Category: freight

(Tuesday, May 10th, 2016)

For the first time on this entire voyage, I have fellow passengers!

For the sake of their privacy, I am not going to write too much about them, or name them. That’s what I would want for myself, so that’s what I am going to do. (As you can tell, I am not a good target for Facebook marketing, ho ho.)

We have a Canadian/American and a Dutchman on board. They both boarded in Philadelphia. They thought they were headed across the Atlantic, immediately. Surprise! Come on down to Morehead City for a spell.

The CanAm guy is a retired ex-Microsoft dude traveling the low-carbon way from British Columbia (Cortez Island, pretty cool) to London, England. He’s getting off in Montoir. This means ferry, hitchhike, train, bus, and freighter travel. He’s a senior-league soccer player, a soccer coach, and a birder.

We have, over beers, figured out what Elon Musk or Richard Branson (whoops, “Sir Richard”) needs to do to lower the carbon footprint significantly for air travel. We would rather Elon do it. He seems less egotistical than Richard Branson. If someone could point Elon at this blog post we’d appreciate it, thanks. Hint: Low-altitude turboprops with high passenger count, all “economy class”. Get to work, Elon, it is more important than the people tube from San Francisco to Los Angeles and the infrastructure is already in place. We stand ready to advise.

The Dutch guy is an artist from The Hague who is doing a circle route of his own, freighter from France to Miami, train to Boston, some form of public transport to Philadelpia, and freighter transport from Philadelphia to either Antwerp or Bremmerhaven, whichever comes first. He’s been painting a mural of the Rickmers Antwerp, surrounded by dolphins, fish, and our emergency lifeboat. It is way cooler to see than to read about. He’s been on these voyages before, several times.

Both are very good to talk with, quite fun. I’ve had to make room in my incredibly busy schedule for them. I managed.

Both of them, with only a few beers, went swimming in our pool during a party. 10 degrees Celsius. I was raised in Florida: I don’t voluntarily go in water that isn’t at least body (specifically, live body) temperature.

And, from Hamburg to Genoa, I am told that I will have company as well. We shall see!

(started Saturday, April 30th, 2016)

I am writing this in a hotel room in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, listening to wonderful harp music (Allison Vardy, “Island Suites”). I admit to distraction. And later, in a hotel room in Morehead City, North Carolina. Not as much distraction – and that will allow me to finish, tee hee. Well, not quite. I am finishing this on board, as we approach Montoir, France.

I had been visiting parents and sisters for a week, nice. I am not going to write about that, other than to say that I gave a show-and-tell at a special needs school and workplace at which Janis works in Bushnell, Florida. It was quite fun for me, and I think interesting for them. I had some volunteers ready to finish the trip with me! I didn’t do as much work on this blog as I thought I was going to do.

Then I headed up the southeast US coast, seeking to be early to Morehead City, North Carolina, to await the Rickmers Antwerp’s arrival from Philadelphia. Can’t be late! Next port: Montoir, France.

Rumor has it there will be other passengers on board. (The rumor is true!)

I seem to avoid writing about American ports. It may be that I don’t feel the need – they are US cities, after all, and that’s not the gist of this voyage or these posts. I’m going to write about Houston, New Orleans, Port Manatee, and Morehead City, all in this post – we’ll see how that goes.

Both Houston and New Orleans have a long approach from the Gulf of Mexico. There is a clear distinction when we leave deeper water and reach the various shelves that ring the Gulf. The swells basically stop, as there is no water depth to support them. The voyage from New Orleans to Port Manatee was especially calm, as we were mostly in relatively shallow water.

The approach to Houston is the Houston Ship Channel, and the channel is lined with refineries and chemical plants. We arrived and left at night, with refinery lights omnipresent. They actually look impressive, especially when you think of how much our economy depends on them. A security guard I chatted with while waiting for a ride calls this part of Texas “The Carcinogenic Coast”.

In Houston, I used the internet at the Seamen’s center for most of a day, then went shopping another day, and went to an Astros game as well. At the dock there were thousands of cars parked, still covered in plastic, having been delivered from Asia and awaiting transport to other parts of the country. Also at the Houston dock there was a railway, so heavy loads could be directly loaded onto trains.

Getting to New Orleans is via the Mississippi River Delta, and it is quite scenic. It feels very remote, and reminded me of the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam. The difference is that the Mississippi River Delta is mostly scrub brush for quite a while, while the Mekong was full of small trees. You can see over the scrub brush, to other bodies of water. It was peaceful cruising up all the bends. You can see New Orleans in the distance for quite a while, and at times it seems that the ship is traveling away from the city, not towards it. There are a lot of bends!

