Three Plus Two Equals a Long Hitch (and other math)

Three weeks in shipyard, a few days floating around Fourchon, nearly two weeks on two different jobs.

I finally made crew change on the morning of Day 36 in Venice, the polyp on the rectum of the American Midwest.

It’s fun to poo-poo Venice (see what I did there?), but in truth it was sort of nice to be back.

When I got up for my first watch after we arrived, there on the boat sterning-up next to us at the back of Slip 2 was a fellow I had been in the DP Induction course with a few months back.

A boat I worked alongside last winter is still there, and I caught up over the radio with one of her captains. A boat working the same job we were on was captained by a mutual friend of several guys I’ve worked with in the past.

In Fourchon I got within waving (and photo) distance of NewEngland Waterman and enjoyed a quick visit with The Rocket Scientist. One night while running to a platform 70 miles offshore I crossed paths a good friend I’ve worked with at three different companies, starting back in the South Padre Island days.

Both he and another Texas captain stopped by to say howdy when we were in shipyard.

All of that got me to thinking about the “loose” connections some of us maintain out in the oil patch.

Those connections are useful in all kinds of ways; not least in alleviating the loneliness of those long stretches away from land and from home, but also in job leads and recommendations and in up-to-date local knowledge about passes or working channels.

Those loose connections also will get you a bag of sugar, a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper or a gallon of paint in a pinch.

It’s a commonplace that a sailor’s favorite ships are the last one and the next one. That said, I couldn’t be much happier with the boat and crew to which I was assigned.

Joining them in shipyard, well in advance of our various inspections, gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time with parts of the vessel I might not get around to messing with in weeks or months, normally.

It also gave me time to get to know my port captains, shipmates and safety guys, and to learn some of the paperwork routine before worrying about handling a more massive vessel with different propulsion than I’m used to.

I was nervous about that last thing: this is my first steel-hull vessel, and my first really big twin-screw vessel, and my first real DP boat. And before and after everything else, driving a boat (well) is what I get paid for.

Turns out that what friends who made that transition ahead of me said is true: workboats are easier than crewboats.

It’s different, for sure, but it’s mostly a process of subtraction: subtract two throttles, subtract about 3,000 horsepower, subtract a whole lot of maneuverability and responsiveness, subtract the expectation that you’ll get anywhere fast.

All of that math comes down to this: think ahead of the boat, not with it, and know that everything – including stopping – takes longer. Oh, and this: that bow thruster really isn’t optional in some situations.

The short week home has been all kids all the time, except for Wednesday, when The Old Lady and I attended Wednesday Night Church Services (aka, the Jon Dee Graham/James McMurtry double bill at the Continental Club in Austin).

I didn’t know how much I needed that until about the second verse of the first song.

I got to catch up a little with some folks I used to hang out with two or three nights a week. I was astonished to find out that the baby I knew one guy’s wife was expecting last we talked is now seven months old.

I was saddened to hear another friend’s mom died last week.

It was another reminder of the value of those loose connections, this time on land, where people I care about and with whom I have much in common but I too rarely see in person, also make me feel a little less lonely.

Full Circle

So ... this last hitch found me filling-in on a boat I'd never worked on, on a job that ended after two weeks and left us pushing mud. Standing by waiting on work on the banks of Bayou Lafourche sounds like a nice break, but it quickly becomes excruciatingly boring.

 And of course busy days pass more quickly.

Then came word that I'd be headed back to the very first boat I worked on for this company -- the boat I worked on longest and took through Coast Guard topside and hull inspections last summer.

It was a lot like coming home (minus having a 1-year-old puking on me and changing diapers and sleeping next to my wife ... and being able to drink beer and order pizza and do my own grocery shopping. But other than that ....).

I ended-up working with a captain from the company with which my employer is merging, and like the guy before him (another captain from that company was filling-in, too, the first two weeks of my hitch), he was a nice guy and competent boat handler.

The job, running cutting boxes to and from a drilling rig about 50 miles south of Port Fourchon, was pretty much non-stop.

