Getting Underway

It’s not quite as impressive as a pilot circling his aircraft, kicking the tires, testing control surfaces and draining fuel, but getting a 165-foot fast supply vessel ready for a voyage has its own rituals and procedures.

Verify tank cargo levels, perform stability calculations, prepare voyage plan, complete pre-departure checklist (check propulsion, steering, navigation and communication equipment, etc., etc.), bind deck cargo if necessary, ensure passenger and cargo manifests are complete and in-hand, check-in with dispatcher or rig, make security call, drop lines, don’t forget to check over my shoulder before pulling out ….

Getting underway involves all that and more. 

I can pretty much do it without conscious thought after so many repetitions. Not so much at home.

Wake the 3-year-old, breakfast for the 3-year-old, TV to cartoons, wake the baby, change and dress the baby, breakfast for the baby, dress the 3-year-old, make lunches for both boys, find socks – where are Conor’s damned socks?! – matching shoes for each child (on the correct feet this time, please), remember key card for the day care entrance, remember to carry everything to the truck, carry the baby and strap him into the truck while trying to keep tabs on the 3-year-old … shoo the dog back into the house. Did I even close the door?

Meanwhile, the subjects of my preparations are not made fast to anything, much less a dock. They are in constant motion and need frequent intervention while I’m doing everything else.

Truthfully, getting the boat underway is a lot easier – and faster – than getting the littles out the door to school with everything they need. (And damnit, I just remembered that I was supposed to take a blanket in for the baby this morning).

Some days it’s easier just to keep them at home with me.

My long-suffering and beautiful wife has her own rituals and procedures for mornings, and I’m guessing they are slightly more efficient than mine. Still, she gets the kids out the door and to school every workday before hers even starts, and that’s nothing less than amazing.

My hat’s off to you, Babe. 

Despite the Shenanigans, Joy

For all the shenanigans, for the sometimes crappy conditions, for all of the time away from home, working on a crewboat still affords many moments of what I can describe only as joy.

Folks end up working on boats for many reasons, not the least of which is money. It is not difficult, within just a few years of entering the profession, to make what many doctors and lawyers are making.

There is much more to it than that, though.

For some people – I’m one – being on and around boats is a pleasure in and of itself. We were dropped on our heads, into salty water, when we were babies. The experience rewired our brains forever.

I’m no gearhead, and my truck is a mid-sized one sans brush guard and lift kit. I don’t go “mudding,” and I’ve never seen a NASCAR race. I have never been inclined to operate heavy equipment, and I’m not especially fond of loud noises. But …

There is a sublimely powerful feeling in having 6,000 horses at one’s fingertips, literally.

Speaking for myself, I get a real charge out of standing on the 40-yard line and precisely controlling a very large object (the stern of the boat) in the end zone just feet or inches away from some very large obstructions.

In 1996 I was named U.S. Army Europe military journalist of the year. I have won top awards at the Department of Defense level. I have planned every facet of a successful overseas deployment to a war zone.

I have seen my stories and photographs published in dozens of magazines. I’ve rescued people from flood waters and retrieved them from the destruction of a hurricane.

None of that, or anything else I’ve ever done, matches the feeling of accomplishment that comes with a calm, controlled and safe offload or backload bow-up in 8-foot seas and 30 knots of wind.

I love the sailorly arts, the ones that connect me to age-old tradition: making-up mooring or dock lines, plotting a course, making passing arrangements in a busy port.

I enjoy teaching new guys the things they need to know to keep themselves, the vessel and their shipmates safe. I enjoy learning about my shipmates; you get to know the people you sail with (and live and work with 24-hours-a-day) on a level that compares only to family or brothers-in-arms.

Hell, I don’t even mind the ever-growing mountains of paperwork our customers require.

There are other benefits that you’ll never see listed on a boat company’s web site: in this line of work, one gets to experience things that people working and living ashore can barely imagine.

Things like a whale shark snuggling up to the boat for a couple of hours, or a pod of dolphins cavorting in the wake, flying fish skimming the wave tops next to the boat, a towering thunderstorm reflected in a glassy calm sea … a fat orange moon rising out of the Gulf, sunrises, and sunsets.

Those sorts of things never get old, truly. And sometimes when the shenanigans are in full swing, a single spectacular sunset can ransom another week of enthusiasm for the job.