We had less time in New Orleans but I did go down to Bourbon Street and listened to quite a bit of good live music at a couple of small bars. It’s a small street with a lot of history. It was lively and fun even on a Monday night. We discharged our loads to both the dock on one side, and barges on the other. The dock was close to downtown, just a little ways further up the Mississippi.

Getting to Port Manatee reminded me of getting to Panama City. It isn’t so much a long narrow approach as it is finding your way around a bay. Port Manatee is on the extreme southwest part of the huge Tampa Bay. The port itself, and the approach to it, is very scenic, with lush islands and lots of green in the distance. The port itself is small, and so it doesn’t seem to interfere much with the nature preserves nearby.

Since I was being picked up I didn’t spend much time in Port Manatee. I did get to walk from the ship to the Seamen’s Center there, so I took some rare (for me) photos of the ship from dockside. We discharged two yachts directly from the ship into the bay, and we also discharged some very large pieces of equipment from the top of our hatches – a few 2-crane lifts, fun to watch.

For Morehead City, I wasn’t on the ship when they approached it, and we left before dawn, early in the morning, so I cannot say what the approach or exit really looks like. The port itself is scenic, with a marina nearby, and also some barrier islands that are partially populated. There is a military presence at the port because it is near some bases, Camp Lejune being the one I noticed the most on the drive up from Florida.

At the dock at Morehead City we discharged a “house” that we carried from Shanghai. It is a control room for one of those massive wind generators. The ship next to us was discharging what looked like a set of huge tubes. They are the support parts for those generators. When I say “massive”, I should explain – the control room, which goes up on top, is more than two stories tall and weighs close to 100 tons. And that’s just the “little piece” that you see connected to the center of the blades way up high. Yet another education in sizes. We discovered that Amazon is putting 104 of these out in the Atlantic, near the Carolinas coast. Our transport and discharge of the control tower (another 2-crane lift, this one with one of our cranes and one of theirs) was also fun to watch. It took a while to coordinate and execute.

In “Raw Photos > Cooked” I put some captioned photos for all these visits.

(Saturday, April 23rd, 2016)

… if I can take liberties and claim that riding as a passenger on a freighter ship constitutes “action”.

I am sitting at a kitchen counter at my parents’ house in The Villages, Florida. With a pretty good WiFi arrangement, I hope to make some blog posts and see that photos in “Raw Photos” are updated.

So you don’t have to go searching for the link to “Raw Photos”, here it is again:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/48tdqxoywtjkj6g/AACY-cCt-BHG92T3xtKwzUTwa?dl=0

There are “Raw” (no editing, only a few deletions), and “Cooked” (edited, many captioned) pictures under “Raw Photos” now. “Raw Photos” is now the wrong name for the highest level folder, but I didn’t want to change anything and break the link.

Thursday, I disembarked at Port Manatee, Florida, on the southwest coast of Tampa Bay. My sister and brother-in-law were very kind to come pick me up and deliver me to central Florida. I’ll be visiting for a week, and getting some errands done. Then I’ll drive up to Morehead City, North Carolina, and reboard as the ship heads out to Montoir, France.

During the time I have good internet here I’ll post a little more about the US ports and edit a few sets of pictures. For a few days there’ll be stuff trickling onto the blog or into “Raw Photos”.

(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.

(Wednesday, April 13th, 2016)

That’s a great Bowie song. If I have you humming that for the rest of the day, I won’t apologize.

Well, I am learning about the US laws concerning US citizens traveling on foreign vessels. I learn and obey. (I am saluting as I type, which is difficult.)

I had been making plans to take a little time off the ship, for two excursions. The first plan was to disembark in Houston, and re-embark in New Orleans. I planned to drive to New Orleans and spend more time there than in Houston, and to enjoy a hotel and some Cajun food.

The second plan was to visit my family in central Florida. I planned to disembark in Port Manatee, then re-embark in Savannah. It’s a piece of cake to get to Savannah.

Those plans are shown on the map labeled “Map 2016-04-06” in “Raw Photos>Cooked>Progress Maps”.

There are two laws that thwarted those plans.

The “Jones Act”: A US citizen cannot be transported from a US port to another US port on a foreign vessel. This is to help tilt the table in favor of US carriers, so foreign-flagged vessels, paying fewer taxes, cannot take ferry business away from the US carriers. Okay, I get that.