Best of all, I was on the same watch with my favorite engineer, the first crew member I met when I went to work for this outfit. When I left this boat, he was studying hard for his 100-ton license.

In my last crewboat week, I celebrated with him as the interwebs informed us that his credential was received at the National Maritime Center, then progressed to medical evaluation.

Aside from the dancing and drinking, that celebration took the form of showing my soon-to-be-captain friend a few tricks on the sticks, and letting him move and hold the boat at the rig.

He's going to be just fine.

Visiting Hours

Port Fourchon is the center of the workboat universe. If you work on a boat in the oil patch, chances are you'll come through here at some point.

And since even the mental health ward has visiting hours, I have had the opportunity to catch-up with old friends and new friends at length the past couple of weeks.

It helps that our customer is operating a weather-constrained semi-submersible drilling rig, and the weather has been pretty lousy. We've mostly been propping  up the dock ... and visiting.

The ghosts of boats past are frequent visitors, including the best engineers and deckhands I've had the pleasure of working with. I've been able to catch-up with captain friends from Texas; working different hitches on different boats for this company, usually we see each other only in passing -- literally.

A fellow I met through this blog (when he was working on an OSV in Alaska) and with whom I've corresponded at length drove down to say hello after getting hired-on at Edison Chouest Offshore.

I even got to talk over the rail with the New England Waterman.

About halfway through this hitch, I decided it would be my last one with this company. Hopefully my last one on crewboats.

Bigger boats, and bigger boat companies, more often offer even time schedules and the pay scale that still makes a 180-day year financially rewarding.

New STCW rules (actually not all that new, but finally trickling down to U.S. mariners) will be implemented March 24 this year. Reportedly, that will make the leap to a 500-ton license a much lengthier, more expensive process.

So ... the next couple of months will be devoted to knocking-out endorsements and studying for the exam. I'll also take some time to reflect on what I've learned over the past couple of years. Stay tuned!

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.

Rolling, rolling, rolling ....

Coming into day seven of long, back-to-back runs. We’ve done a bit of everything: we have been to drilling rigs, lift boats and production platforms; pumped water and fuel, transferred cargo and personnel, even got a few hours of standby time in 200-feet of water.

During our offshore standby time the lead captain caught a tuna on the first drop, and that was lunch.

The weather has been all over the place, too, with a late-season cold front stalled over the area. Two nights in a row we had 40-knot winds, 5-to-7-foot seas, lightning and torrential rain. We even had hail, which makes quite a racket on an aluminum-hulled boat.

I’m also coming into day 27 of a 28-day hitch. I figured-out a while back that it’s not helpful to count the days ‘til the end, which now is nigh. Phew!

I could complain about my first hitch on this boat, but I’d have to make something up. The crew is still coming together, but the new first captain seems like a real good guy.

Back when we were still sitting at the dock a couple of days at a stretch, back in the good old days, we got some painting done on deck and have been tackling small repair and maintenance projects as we can. But mostly things are in good shape, and what’s not will be fixed when we go to shipyard in a month or so.

In the last week of running, I have been reminded of some of the unique privileges of this work. A new moon and a cloudless sky several nights have showcased the spangled vault above with the great, hazy wash of the Milky Way arcing overhead.

Our bow wave this past week has been a molten cascade of blue. It is the electric blue of lightning, the neon blue of sin, the plasma blue of a Star Trek warp drive.

On no more evidence than the color, I blame moderate densities of Noctiluca scintillans. The water is still cool enough for those bioluminescing dinoflagellates to be hanging around.

Anyhow, mesmerizing to watch, difficult to photograph.

In Which Not Much Happens, But We Enjoy Ourselves Anyway

I had the opportunity to move the boat twice thrice last night. THREE TIMES!

This is noteworthy because, a.) things have been really, really slow for us this last week. As the pool boat for our client we get construction and special projects. We aren’t supplying a production field on a regular basis, we’re not running for a drilling rig. And b.) I’m new to the boat, and to the port.