Handover

At sea, as at home, it often comes down to remembering to buy lightbulbs. And finding someone willing to actually change them.

Shenanigans (Part Three): Stupid, Lazy and Greedy

In part two of my mini-series about oil patch vessel shenanigans, I did a little griping of my own.

Sorry ‘bout that. It was mostly to hide my ambivalence about the next post. This one.

Not everything I’m about to write happened while I was on the boat, or even in the presence of people I consider friends; however,  I have some good friends who have done some questionable things.

They are still my friends.

I may not always have been a poster boy for how to things the right way myself, so far as that goes … but in the interests of protecting my Fifth Amendment rights, I’m also not admitting to a damn thing.

I don’t know if the sorts of things I’m going to mention in this post are widespread, or if they are more common on the smaller boats or just at certain companies. They range from stupid and dangerous to lazy and greedy to … well, let’s just leave the potential civil and criminal penalties out of this, shall we?

There was the time, for instance, when I awoke at 2300 for my midnight-to-noon watch and found the other three guys on the boat falling down drunk.

In fact, it may have been one of them falling that woke me up.

Now, I’m pretty sure that shipyard periods and, say, hurricanes, may be treated somewhat differently. But when you’re 100 miles offshore, on safety standby for a dozen manned platforms, it’s quite possible (even if not probable on any given day) that at some point the entire crew may be needed at a moment’s notice. It has happened.

Other maritime nations, and other industries, may treat on-board alcohol use differently. Cruise ships have crew bars, and some foreign navies historically have run as much on rum or vodka as on fuel oil or atomic reaction.

The U.S. Navy banned the consumption of alcohol aboard its vessels with General Order No. 99 in 1914. The U.K.’s Royal Navy did not follow suit until 1971, and then only in part.

In the U.S. it is a violation of federal law to operate a commercial vessel with a blood alcohol content level of .04 percent or higher, and the Coast Guard has an official policy of discouraging the use of alcohol and “dangerous drugs” among vessel crew members. 

Boat companies and their customers, at least in the Gulf of Mexico, positively prohibit it. Licensed officers lose their jobs, lose their livelihoods and go to jail every year for forgetting this.

Even “strict” captains often are indifferent to what their crew members do at home, though surely they will remind their crews about the possibility of random drug tests and drug tests following incidents (even those that clearly are the other guy’s fault).

And many of us, I can tell you with a degree of certainty, are looking forward to retirement and  ... let's call it the "personal freedom" that will come with it.

A deckhand who worked for me on one boat thought he was pretty slick, smoking synthetic “marijuana.” He thought, with absolutely no justification, that he was “cool” when he was high – that there was no obvious difference in his performance or appearance.

Granted, his performance was nothing to write home about even when he was sober. But when he was high, he was heavy-lidded, bloody-eyed and approached each task with all the ingenuity and efficiency of one of the walking dead. 

I actually had to pull out from beneath a crane twice one morning, run down to the deck and help him rig, before finally sending him below to wake up his relief.

It’s nothing like the “good old days,” or so I am told. Back then, a lot of boats wouldn’t leave the dock without a case of beer on ice and a quarter bag in the wheelhouse. Or so I am told. Must have been fun, those days.

I was mightily impressed with the first crewboat I worked on. Our bilges were clean enough to eat off of. Absorbent pads were cut to fit and placed under every drip. Everything from oil filters to greasy rags to what we dumped out of the Fry Daddy went into DOT-approved waste drums in a containment well on the dock.

We put less oil in the water in a month than a single tour boat I had previously worked on did in a day. I thought, for a few brief months, that was the standard in the offshore industry.

Sadly, it is not so.

I remember walking around the boat early one morning and, after admiring the colors in the sky, noticed the rainbow sheen that started in the vicinity of our hull and continued downwind for about a quarter mile. It could have come from the platform to which we were moored, but I’m thinking that Genius, the synthetic pot guy, had decided to get a jump on the day by pumping the bilges.

I digress, but I have to mention another one of his great ideas. This particular company had a policy of prohibiting fishing from its vessels. It’s a policy the crews enthusiastically ignored, and staying offshore a week at a time we frequently had fish to share when we got home.*

Anyway, the catching was easy when we were hanging off one of the platforms. But once our standby buoy was replaced in the middle of the field, we had some trouble finding some of our favorite reef fish.