We were hoping that I could claim that I was being transported from Xingang to Genoa, really, and who cared what happened in between. That was our argument. We lost that argument. So, the land trip from Houston to New Orleans was squashed, because the ship trip from New Orleans to Port Manatee puts myself and Rickmers in violation of the Jones Act.

Okay. So I am in Houston for a bit, quite all right. I might go visit NASA. Or go watch the Royals beat up on the Astros.

While my agent was discussing my case with the immigration officials, I said “well that’s okay, the one land trip from Port Manatee to Savannah was the one I really wanted, so as to see my family”.

The immigration folk said “Wait a minute, that trip is in violation of the PVSA.”

Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? But also, of course, “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” I’m glad they caught it.

The PVSA is the Passenger Vessel Services Act. It has the concept of an “intact” voyage and a “broken” voyage.

For the voyage to remain “intact”, the passenger must depart on the same vessel on which he/she arrived, at each port. The passenger can do all sorts of things in port, even stay in hotels, etc., but must get back on board in that same port.

If the passenger does not depart on the vessel upon which he/she arrived, this “breaks” the voyage. Once the voyage is “broken”, the passenger cannot rejoin the vessel until the vessel is at its last US port, such that now the vessel is sailing to a foreign port. If the passenger does this, there is no PVSA violation.

Whew. I guess this is also protection for US interests somehow, although I don’t quite understand how much more it does than the Jones Act. No sense to dwell, though, ’tis wha’ ’tis.

Oh. We also changed our routes slightly. We go to Philadelphia earlier, and leave US from Morehead City. We also changed the order of stops in Europe slightly.

So, I am going to disembark in Port Manatee, and catch up to the Rickmers Antwerp in Morehead City. I will skip the visits to Savannah and Philadelphia. Not too bad – I had wanted to visit Savannah, had never been there, but I have been to Philadelphia many times. I need to figure out the “how and when” of travel to Morehead City, but it is not difficult.

These new plans are shown on the map labeled “Map 2016-04-13”, also in “Raw Photos>Cooked>Progress Maps”.

This voyage has been all about change. That fact is interesting on its own.

(Saturday, April 9th, 2016)

Thursday we anchored in Panama Harbor, bunkered, and had delivered to us some provisions and some spare parts. Off in the distance we could see the skyscrapers of Panama City. An excellent sunset capped our trip across the Pacific.

Yesterday, Friday, we transited (that’s the term they use) the Panama Canal. It was quite fun. I was on deck basically from 4:30am until 2pm with only a few minutes of other activities. I took a few photos. Captioned versions are in the “Cooked” section of “Raw Photos”.

Our “ticket” cost about a quarter million dollars. I hope Disney doesn’t hear about this.

If you look at a map, you can see that during Creation, God was doodling a yin-yang symbol in between North and South America. When He/She went on to other things, Panama was left as a result. Which for us, several years later, means that in order to go from the Pacific to the Atlantic (well, eventually the Atlantic), we never go West to East in the Canal. We go South to North, basically, and a little West. Ha.

For Canal purposes, Panama had this big lake as a natural advantage, the other natural advantage of course being Panama’s basic thinness. The lake is 26 meters above sea level. I’m not sure that the Atlantic and the Pacific are exactly the same level at Panama, but I’ll say that they are for simplicity’s sake. That means that ships must be raised 26 meters and then lowered 26 meters, after they’ve crossed Gatun Lake.

The locks are not that complicated to understand, but the scale is massive, especially for something designed and constructed 100 years ago.

When a lock must be emptied, that’s fairly easy to understand. Valves are opened to allow that water to run downward – if there is a lower lock in need of water the water is sent there, otherwise the water exits eventually to the sea.

When a lock must be filled and there is no nearby high water (from a higher, emptying lock), water from Gatun Lake is used, gravity being the power used to move the water.

So it works. It is a constant-loss system, as lake water is constantly used to fill some locks. But Panama gets plenty enough rain to replenish the lake water. Construction activities subsequent to the Canal’s creation included some dams, and created a new lake, Madden Lake. This all helps. If I understand correctly, there is no water pumped “up”, which would take a lot of energy.

I am sure that this explanation is simplistic, but I didn’t want to overwrite about the mechanics of a lock system.

We entered from the South. There are three Miraflores locks, which raised us to the level of Miraflores Lake. That’s only a kilometer or so long, then we came to the one Pedro Miguel lock, which raised us to the level of Gatun Lake. We cruised down a narrow channel called Gaillard Cut. That channel is probably something that the new construction, which is all over the place, will need to improve. The channel is only wide enough to support single-lane (and so, obviously, single-direction) traffic. The channel, not the locks (which are all pairs, thus able to handle two-way traffic), is one reason (there are others) why some ships must wait at anchor at Gatun Lake.

