of fun, standard OSV stuff we all signed-up for.

But until they call us to the location, you can find me ...


Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
Watchin' the ships roll in
Then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooo
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time ....

I left the boat ....

I left the boat in a cold rain on the heels of a sad, strange scene in the main deck lounge.

The off-signers were soaked after carrying supplies the length of the vessel, and secretly hoping to be gone before having to do the same with the grocery order still on its way. The routine of quiet consideration and self-abnegation that makes for good shipmates sometimes gets stretched to an equally quiet breaking point, and this was one of those times.

We were anxious to be off the boat, to be on our way to our respective homes, to escape the two minor crises then unfolding.

Crisis one: the vessel’s master explaining that the unlicensed crew would have to go to 14/14 schedules or one of the guys would have to go to another boat in order to reduce our manning from five to four.

Crisis two: the mystery of the displaced hydraulic steering fluid … one guy, the one no one is allowed to gainsay, mistaking the reflection of a gunmetal sky in the deck wells for a sheen and insisting there was a busted hose on deck.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, again, in all of its sly, smirking glory.

Another guy, the one with an extensive background in pumps and hoses and fluid dynamics, attempting a quiet interjection that all of the fluid was still in the reservoirs and that the mystery instead was that it had shifted from the port tank to the starboard tank.

We had been through this at least once before, but the memory had fled.

I left the boat with a cold that would make the drive home a nine-hour misery and my first three days with the family a blur of broken sleep and over-the-counter remedies.

In retrospect, it was, maybe, a blessing. For the past half year I’ve worked only the midnight-to-noon watch, and the exhaustion of crew change day – 12 hours of watchstanding followed by nine or 10 hours of driving notwithstanding -- getting back on the family schedule is usually a week-long struggle.

I left the boat questioning, yet again, if I’m in the wrong damned business. I have written, from time to time, about how much I love the actual work: the boat-handling, the age-old practice of seamanship, the mentoring of the younger guys, the interaction with the customers, the orderly grind of paperwork – yes, even the paperwork.

I have written, also, perhaps too often, of how heart-achingly lonesome the experience can be; of how keenly I feel the lack of adult conversation and the missing days with my family … the toddler’s firsts, the pre-schooler’s flashes of brilliance, the teen’s wry humor, quiet nights on the patio with the wife.

Here’s my secret fear: I will die on the boat, far from the people I love. Not in some dramatic disaster at sea – I worry more about my drive to and from work  than anything that happens on the water – but as a victim of fried pork chops or cigarettes or not enough sleep.

During this last hitch, two near-contemporaries reached the ends of their lives. 

One, a few years ahead of me in high school, was generous with his time and advice as I was contemplating a leap into the guide business. He was just getting out, then.

The other I knew not at all, but I attended college with his sweet and smart wife – now, astonishingly, his widow.

Both men were fathers, and I trust – I hope – they had time to teach and inspire and love their children in ways that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

In the quiet hours of my watch, the dark hours before dawn, more and more I find myself thinking that is the only work that really matters.

But of course we live in a world in which it is necessary for man (and woman) to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. That, too, I often reflect as I justify my long absences, is an important lesson for the boys.

This ambivalence about the legendary work-life balance is of course nothing new, and is perhaps near-universal in the western world anyway. The only people I know who have come close to negotiating it satisfactorily are self-employed and even that is no guarantee.

I left the boat two weeks early, in the middle of my regularly scheduled hitch. It was an opportunity that presented itself on the cusp of crew change.

With the price of oil half what it was six months ago, with exploration and production budgets being slashed across the board and day rates and utilization plunging, it’s no surprise that a couple of our boats are stacked.

The crews of those boats have not worked in more than a month. No work means no pay.

Cost-cutting at a boat company seems to go something like this: supply requisitions restricted to absolutely essential items, grocery budgets cut, manning reduced and vessel crew offered the opportunity (eventually mandated) to work even time (two weeks on, two weeks off; a month on, a month off).

That last strategy allows for one stacked boat’s licensed crew to be spread over three working boats, and everyone stays on the payroll, albeit making one-third less. This actually results in a marginal increase in payroll costs for the company: the same man-days, but a slight bump in benefits and travel costs, so it’s generally a good-faith effort to retain staff before taking more drastic measures.