The sea bed in the Gulf of Mexico is basically one big mudflat, and reef fish thrive best where there is structure. Oil and gas production platforms provide great structure. So does all the metal – gratings and ladders and tubing and pipe – that came down in junk iron baskets.

One day we sent up a new washing machine to a platform and received the old, worn-out unit to be taken to the dock, and thence to the landfill. A couple of us figured that a washing machine was good for three or four snapper, minimum, and decided it should go over the side at the standby buoy.

Knucklehead remembered about half that discussion. Later the next day, at the buoy, I looked all over the boat for that damned washing machine. Finally I asked Genius.

“Oh, I threw it over,” he said. “For fish structure.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Where?”

“At _____ (the platform number). Last night.”

“Genius, that platform *is* fish structure. We don’t need any more over there.”

Speaking of structure, many vessels I've worked on have shiny stainless or aluminum compression posts in the wheelhouse or accommodations deck. If you're a guy with certain experiences in your background and a little imagination, it's not too difficult to see these as the sorts of poles that are sometimes found in certain entertainment venues.

Problem is, overheads are usually pretty low, so to actually put these poles to use one would need to employ a rather diminutive dancer.

Yep, I'm talking about midget strippers.

We got pretty close a couple of times to having this all worked out. It never came to fruition, but the dream remains alive deep in the hearts of a couple of guys I know.

But back to MARPOL and the Clean Water Act and that sort of thing.

I heard about a guy at one company who instructed his engineer to wait ‘til nightfall to dispose of used oil filters. Over the side while underway. Every 250 hours, like clockwork.

I've heard that some folks pump (often oily) bilges offshore as a matter of course. Even if there is an oily water separator on board. I've also been given to understand that it's not unusual to pump the holding tank at the dock as a matter of course. Even if a boat is headed out the required 3 miles beyond COLREGS in a few hours.

All of this pales, though, next to a phenomenon known as “making fuel.” This involves something other than chemistry, or even alchemy.

I’m not talking about rounding errors or padding the numbers a few hundred gallons here or there to make sure it comes out right in the end.

A couple of boats I’ve worked on have belly tanks that run fore-and-aft, and depending on how the boat is trimmed fuel soundings can be off by as much as 500 gallons per tank. Guesstimates are employed, fuel adjustments are periodically logged. It works out.

No, I’m talking about making fuel for profit. Only a few people I’ve known have allegedly done this, and sadly, now I can't even remember exactly who they were.

The way it works in the Gulf of Mexico, the customer (i.e., the company that charters the vessel) purchases the fuel the vessel uses for the period of the charter.

Say a boat goes “on charter” with 5,000 gallons of fuel. At the end of the charter period, the vessel, if it has less than 5,000 gallons on board, will take on enough fuel to make up the difference at the customer’s expense. If it has more than 5,000 gallons, the boat will pump it to another of the customer’s boats or the value of the excess fuel will be taken out of the vessel’s day rate.

In the interim, fuel is accounted for on a daily or weekly basis.

It’s not all that difficult to fudge the numbers just a little (say, logging 1,400 gallons on a 6-hour run instead of the 900 you actually burned – 233 gph vs. 150 gph – both are in the usual range for vessels I’ve worked on).

A week of daily runs like that and you’ve accumulated an “extra” 3,500 gallons of fuel worth north of $12,000 at the pump.

The trick is to dispose of the “extra” fuel and bring the actual fuel on board back to what the logs show. And that, too, is not all that difficult.

I heard a story about one captain who actually filled a slack rig water tank with stolen diesel to hide it from the customer’s auditors before he had the opportunity to pump it off to another boat or a truck.

Reportedly, the going rate for a gallon of pink diesel is $1, whether the buyer is some guy who runs boats or a yard worker at some dock.

The first week on one of my previous employer’s boats in Venice, one of the dock’s riggers passed a question to me through our engineer: “He wants to know,” the engineer said, “if you’ll sell him some diesel.”

“We can probably do that,” I replied. “Does he need it for the crane or something? We’ll just have to get him to sign a ticket.”

“Um, no … I think he wants to bring a truck over, sort of do it under the table. He wants 300 gallons.”

“Um, no,” I parroted. “Actually, hell no. And tell him not to ask again.”

