(Saturday, April 16th, 2016)
(With apologies to Terry for whom the Who is a boo.)
Our Captain had “one of those long days” from Tuesday night until Wednesday night. By “long day” I mean he worked all those hours. Some of it was expected and some not.
We approached Houston on Tuesday night, took on a harbor pilot at about 10pm, and went up the Houston Ship Channel, past a dozen or more refineries and all sorts of docks, until berthing at around 4:30am on Wednesday morning. I was on deck for a little while up the channel but went back to sleep for a bit when no pictures were going to be good. Also, refineries don’t interest me that much – I have seen my share.
We all had to get up early to meet the customs and immigration officials, especially those of us wanting to go ashore later. I also needed to confirm the laws applicable to my upcoming dis- and re-embarking.
So far so good. Then we learned that, instead of one expected inspection, we were lucky enough to get three!
Inspection #1: Coast Guard. We learned about this because they were waiting for us. No big deal, and in fact we were overdue for such an inspection. The Coast Guard is supposed to inspect us once a year and it had been more than that. The last time that we were available they were busy. So this time for sure. Everything went fine. (More on the Coast Guard later.)
The Coast Guard checks environmental compliance, quarantine compliance, dangerous cargo, general crew conditions, and general ship safety conditions.
Inspection #2: Inspectors representing our flag country, Marshall Islands, paid a visit. These inspections also happen once a year, but not with as much enforced regularity as the Coast Guard.
The flag country is where our ship is registered, and to whom we pay fees and taxes. Their inspection is just to see that the ship that is here is the same ship that has been registered, and is in good operating condition, and that we are using it the way that we promised to use it – for example, for a commercial shipping vessel.
Inspection #3: This one was the inspection that we had anticipated, and was from an inspection agency representing the Merchant Marine (all commercial ships in the world), checking on our compliance with various world-wide safety and operational measures. There are several applicable acronyms of regulations they enforce.
All three of these inspections are valid. But the coincidence of all three happening in the same morning, and that morning being one in which many of the officers were up all night already, was a burden. You know how hard it can be to be polite when you are totally void of sleep. And some of the inspectors, from what I heard, had that sort of “positional power” personality.
I got off the ship as soon as I could (I’ll write about that in another post) so I missed the crowd on board. Except for the Coast Guard. Serious looking folks. And the first woman to be on board since I got on in Singapore.
Along with all that was the usual business of why we came in the first place – to work with the stevedores, our supercargo people, our on-site agent, and various shipping companies, to get started with the work of discharging cargo from our ship. Get those cranes moving.
So Wednesday was a super-busy day. All inspections went well.
Then on Friday late afternoon, 24 hours before we were due to depart, we got a surprise. The New Orleans Coast Guard (the Houston Coast Guard folks warned us about them) decided that since we didn’t have a working bow thruster, we were not allowed to enter New Orleans. What!? The Captain was livid.
Our German offices are long since closed, and it is a weekend. We are due to arrive in New Orleans late on Sunday, or maybe sometime Monday.
This is both serious and misguided. A bow thruster, while convenient, is not necessary, and is not listed as a device that needs inspected, and is not on any inspection checklist. The only way that the New Orleans Coast Guard learned about it was that we filed a report listing equipment under repair. We are receiving spare parts in Savannah and will fix the bow thruster then.
Basically, if we had a bow thruster, and if a docking maneuver was relatively easy and in calm water and with calm wind, we could skip the forward tugboat and get by with only an aft tug. Without the bow thruster we use two tugs. That is completely normal. Many ships our size don’t have bow thrusters at all – it is a convenience.
So we had to wake up executives in Germany to craft a suitably polite but firm response. Today (Saturday) at noon we got the reply from a high-ish person in the Coast Guard (notably, not from the New Orleans Coast Guard) – “bow thruster not required – approved for New Orleans”. Nothing but that. So, off we go, in a few hours.