After Gaillard Cut we came to Gatun Lake. The whole trip up the Cut and across the lake was scenic. Panama is more hilly than I had imagined, of course quite tropical, and could be fun to visit. It was hot, though, in early April.

At the other side of Gatun Lake are the Gatun locks. We had been following an auto carrier so far, and continued to follow it right into the Gatun locks. We didn’t expect this – we were anticipating an anchorage at Gatun Lake. There were many ships anchored, and we cruised past them. I asked the Captain about that this morning and he had no clue, but wasn’t going to argue with the Canal Pilot: “Nah, we’d rather stick around here a while, why don’t you let those other blokes go through.” <– NOT our Captain’s style.

On the North side the Gatun locks are the only locks, but there are four of them, symmetrical with the four locks we transited to get to the elevation of the lake. I don’t know that all of the locks move ships in equal amounts of elevation.

Once through the Gatun locks, we were at sea level again, and sailed past some working docks at Colon, and then on into the Caribbean Sea.

Done! Open sea again, and in an hour or so, no land in sight. Houston next.

Here are some random observations.

Everything was slow. When we moved from one lock to another, it was slow. When the locks filled or emptied, it was slow. I had time for a quick breakfast while a lock was filling, for example. Even out of the locks, we kept our speed down, especially in the Cut. In the Cut, we had tugs assisting us, because at times our speed was too slow for us to have full rudder control. I think our speed in the Cut had two factors contributing to the slowness – the need to stay in a narrow channel, and the attempt to avoid shore damage from our wake. In the locks, of course, the amount of mass being moved for each ship meant that carefulness was of the essence.

Not that many people were out and about. I am sure that we were being observed from various control rooms and on various cameras. Outside, with the exception of people riding on the cable cars, and those helping with the lines for the cables, there weren’t as many people as I would have guessed.

There were few visitors in the visitor centers. I don’t know about the season or about the visitor centers – whether, for instance, they are even open to the public.

When in a lock, and with the exception of those huge slab-sided auto carriers, it would seem to me to be relatively easy for someone to leave one ship and get on another. I assume that the whole area itself is administered as some sort of “controlled access” area. I did not see any pleasure boats on Gatun Lake, but I know that the lake extends well beyond our view from the ship. I wonder how large the “controlled access” area is, compared to the overall size of Panama, for example, and how well it is guarded.

Going through the Canal was hugely interesting for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would like to do it again. But after two times, well, it would then lose its mystique for me. The Captain was “happy that I was happy” (his words). He said that he’s been through the Canal enough times that he’s only interested in getting through it as quickly and as cleanly as possible, with perhaps a hope that the Pilot who comes on board is fun to talk with, since they are going to be together for a long day.

Can a person who works on the locks be called a locksmith?

(Monday, April 4th, 2016)

I just remembered that tonight is the NCAA Men’s Finals for basketball. I saw none of it this year. I missed the Superbowl as well. I did not miss either one. That’s a lesson for me – a calibration of interest for sports watching on TV. Interesting if convenient, but only that.

That’s not what I wanted to write about. And the title might lead you to believe that I am going to write about how to turn the other cheek, and other pacifist techniques. Nope.

I’m going to write about daily habits while crossing the Pacific. I fear that this might not be that interesting, and I apologize if I bore you to tears. I wanted to write it down as a jog for myself at some future time.

Across the Pacific, we had about 3+ weeks or more of basically going more eastward every day. So I fell into a pattern. Here it is.

Wake up, take a shower if I am not planning to exercise that day, otherwise just wash my face to wake up. If I am up early, read or write a little bit while waiting for breakfast time to arrive. Maybe write in my journal. Pen and paper writing, that is – no computers yet.

Breakfast at 8am. Usually a couple eggs, scrambled, and toast. On Sundays, we get pancakes (the style would be called “crepes” in the US). I could have sausage with the eggs but I cut that out a few weeks ago. The cook makes absolutely perfect scrambled eggs, every day. I’m impressed.

In the morning I carry around a coffee thermos, refilling it once in a while. It is important (at least for me) to have a “leak-proof” top!

After breakfast, up to the bridge to chat with the helmsman, look at our position and speed, and look at the weather forecast. From 10 minutes to an hour, depending on mood.

After visiting the bridge, exercise every other day. Spin on the bike or jump rope, then some non-aerobic stuff, then some stretches. Then a shower. That usually takes me to 11 or 11:30am. Then I read until noon.