Later that night I held a meeting with the entire crew. This happened. I said no. I will always say no. I don’t know how you’ve done things on this boat before, but we won’t be doing that while I’m here. First, it’s wrong. Second, it’s bad business. Third, we now have 14 cameras on this boat, and they are constantly recording. Any questions?

I’m pretty sure, though I have no proof, that one guy I was briefly acquainted with “made” in the neighborhood of 10,000 gallons for his company one month. That was his boast, anyhow. That’s between $30,000 and $40,000 at the pump. That is, I’m guessing, a felony.

It’s also no way to do business. It’s not fair to the vessel crew you have co-opted in your crime, it’s certainly not fair to the customer who is paying for the fuel. 

And I would have thought that it is self-evident that artificially increasing your fuel consumption makes your vessel less competitive.

It’s also all of five or six days of charter fees. Why trade that long-term, legal income for a short-term gain that carries the risk of personal and financial disaster?

Greed is the only answer I can come up with. The same sort of greed that would lead a company to transfer close to a grand per month in healthcare costs to its employees and blame it on Obamacare.

*Some might call this “raping the resource.” I prefer to think of it as “resource assessment,” or “single-line sampling.” And I can vouch for the fact that snapper populations are healthy where there is structure 100 miles offshore.

Shenanigans (Part Two): Ain't No Drama Like Boat Drama

And I thought high school was bad. Let me tell you, it has nothing on a boat full of grown-ass men suffering together in collective isolation while fighting each other, the office, problems at home, the elements, mechanical breakdowns, clueless dispatchers and an uncertain supply system.

The whining, the bellyaching, the moaning … the recriminations and machinations and scheming. It’s a freakin’ soap opera.

Not on every boat, and not at every company.  But, generally, if a sailor isn’t griping, you’d best check for a pulse. Or maybe conduct a drug test (see Shenanigans: PartThree).

This week I got a call from one of the engineers I worked with briefly. He was just checking in, and venting a bit, and to sum  it all up he said: “This place is batshit crazy! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

My most miserable hitches were a pain in the ass mostly because of the people I was sailing with. Weather, customer, job, vessel maintenance – all of that is addressed in a pretty straightforward manner.

A former colleague who usually was surrounded by enough drama to qualify for a Golden Globe nomination called me on his way home from his last hitch. He had found out he was “let go” when he called the office and asked for his sea time letter, only to discover it was already in the mail. (He was okay with that, as he had just doubled his day rate elsewhere.)

“You know,” he said, “________ went to the office and said that you and I are racist.”

I was surprised, then upon reflection not all that shocked as I recalled: after four consecutive days of waking this particular young man for his watch; after four consecutive days of mostly calm, patient, focused, one-on-one counseling; after four consecutive days spending nearly my entire watch demonstrating that mopping is best conducted with two hands on the mop handle, not one, and that mops typically must be rinsed and re-wetted more than once per day; after all this, I finally wrote a formal disciplinary report and created a performance improvement plan.

It was then that the young man told me that I was singling him out, that I was treating him differently than everyone else.

“Oh. No. You. Don’t,” I remember thinking, almost willing him to play that card. I guess he did, finally, just not to my face.

But it was true. I was singling him out. Because I am, deep down (and the evidence of my own last hitch notwithstanding), goldbrickerist. He was the only one not pulling his weight. Others were having to get up early and stay up late to take care of the tasks he didn’t finish – or even start.

Still, it was days of drama, and in the end office staff who were afraid they would be sued if they treated this individual like everyone else in the company sort of left me dangling in the breeze.

Then there is the shuffling of licensed personnel because the lead captain feels threatened by another captain’s competency, or because boat handling skills aren’t up-to-snuff, or personalities don’t mesh, or someone is calling the office too often, or the customer doesn’t like the way a captain talks to the crane operator, or simply because there is a shitty boat and a shitty job somewhere else and one poor sucker hasn’t gotten the memo yet and blithely says: “Sure, I’ll help you out over there.”

On one boat, crew members complain because they have to carry their toiletries to and from the head (never more than 10 steps away on a crewboat, by the way). On the next boat, someone gets bent out of shape because there are too many bottles of body wash inhabiting the shower.