Somewhere in the mix is a moratorium on raises, hiring freezes, pay cuts, and, when all of that isn’t enough, layoffs.

I am fortunate in that even time is a just-affordable option for me. My wife works, and we can make ends meet, most of the time, if I work a reduced schedule.

Some of the other guys … probably not so much. A month without work means the rent or mortgage goes unpaid, someone doesn’t go to the doctor or dentist or a worn pair of brake shoes or school shoes doesn’t get replaced.

So, not least because it was an easy thing for me to do, I was happy to give someone else my last two weeks.

But I left the boat angry. Seething, actually … a slow, steady burn. My efforts the previous hitch to get an evaluation out of the vessel master were rebuffed. 

Between hitches, the office informed me I would need evaluations from both the master and the relief master. My two weeks with the relief master, I passed on that information, and he was willing.

But just as he sat down to fill-out the form, it occurred to him that he might ought to touch base with the old man, who is known to be a bit touchy about what he views as the prerogatives of his position (i.e., everything from micromanaging the work schedules of both watches to never working midnight-to-noon to keeping every drawer and locker in his shared stateroom stuffed with his personal items to pencil-whipping every single drill ever submitted to declaring the entire boat a smoking area).

Sure ‘nuff, the old man told the relief master it was not his place to fill out an evaluation for me and forbade him to do it.

Thing is, there was – ostensibly, at least as of a month ago – a pay raise riding on that. And personalities aside, I’m pretty good at my job. The other thing is, it’s his f*cking job – one he should have done a month ago, and one he should not prevent someone else, whose job it also is, from doing.

Of course, none of this was communicated to me directly, because among other things the old man doesn’t do is this: talk to me. I mean, literally, does not talk to me. He passes orders through the deckhands and engineer; he grunts in my direction sometimes, but that’s about the extent of it.

Either the wrong sorts of people routinely (maybe even exclusively) rise to the top in this industry, or I’ve had a run of bad luck, or God is repeatedly giving me the opportunity to learn a lesson I haven’t yet adequately absorbed. 

If it's that last thing, and if I had to guess, it probably has something to do with humility.

In truth, the chances of a new guy getting assigned to a boat with a crackerjack master (as opposed to one who got his leadership skills – if not his license -- from a Crackerjack box) are slim. Those positions don’t often come open, because no one wants to leave those boats.

I left my boat, maybe, for the last time.

I said goodbye to her, just in case, and thanked her for keeping us safe through the winter. She’s not a bad old girl, and deserves better than she gets from us much of the time.

Leaving mad was impetus, finally, to ask the office for a change, a transfer to a different boat, when such an opportunity presents itself. As is often the case, my timing probably could have been better. We’ll see, I guess.

I left the boat without letting my wife know I’d be home early. We were on the phone when I jiggled the front door handle, so I got to hear her alarm at a possible intruder in stereo. 

When she let me in, I was met with children literally jumping up and down with joy, a happy, licky dog and a spouse who couldn’t stop laughing through her tears.

A minute through the door and I was sitting on the kitchen floor and the 2-year-old was in my arms, head on my chest, murmuring: “DaddyDaddyDaddyDaddy.” 

The 4-year-old was draped over my right shoulder and the 70-pound Labrador was attempting to crawl into my lap. My wife was still laughing. And crying.

At my lowest, and my lows are at least as often chemical as situational, I sometimes wonder if I don’t just gum up the works when I’m home, if they don’t prefer me gone.

This early homecoming put that question to rest, and for that, anyhow, I am grateful.

There is Cheese at the End

An old salt on gCaptain recently gave a newbie some advice about getting a toehold in his climb up the hawsepipe. He ended with this encouragement: "It's a rat maze, but there is cheese at the end."

I spent close to 30 minutes on the phone with my evaluator at the Coast Guard's National Maritime Center today. Partly convincing her that yes, I really do want to test for master and mate at the same time and she could in fact write the letter that way. And partly pointing out the three places I had specifically requested a split issuance of my AB and STCW endorsements.