If a non-exercise day, sit in front of the computer in front of a novel. Most times that converts to some writing. Sometimes a lot of writing. Sometimes, just thinking. I have achieved that ability (with the help of Gail Sher’s wonderful book “One Continuous Mistake – Four Noble Truths for Writers”) to not judge myself as long as I commit to the sitting and the starting.

Lunch at noon. They serve their big meal at lunch. Salad, soup, main course which is usually meat, potatoes, and vegetable. That’s too much for me. I have the soup and salad and skip the rest, unless the soup is tripe. That triggers me to have the main course. I tried the tripe twice (say that fast). That was fair enough.

Afternoon. If I have been writing all morning, I read for an hour then get back to the writing. If I had exercised in the morning, I write (or sit in front of a novel and think).

Somewhere in the afternoon I take a break and either go up on the pilot deck, or out to the afterdeck if it is too windy or cold for the pilot deck, or to the bridge if no outside trip is any fun. I stay for a half-hour or so, look at radar, at the charts, that sort of thing, if on the bridge. If outside, I just enjoy being out in the wind and looking at water all around. It is an interesting feeling. And if you combine that with knowing a bit about the depth (usually around 5000 meters), you really feel separate from almost everything.

I come back to my cabin and write, either on the novel or a blog post or something else. I try to avoid reading because I save that for after dinner.

Before dinner I back up the computer, especially if I feel good about what I’ve written, then shut it off.

Dinner is at 5:45 or thereabouts. Salad is available, but no soup. The main course is usually lighter than lunch’s main course, often fish. I vary what I have for dinner, based on what seems good. There aren’t alternatives, but I can tell them not to make something for me. And with all the Filipinos on the crew, rice is always an option if I am not thrilled by what they offer for potatoes. I have tried all the fish offered, and certainly have preferences, but I’ve not had any that I absolutely could not eat. We have had some great flounder on this trip – congrats to the cook on a good bulk buy and good flounder cooking.

After dinner I go up on deck or to the bridge until sunset. Sunset varies as to time, because we have been shifting through time zones, moving forward every other or every third day.

Then I read. Maybe write in my journal. I have a glass of box wine (rarely two glasses), and one piece of chocolate (often two pieces unless I’ve run out, which is often, given that I am blowing a fixed chocolate budget when I choose to have two).

Thence to bed.

Kind of boring when I write it down, but part of this, remember, was to free up time to write. That part has been successful. The pattern feels pretty good to me.

This pattern collapses totally when we are in port. So far, there is no pattern at port. Each port visit has been different.

I have extremely limited satellite access. Sometimes I check email. Sometimes I check a couple of web sites. Not much. It is not a significant part of my day. Minutes at most.

I brought more than 100 books along, on my Kindle. There are also an equal number of books on board. Many are the usual thrillers, but there are also a few Pulitzer Prize winners, and some by writers such as Cormac McCarthy, so I am getting a balance.

Sometimes I play music all day long, and sometimes not at all.

The Captain has many TV shows, movies, documentaries as mpegs, but up to now I haven’t been that interested, and I have been avoiding a too-passive habit. Reading is not 100% passive, and I think that’s good for me.

Rough seas cause adjustments, depending on severity. In the extreme cases, all you can do is look out the porthole and react to rolls and pounding. At those times the computer is best left turned off, and placed so that it won’t fall from a height onto the floor. Less rough seas, and reading becomes possible. This is the usual case, that I can at least read. It is still difficult to type on the computer, and difficult to focus deeply on something. Then, there are moderate seas, and typing on the computer, and thinking about what I’m typing, is not difficult. I am just rocking back and forth while doing so (my desk chair faces starboard). Then, with smooth seas, or at port, it is more like a hotel room, with engine or crane noise in the background.

Sometimes, what I try to do in any particular day depends on how much I slept the night before. This is totally predictable by the magnitude of the rolls, and the severity of the pounding. At a certain point, sleep just doesn’t happen. At least not in my experience. And I notice that on rough nights the crew hasn’t slept well either, so I don’t think it is my lack of experience in this case.

I have been on a ship for a couple months now, give or take. I am much more comfortable walking around with fairly big rolls happening. This is different than how I was for the first few days. I’ll label it “semi sea legs”. But at some acute roll angles you have to work at it to stay standing, and that’s the same for everybody. I learned right away that dry bare feet on industrial style carpet have no sticking power. You get to glide across the room, which is quite fun until you reach the end of the room. It’s great confirmation of gravity acting on a body resting on an inclined plane, and also of one of those basic laws of physics, but in this case the “body in motion” that is tending to “stay in motion” is, well, my body. Bam! Anything for science.