And the egos. Sheesh. I have personally met the World’s Best Boat Handler. All 27 of them. I have come to believe that one of the biggest problems with the much-abused U.S. domestic tonnage admeasuring system is that it never accurately accounts for the amount of volume a boat requires to safely contain those egos.

I’ve worked with a few guys who were hot shit on the sticks, no doubt. But for the most part the widespread notion that “I am better at this than anyone else out here” is a fine example of something called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which manifests itself in all sorts of other ways as well. 

The thing is, the murky swirl of rumor and innuendo and double-dealing that is part and parcel of life aboard some boats generally remains unilluminated because, well, there are some sneaky bastards out there.

But more than that, there is a prevailing notion that information is power. And we all know that one must never, under any but the most dire circumstances, share power.

This is, more than anything, a top-down problem and an organizational culture challenge at the management level.

Consider: on the last day of last year, the news that our company was merging not just sales and marketing efforts as previously announced but also vessel operations, HSE and HR (i.e., everything) with another, similarly-sized company was buried in a memo informing all crew members that “due to Obamacare” insurance costs would be increasingly transferred from the employer to the employees.

The specifics translated into a $963 per month additional out-of-pocket expense for me, and probably for a lot of guys with families.

And I’m betting it had very little to do with the ACA (last year we were assured our coverage was ACA-compliant and grandfathered and wouldn’t change) and a whole lot to do with the company trimming expenses.

That memo, by the way, was sent only to the boats, not to the one-third of vessel employees then at home. Kind of like the e-mail the day after Christmas that announced that, “due to a computer glitch,” payroll would be delayed by five days.

As my first crewboat mentor told me more than once: “When you mess with my pay, you’re messing with my feelings.”

As I almost got around to mentioning earlier, boat life is not “Lord of the Flies” all the time, not every company is completely awful at communication, and even from boat to boat within a given company’s fleet, the culture can be markedly different.

On one boat on which I worked, for instance, there were literally dozens of hardcore pornographic magazines strewn around the vessel; I had to move them to plot a course on the chart, or eat a bowl of cereal. On the next boat, there was not a skin mag to be seen, but lots of well-read actual books, the kind with words.

On one boat the list of deckhand daily and weekly duties ended with a threat: "If you can't do it, we'll find someone who can! "On the next boat, it ended with a note of encouragement: "You're an important part of the team, and we appreciate all you do!"

In the end, people make the difference, for good or bad.

Shenanigans (Part One): FNGs

Shenanigans abound offshore. Some are the predictable result of having six guys cooped-up in a smallish aluminum box with limited outlets for recreation.

Some are the result of laziness or restricted bandwidth at the management level, which shouldn’t tolerate such things (coming in Part Two). Some are pure criminality (see Part Three).

There is an entire seabag of tricks to screw-around with newbies. I probably don’t even know the best ones, but they include things like: sending the green guy to get a bucket of prop wash, replacing spark plugs on the (diesel) mains, tuning the radars ….

That last one involves having the new guy wander around the dock with a foil-covered hard hat, a metal rod of some sort and a hand-held VHF. It is … almost … plausible. And hilarious.

At the beginning of the last hitch, there was much discussion about preventive measures to avoid the dreaded “dickworm.” There was even an ersatz Wikipedia article about penile helminthes, and warnings flashed from new guy to new guy across the fleet.

All of this from an off-hand remark after the newbie wondered why chlorine tabs were being dropped into the rig water we took on at the dock.

New guys get f*cked with. A lot. Often to the point of counterproductivity. Recently the captain of one of our other boats was painting a dire picture of the chances of a romantic relationship surviving a deckhand’s new career. Jody was mentioned. At length.

That deckhand made it about a week before rushing home.

I’ve seen some captains call the office and demand a replacement for a newbie on the first hitch. Or state angrily that they’re not training someone without extra pay.

This is disheartening.

All of us started our workboat careers knowing nothing about the job. Every. Single. One of us. 

And training is a privilege that comes with a license, and with experience, and the last time I checked was part of the job description.

I was proud to be a temporary part of a temporary crew at the beginning of the last hitch. With two Short Service Employees (SSEs, or FNGs, if you like), the other captain and I collaborated to bring them up to speed as quickly as possible.

Five in-depth actual emergency drills in seven days. A near-complete review of the company’s new Safety and Environmental Management System. Pop quizzes. 