Here on "crewboat row," we squeeze 'em in tight. Sliding a 30-foot wide boat into a 36-foot wide hole with 20 knots on the beam is all sorts of fun.

The deckhands are grading me, and I’m told I’m averaging “A-“ thus far. I can live with that.

So, anyhow, the downside to running only every other day is I’m not getting a lot of wheel time, necessary to really be comfortable with my new boat. The upside is that when we do run, destinations and cargos are varied.

I did stay up into the day watch a couple of days ago when we caught a run just to see what Belle Pass looked like in the daylight. It’s always good to be able to match radar returns to a visual image.

And I’m not complaining. Soon enough, I’m sure, they’ll be running the bottom paint off this boat.

Boat or Ship?

Try to define the difference between a boat and a ship, and you’ll come up with all manner of criteria:

1. Ships can carry boats, boats can’t carry ships.
2. Boats lean in to a turn, ships lean out.
3. When a ship sinks one steps into a boat; when a boat sinks, one steps into the water.
4. Boats have only one deck; ships have multiple decks.
5. Ships carry cargo, boats do not.
6. Boats have operators, ships have crews.
7. Boats are vessels under 500 tons, ships vessels over that.

Out here, we call most of the vessels boats – even the 280-foot platform supply vessels (like the 3,000+ ton Gary Rook, left) that are clearly carrying rescue boats under a davit on the weather deck. I suspect that a vessel of the same size, configured with a more traditional aft house, would be called a ship.

By many definitions, the modest 165-foot crewboat I work on could be considered a ship; it requires multiple individuals as crew, it has more than one deck, it carries cargo.

The boat I’m on could carry another boat – even a sizable boat, such as the 100-foot crewboat just down from us. I’m guessing too that whether a vessel leans into or away from a turn depends in great part on where the vertical center of gravity is on a given day.

Tonnage is tricky, as all sorts of smoke and mirrors (and doors and floors and machinery spaces) may obfuscate a vessel’s objective displacement.

I will tell you this: my boat feels really big at first, but looks a whole lot smaller when lying alongside a big platform supply vessel. And it positively shrinks somewhere between week three and four of a hitch.

Déjà vu, Sorta

The lead captain on this boat has been with the company almost a decade-and-a-half. I think I wrote in an earlier post that he was just over here filling in while the boat was re-crewed. 

Actually, this has been his boat for quite some time and he’s been trying to get to his new boat, currently in shipyard, and has been delayed while a suitable and stable crew is found for this boat.

Anyhow, he’s experienced, skilled and only occasionally grumpy. (Okay, really he has a pretty ready laugh and some great stories).

Earlier today, noticing his “Corpus Christi Harley Davidson” t-shirt, I asked him if he has a bike. Two, it turns out, with a possible third in the offing, and he not only told me about them but whipped out his phone to show me pictures.

Ah … sociability. It’s almost impossible to over-rate.

It's All Good

I have a songwriter friend who sometimes says from stage: "If somebody tells you it's all good, he's either a liar or he's just not paying attention."

But, really, six days into the new job and all I can say is: it's all good.

Corporate culture really does have an impact on employee satisfaction (which you can bet, in turn, impacts customer satisfaction) and this company appears to have the best culture of any I've run across out here so far.

It's not just the pay and benefits, but also an atmosphere of respect for the individual employee.

Because we have quite a few boats working out of Fourchon, I've had the opportunity to meet a few of the other captains.

Without exception they have good things to say about their year, four years, 14 years working here. Even the guy who just got demoted from lead on one boat to second on another for some unnamed infraction of the rules.

The boat itself is fine; plenty of muscle, but docile. No surprises on how she handles.

We haven't been terribly busy so far. I've made a couple of long runs out to the Eugene Island 330 field, where I worked production two boats ago.

It happened that my old boat came to the platform we were working and I got to see and talk with a couple of my buddies. They were even kind enough to throw across a cooler of fresh lemon fish.