(Monday, April 4th, 2016)

As I write this we are once again in choppy seas, with large swells causing serious rolls, sleeping at night not at all assured, that sort of thing. And only yesterday we were cruising fast through glassy seas, and I was able to spot some seals and some sea turtles in the water. Birds were out and about because we are semi-close to shore (we are off Guatemala’s western border).

Across the Pacific for a few weeks, we saw all sorts of weather, so I cannot report “mostly calm” or “mostly stormy”. I am also not sure if there is an “average” condition to report, because that also wasn’t the case.

Each day, for me, I decided what kind of exercise was possible. Sometimes I can jump rope on the pilot deck, but usually, even if we are not rolling, the wind is too strong up there to manage a jump rope. Sometimes I jump rope on the afterdeck, shielded from the wind by our superstructure, but still subject to rolls, and since I cannot see upcoming swells, the magnitude of the rolls is not as predictable as when I am on the pilot deck. I often get caught in the rope – the combination gusty winds, and rolls, and my limited jump rope skill, is enough. No worries, I am not trying for any records, just trying to keep my legs in shape, and my heart rate elevated for a little while.

Finally, there is the stationary bike, which is in an enclosed room on the pilot deck with a view forward. That technique is available in cold weather, and when there are moderate rolls. The bike is not secured to the floor, so there is an additional skill necessary. One must see (or feel, but seeing is more sure) the start of a roll, then lean (quite a bit) to keep the bike upright as one pedals. At first I fell off (well, had to skitter off and grab the bike and something stationary, not that bad) a few times, but I got the hang of it, and I am getting better at bigger rolls. Unlike in the gym or at home, one cannot remove one’s hands from the handlebars with impunity.

And some days, like today, are not for exercise. The pounding, in addition to surprise rolls, make something even as simple as pushups threatening to one’s nose.

Okay. Well, for a few days mid-Pacific we had some really bad weather. We had high winds, big swells, and we were getting pounded for quite a while. Everybody was working with little sleep. It was rather tiring just trying to do anything. We were sending up giant plumes of spray from the bow every so often, as tall as the forward crane.

We took in some water in the forecastle. That’s the set of rooms under the main deck at the bow of the ship, mostly used to contain dangerous substances, like paint, but also where some of the bow equipment is located. The water we took on did damage to both of our anchor winches, and disabled our bow thruster. The bow thruster is an electric-driven (1200 horsepower – even the small things are big) propeller that can be turned 180 degrees, to help maneuver the ship in tight spaces when tugs are not available. It is not essential, but it is not something we take lightly, as it can also be used in emergencies to help steer.

The anchor winches are another story. Without at least one anchor winch we have no ability to anchor. Well, that’s not precise. We can let the anchor out. We just cannot bring it back. You can see that this is not optimum for continued progress.

The ability to anchor is required for Panama Canal passage. They won’t allow us to make a reservation without it. We still had 2+ weeks at least before arriving at Panama, but the Canal requires a 10-day (or something close to that) lead reservation for passage, so they can do their planning.

So I got to see some on-board administration. The 3rd Engineer and the Electrician had all of their duties reassigned to others, so that they could dedicate themselves to getting us some anchor winch capability. The Captain also planned ahead in case they were unsuccessful – what parts and what other technicians might we need, and where and when could they be delivered to us.

There were a couple of the early “let’s see if just drying everything out will work” kind of attempts, but it became obvious that things were broken and needed to be repaired. The short of it: We now have one operating anchor winch, which has been tested. The same duo has been assigned to look into the bow thruster, and then, thirdly, to see if the 2nd anchor winch can be made to work. The fact that some parts were cannibalized from the 2nd anchor winch to make the 1st one work lead to the notion that fixing the 2nd anchor winch will be more of a problem than fixing the first.

The fix took a little more than a week, which was just a day or so early enough to make a “no worries” prediction to the Canal folk. Our schedule had already been adjusted by a day or so due to the slow progress we had made through the bad weather, but wasn’t further affected by winch work.

The Captain told me later that this was unusually bad weather. On a previous contract a couple years ago, he crossed the Pacific 10 times in 6 months. His contract was a Yokohama-Houston back and forth, and was even in winter when they expect conditions to be worse. He said that none of those 10 trips were anything like what we’d seen on this one.