People staying up into the next watch to provide hands-on instruction. Extra folks on deck during cargo operations. Words of encouragement when a tired, overwhelmend new guy says dejectedly: “I’m never going to get this!”

It was pretty awesome. And it still left time for some people to worry about dickworms.

Happy Holidays

Holidays are the bane of any mariner's working life. Holidays also are referred to as "misses," "skips," and "voids."

Holidays are the small areas left uncoated after applying new paint.

They also are the religious and civil observances, the gatherings of family and friends, that sailors often miss while at sea.

After two consecutive Thanksgivings and Easters underway, countless birthdays and a couple of anniversaries, this was the year I was supposed to be on the boat for Christmas. 

Some last-minute shuffling at the office moved Tuesday crew changes to Monday, and Wednesday crew changes to Thursday, and me to a different boat this hitch.

Suddenly I'm driving back to Louisiana Chistmas night rather than Christmas Eve.

We planned Christmas based on my previous schedule and celebrated with the family this past weekend. 

It actually worked-out better for getting folks together, and I'll never be ungrateful for a few extra days at home.

My buddy over at New England Waterman posted a brilliant, literary post on Christmas at sea. Check it out when you get a chance.

Meanwhile, I fooled around with an homage to a Christmas classic. It still could use some work, but here's where it stands on Christmas day:

'Twas the night before crew change, when all through the house

Clothing and gadgets and books bewilder my spouse.

The bags still empty soon will be stuffed to the gills

Remember the razor! Remember the pills!

The children were nestled all snug in their beds

I crept 'round the toys and kissed their sweet heads.

And mama at the Keurig hands me a cup

While I carry my bags out and load them all up.

The truck is all fueled and I guess I am too

It's time to get going, to get away from this zoo!

Like the cat at the door, I can't quite decide

If I want to be on the in or the outside.

On the boat I am missing the joys of my home

The children, the wife, the time spent alone

Little things too, like a walk on dry land

And a pint of dark stout, snug in my hand

 

At home I am wond’ring how is the crew,

Are the seas heaped-up high, the wind blowing too?

Is the AIS working, is the new anchor on board,

Did the oil get changed, or was it ignored?

No matter right now; I’ll know soon enough

Here in the driveway I think: do I have all my stuff?

I check the list in my head for the very last time

And hold my wife in my arms as the midnight clock chimes

Pulling out of the ‘hood I settle in for the drive

I don’t need to go fast, I just need to get there alive

Down Seventy-One to Interstate Ten

Five hours through Texas, five more through Lousiane

Now Bastrop! Columbus! Now Sealy, now H-town too!

Come Beaumont! the border, Jennings, and Cajun country true!

Past the edge of my state, into the deep south!

I retool my vocab, put some drawl in my mouth!

As the sky becomes bright I stop for gas and some joe

Rough men throng the counter in fire-proof clothes

At last at the office, I greet shipmates and staff

As I load-up the crew truck we gossip and laugh

Meanwhile back at the house the tree’s all aglitter.

The children race between gifts in a gift paper litter.

Mama sips at her coffee, then turns to her phone.

“Merry Christmas my love, can’t wait ‘til your home.”

One advantage to going to a different boat this hitch is that I'll be back in Port Fourchon, and in fact I'll be working from a dock just across the slip from the boat New England Waterman is on. 

He reports that the cabin of the boat I'm going to is in a state of undress and suggests I bring some painting clothes.

No problem. And I will do my very best, these coming weeks, to avoid any more holidays.

A Modest Proposal

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.

Books

When I was brand spanking new to this career, it was not unusual for me to show up to the boat with a milk crate full of books.

I would like to say I read voraciously, but in fact it's more like "indiscriminately." I read good books and I read crap books. Fiction and non-fiction. Escapist entertainments and prize-winning literature. Sometimes I read professional references.

One night a couple of weeks ago I overheard an exchange over the radio between a captain on one of the boats that also works for our customer and a captain on another boat. It was all about books.

That radio exchange resulted in the gifting of a large box of reportedly high-quality hardbacks to the boat that frequently ties-up next to us. I've been invited over to find something I'd like to read.

At some point over the last couple of years, I discovered the Kindle. It's magic. Bookstores are few and far between in South Louisiana, but with a 4G wi-fi connection, I can download the latest releases in seconds.