So far as I can tell, everything is fine at work and I'm not planning on going anywhere, but with our clients' budgets tightening and day rates falling, well, it can't hurt to have every endorsement I've ever earned printed in that little red book. 

So anyhow, I have my approval to test. I'm still working the plan my long-suffering spouse and I hatched nearly five years ago. 

At this point, I can smell the cheese.

In the meantime, I'll probably take two more classes -- some sort of prep for the exam, which I hope to sit in June or July -- and an approved Celestial Navigation course, just so I don't have to do that all on my own and then sit that module at the Regional Exam Center.

After that, I'll have to take the new(ish) Leadership and Managerial Skills course to keep my license 

after the end of 2016, and at some point will want to add ARPA, GMDSS (I already have the FCC license, but I self-studied so will have to sit through two weeks of "training.") and ECDIS.

After that, I will have periodic refreshers for RADAR, firefighting and basic safety training. Maybe some other STCW endorsements, as well, but only the same ones everyone else will have to stay current on.

More than four years on, I'm still happy with my decision to change careers.

I love the work. I mean, I really love it. Not just being on the water, which is part of it, but also the combination of hands-on, physicality (moving and maintaining a huge hunk of steel) and the mental challenges of risk analysis and customer relations and voyage planning and crew supervision and training.

It's the perfect career field for someone with a touch of ADHD.

And it connects me to -- places me in -- a tradition that runs deep in my family and throughout the history of human civilization.

It's also tough as hell on family life, and that's the part I don't love. But, as I explained to someone I work with a couple of weeks ago, that -- for me -- is the whole point of upgrading my license. 

It's not that I feel like I "need" a bigger boat (though I will be happy to operate a larger vessel, and will be grateful for more amenities and the additional crew); I need the 180-day schedule, and with the bigger license on a bigger boat, I can afford it.

And it is not, for me, a dick-measuring contest. As my brief career as a porn star under the stage name "Dirk Swank"should have made clear, that's not a concern.

I've met terrific boat-handlers who act ... well, almost ashamed, that they hold "only" a 100-ton license. I've witnessed awful decision-making by people who hold 3000GT or All Gross Tons licenses.

The license doesn't make the mariner; in fact, it's more likely the other way around. A license says "you may." Skill, experience, and training answer the question: "But can you?" And a 100-ton captain can go to jail and pay a fine and lose his livelihood just as easily as an unlimited Master.

In my experience thus far, the answer to that question is utterly independent of whether the license holder graduated from a maritime academy, PMI/MITAGS or the eighth grade.

One thing I should mention here is that there are a number of mariners who have gone before me, and a few making the same trudge I am at the same time, who have been hugely helpful. New England Waterman, for one. 

And the axe-wielding (by this I mean guitar) Scottish Sea Dawg known on gCaptain as Jemplayer, for another. He wrote the definitive guide to getting hired in South Louisiana: it's posted there as a sticky, check it out.

And my buddy Jess, a fellow veteran of the tour and charter boat days and with whom I've worked at three different companies. I bet it will be four before we're done. And Charles, and Ryan, and Shawn, and some other guys I've met through this blog or out and about.

Since I've now turned this into an Academy Awards acceptance speech, before I've even done anything at all noteworthy, I might as well say: Thanks Capt. Mark. And Capt. Brian. And Chief Bryant.

You guys have helped me out a ton, and the stuff you have taught me has made me an immeasurably better sailor. And no, I don't hold you responsible for my f*ck-ups.

And finally, none of this would be possible without my long-suffering spouse, Alexander. Ha. Uh ... Carrie. I mean Carrie. 

A rockstar in her own profession, a working mom, and despite the fact that I sometimes refer to her as "The Old Lady," an incredibly attractive and accomplished woman who looks a lot younger than me -- I'd even characterize as a "MILF" (wait a MINUTE ... so that's where that "M" comes from. Huh.),

I'm not sure why she puts up with me and my unorthodox career. Except that I sometimes help out with the children, when I'm home, and they seem to like me well enough.

So, anyhow, thanks guys. And gal.

And I bet at least one of you have already googled "Dirk Swank," haven't you?
Hahahaha ... oh, I slay myself.