We also sustained damage to three pieces of cargo. The Captain was especially frustrated by this – if I understand correctly, and he wasn’t that talkative about this, it was his first “damaged cargo” report in more than 20 years at sea, 9 as Captain. So, again, this is an indication to me.

Am I bad luck? On the Rickmers Shanghai, we had bad weather enough to break a windshield. On this ship we took on a bit too much water at the fore during some heavy seas. Nah, I am not a believer in that sort of thing. Nope. Nope. But. This year we will likely be at sea on my birthday. On a 13th. A Friday. Maybe I’ll wear my life jacket all day – call it a fashion statement. All positive voodoo accepted.

I got to see how much it is necessary to be self-reliant. Having to get help delivered, had we been forced to use that option, would surely have cost us significant time and money, and might have resulted in not being able to deliver some cargo within contracted time frames. Also, as it is for other disciplines, you don’t realize how many things (people, equipment, tools, spare parts) are “Achilles Heels”, in that they are single points of failure. We lost two anchor winches, that’s true, but via one event, and in one area of the ship. I call that a single point.

Also, you realize that many events seem, at first, more dangerous than they really are. The anchor winch is an example. Seems that you can’t do without an anchor. But in an emergency, we could have used the anchor – knowing that it would be a bitch to get it back. And, if it weren’t for the Canal passage, we might have been able to get along without an anchor for a bit more time. So, it wasn’t a dramatic catastrophe, just a serious problem that immediately achieved top priority, and got worked as such. I was impressed with the calmness, perspective, and decision crispness on board.

And, like for most modern organizations, the aftermath. The Captain, the Chief Engineer, and the Chief Mate have a ton of paperwork to produce for the “home office”, and they say that they will get second-guessed by folks who have less real experience on a freighter than me. Ha. That part of corporate life is similar everywhere.

(Monday, March 21st, 2016)

Below are our coordinates a little after breakfast each day, and snapshots (not running averages or anything like that) of engine RPM and observed speed. Thought I’d track across the Pacific. I call our track the “weather modified great circle route”, as we try to stay away from bad weather while still making progress.

The first entry is Shanghai, and is my estimate of Shanghai’s coordinates, not a bridge reading. Thus also the zero speed at the dock. The last entry is while at anchor awaiting to transit the Panama Canal.

There are two March 20ths in this list, not a typo. Our Captain is considerate of the workers. When we reach a new time zone, we move the clocks ahead one hour during the day, so that we lose work time (we – okay, they – work enough extra as it is) instead of sleep time. And when we moved the day back (we are approaching the International Date Line), we did it so that we repeated a weekend day (Sunday) rather than a work-week day. Ah, the power of the Captain! Our “Time Lord”, with apologies to the Doctor. This is a good case of “benevolent dictatorship” in the small.

The speed at RPM is not constant due to wind and current conditions, in case you were about to ask. And, from what I understand from the Chief Engineer, even with no wind and no current, RPM does not predict speed linearly.

Leaving Shanghai, a chilly hazy day. Many ships moving about, but no real vision into the distance.

03-13 31.00 n lat, 122.00 e long, 00 RPM, 00.0 knots
03-14 31.00 n lat, 126.50 e long, 90 RPM, 17.0 knots
03-15 33.00 n lat, 133.10 e long, 90 RPM, 17.0 knots
03-16 34.50 n lat, 140.50 e long, 90 RPM, 17.0 knots
03-17 34.27 n lat, 149.00 e long, 90 RPM, 17.0 knots
03-18 33.50 n lat, 154.51 e long, 70 RPM, 10.5 knots
03-19 34.15 n lat, 158.38 e long, 55 RPM, 05.0 knots
03-20 32.00 n lat, 162.01 e long, 75 RPM, 13.0 knots
03-20 34.25 n lat, 166.00 e long, 70 RPM, 11.0 knots
03-21 34.39 n lat, 171.19 e long, 70 RPM, 11.0 knots
03-22 34.25 n lat, 177.47 e long, 75 RPM, 13.0 knots
(we crossed from east to west longitude, 180, at ~5pm!)
03-23 33.30 n lat, 174.43 w long, 90 RPM, 16.2 knots
03-24 32.30 n lat, 167.55 w long, 90 RPM, 16.2 knots
03-25 31.52 n lat, 160.42 w long, 87 RPM, 15.6 knots
03-26 31.23 n lat, 153.57 w long, 87 RPM, 15.6 knots
03-27 30.51 n lat, 146.18 w long, 89 RPM, 17.1 knots
03-28 29.55 n lat, 139.11 w long, 90 RPM, 17.2 knots
03-29 28.20 n lat, 131.58 w long, 90 RPM, 16.3 knots
03-30 26.13 n lat, 125.17 w long, 90 RPM, 16.6 knots
03-31 23.28 n lat, 118.45 w long, 90 RPM, 17.0 knots
04-01 21.02 n lat, 112.36 w long, 90 RPM, 17.9 knots
04-02 18.14 n lat, 106.01 w long, 90 RPM, 17.3 knots
04-03 15.44 n lat, 099.34 w long, 90 RPM, 17.6 knots
04-04 14.01 n lat, 094.28 w long, 80 RPM, 15.0 knots
04-05 10.55 n lat, 089.06 w long, 90 RPM, 15.6 knots
04-06 07.44 n lat, 083.41 w long, 90 RPM, 17.7 knots
04-07 08.50 n lat, 079.50 w long, 00 RPM, 00.0 knots