I still go to sea with dozens of books, but now most of them are on my e-reader and, sadly, not readily shareable.

Looking at my Kindle now, here are a few I can recommend:

Storm Front by John Sandford. This is the latest in Sandford's Virgil Flowers series, and like all of the author's Minnesota-set thrillers, a fun read.

Deceived, by Randy Wayne White. A spin-off from the Doc Ford series that features fishing guide and PI Hannah Smith. The writing is less consistently terrific than in the Doc Ford novels, but it's still good.

Never Go Back, by Lee Child. Jack Reacher is one of the great characters of recent adventure fiction. I refuse to see the horribly miscast movie.

I discovered Justin Cronin, a creative writing teacher at Houston's Rice University, through his science fiction stories. He has also written some literary fiction of note, including: Mary and O'Neil and The Summer Guest. I especially enjoyed the latter.

I think I'm all caught up on Martin Cruz Smith's (Gorky Park) Arkady Renko novels now. I recently read Wolves Eat Dogs, Red Square and Three Stations. Renko is another great fictional character.

Drive up and down Hwy 90 in South Louisiana long enough, and you'll see the name "Robichaux" pretty frequently. James Lee Burke's series featuring the Iberia Parish sheriff's detective by the same name blurs the line between genre entertainment and high-brow literature.

Burke's bio led me to the work of his cousin, the famed short story writer Andre Dubus. I just finished his Selected Stories and will be looking for more.

I find I have quite a few Jim Harrison books on my Kindle. I guess that's because, over the past 12 months or so, Harrison has become hands-down my favorite living writer, maybe my favorite writer period. Maybe you know him from Legends of the Fall.

Harrison is sort of Bukowski-Hemingway-Zane Grey all rolled-up together. Perhaps a bit more honorable than any of them, come to think of it. Start anywhere (the collections of novellas -- something like The River Swimmer would give you a good taste) but at some point also pick up his memoir, Off to the Side.

I recently finished the trade paperback version of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The pace of this epistolary novel had been described as "elegaic," and I would say that's about right. 

It's almost a ... meditation or prayer, I guess. It took me a while to "get into" the story, but before long I found myself looking forward to the end of my watch so I could get back to it.

For recommendations on professional (or at least related) reading, I often refer back to a thread on the gCaptain forum called "Books in Your Library."

I can heartily recommend Max Hardberger's Freighter Captain and Seized. The latter has received more press, but the former is a better read, I think. It also happens to be available only as an e-book.

The Voyage of the Rose City by the late John Moynihan is a great read, and well-worth picking up. In the same vein, I am re-reading the John McPhee classic, Looking for a Ship.

My Kindle also holds a copy of Navigation Rules, The Arts of the Sailor, The Sailor's Word Book (free!), Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems, Thinking, Fast and Slow and Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.

In hardback, I've been carrying around (and sometimes even referring to) Nigel Calder's Marine Diesel Engines: Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Repair. Mechanics of any kind not being my strong suite, I take whatever help I can find, wherever I can find it. Calder's book is geared more toward yachties, and powerplants somewhat smaller than the massive Cats that drive my boat. 

Still, a diesel engine is a diesel engine and this straightforward book is helpful.

In hopes of getting a jump on celestial navigation, and upon the recommendation of someone on gCaptain, I recently purchased the paperback version of A Star to Steer Her By by Edward Bergin.

For the edification (and education) of the entire crew, I recently ordered the Sibley Guide to Birds and Hoese and Moore's Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico.They live near the chart table for quick reference.

My father sent me a copy of At All Costs: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners Turned the Tide of World War II. I enjoyed it very much. So much, I paid it forward to a friend who works as a captain for another company. He was able to stern-up next to us in Fourchon long enough to take possession.

I'm a fan of Nelson DeMille's writing and looked forward all summer to The Quest, an expansion and rewriting of an early novel and the only thing I haven't yet read. It was an all-around disappointment and I can't help wondering if perhaps his best work is now behind him.

I enjoy the mindless adventure of Clive Cussler's books, and I'm not the only fan on the boat. I'll be taking a stack of Cussler and Hiasson and whatever else I can find that I think others might enjoy back with me in about 10 days.

In a milk crate, of course.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a reluctant Victorian-era poet who converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest. His father was, among other things, a marine insurer, and one of Hopkins' best-known poems is The Wreck of the Deutschland.

I have been a fan of Father Hopkins' verse since my college days, for his use of sprung rhythm and alliteration as well as his keen eye for the natural world.

I suspect, though I have not confirmed, that industrial Britain in the second half of the 19th century was in some ways not so different than the Gulf of Mexico oil patch in the first half of the 21st century.

Many mornings on the boat, Hopkins' words come to mind:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;	5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;	10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. "God's Grandeur," Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918

Prejudice and Pride

I've been on the new boat a couple of weeks now, and I'm happy to say it seems to be going well.

I really enjoy the guys I'm working with this part of the hitch, and that helps. A lot.

During Week One, I spent almost all my time -- all the time I wasn't actually operating the boat -- reading through the company's new Safety Management System manual, chasing-down and catching-up paperwork the manual says we should be doing, teaching the other captain (let's call him "Curt") how to use the computerized log system, and so on.

Curt's a terrific shipmate, and makes up for his lack of paperwork prowess with a fearless engagement of the engine room.

At some point in the past week, during a protracted watch turnover, we were discussing our previous careers, and I mentioned some of the office jobs I'd held.

"Well, that explains why you're so good at the paperwork and the computer," he said.

"I guess," I replied, "It's easy for me and something I can contribute, but I'd rather be known as someone who can run a boat."

"Oh, you do fine," Curt said. "I don't see any problems on that end."

Then Curt let slip that the only thing he'd heard about me before I came over here was that I was a "wheelhouse" captain. 

That may not sound so bad, but in this business it's a whole lot worse than damning with faint praise. It's something along the lines of a verbal sneer. It can be career-limiting. It also happens, in this instance, not to be true.

No matter; I'm pretty sure I know where that came from and why, and it doesn't have anything to do with my willingness to get down and dirty with the crew.

But.

It does make one think, and during my Week Two here I've been extra conscious about helping-out on deck and in the engine room, and we've gotten some good work done on the boat.

The other night our dispatcher sent us straight over to one fuel dock to load water, then to another fuel dock to pick up some drums he needed for another boat at our dock.

I had never been to the second dock, and had to call them several times to figure-out exactly where I was going and where they wanted me once we got there. Another of our company's boats was lying along the outside of the dock, partially blocking the slip I had been told to stern-up in.

The captain on our other boat called me on the radio: "Hey Cap, I can slide back for you if you need me to."

"Nah," I reply. "I think I can get in there." He could see where I was going better than me and moved out of the way anyhow.

Now this particular slip is oddly shaped, kind of like this:

That boat-shaped thing in the middle of my bad drawing? That was another crew boat. The Jump? It has some percentage of the Mississippi River's outflow moving through it at a brisk pace.

Anyhow, I wriggled in and was relieved not to have crunched anything.

As we were leaving, though, the current caught my bow and started pushing me down on the other crewboat in the slip. I threw her into a full-throttle pivot, figuring I'd deal with my bow and the third crewboat, bow-in on the far side of the slip, if I managed to clear the one now behind me.

We did, by about two feet, which is too close for my comfort. And we made it out into the Jump okay.

I called-up the captain on our other boat, who may or may not have been watching the whole procedure.

"Hey, this is Curt on the _______," I said. "That slip's a little tricky, isn't it?"

We chatted a few minutes, and I signed-off.

Fortunately, this time my pride was the only thing that was damaged (and only privately, at that). I don't think I'm the World's Greatest Captain, but I'm a pretty fair boat handler, and stuff like that is NOT supposed to happen to me.

But sometimes, thankfully rarely these days, it does. And I suspect I'm not alone in this, that a lot of us out here have "Oh, shit!" moments we just don't tell anyone about.

At least not using our real names.

Part of that is ego, of course, but part of it also may arise from the fact that even though this is a booming industry with lots of jobs at the moment there also are about 100 tons of 100-ton captains out there. A "zero-defect" mentality prevails in some quarters, and fear of being replaced prevents an honest discussion and analysis of accidents and near-misses.

I read in the new SMS that a company steering committee will hold quarterly meetings to discuss accidents and near-misses and provide lessons learned to the fleet. I hope that happens.

But I'm afraid that, at least this one time, "Curt" will not be contributing.