27th day. Almost a month on the Pacific, with all sorts of weather. Hills, ships, and the skyline of downtown Panama City are in view as we anchor in the harbor at around 7:30am local time. It is already warm outside. Far below me, birds are flying in V-formation, maybe 50 in a group, maybe a foot above the water. “Welcome to Panama” says Verizon in a text. And that does it for the tracking. Tomorrow, Canal transit!

(Saturday, March 19th, 2016)

I took a tour of the engine room today with our Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer was very patient with me and answered all my questions. I put on gloves and ear protection. Ear protection for the obvious, gloves in case I accidentally touched something hot.

I asked him if he were second in command to the Captain. It’s not that direct. The engineering officers are separate from the line officers (Chief Mate, 2nd Mate, …), so, no, he is not a part of the command chain. However, the Chief Engineer is considered the second most important officer on board, after the Captain, and so gets that kind of respect, gets a sweet cabin, that sort of thing. Later, I learned some more about freighter management, but that’s for a different post.

I was not allowed to take pictures – company rules, rats. I am writing this as soon as we’ve finished the tour, so that the least amount of brain cells die in the interim.

The “engine room” is really an entire area of the ship, with about 20 rooms, three or four stories. It is totally industrial, mostly cream-colored paint on metal with various things painted yellow and red – there isn’t any fake wood on the doors or anything like that. There is more room to move around than I would have thought, but it is pretty well filled with active equipment. It is very noisy throughout, with the exception of a control room that is somewhat isolated. It is also hot throughout, and it is still chilly outside. I was warned not to visit the engine room while in Singapore, and now I appreciate that advice.

The first area we stepped into contained the generators. There are three generators. Each of the generators has several cylinders and is fueled by fuel oil. Each is about 6 feet tall and maybe 10 or 15 feet long. One generator is sufficient to power the ship, two are required when the cranes are in use, so there are three in order to have a backup. At the time of my visit, at sea, daytime, nothing special going on, one generator was at about half capacity, the others off. The Chief Engineer said that when all cranes were active two generators would be at almost peak capacity. I forget what the generator capacities are – 1000 something (but I forget the units, so the number is not that useful).

Near the generators are several large electric motors connected to ductwork. They are used to provide pressurized air. I assumed that this is for starting the engine, but I am not sure. I do not think they were operating when we walked by.

Above us was exhaust ducting. The ducts are about 12 feet in diameter, and in one section were about 20 feet in diameter, silvery, and you could feel the heat coming off them as you walked under them.

In the next room are two boilers. One was conventional, about like what you would see in a medium apartment building except more stoutly attached to the floor and to piping, heated with burners underneath, running on fuel oil. This is the boiler that is used when the engine is not running, when we are in port. The other boiler’s shape I couldn’t really discern, as it disappeared behind another wall. Into the center of that boiler ran some auxiliary ducting from the exhaust ducting. That boiler is heated with engine exhaust only, and is the boiler in use when the engine is running.

Following the exhaust ducting along, we came to what the Chief Engineer called a turbine, what I would call a turbocharger. It was a hint as to the size of the main engine. The turbocharger was a cylinder whose diameter was about 6 feet (at least as tall as me, hard to remember exactly), and whose width (or length, if you please) was about 3 or 4 feet. I could see where exhaust gas went into and out of the turbo, with maybe 3 foot diameter ducting, and pressurized air left the turbo in a steel pipe, headed downstairs.

We then went down one story, to the top of the main engine. Up in this area we also went by another container, about the same size as the boilers, and also fed by some exhaust ducting. It is a water purification system. The ship takes in sea water, applies a vacuum to it so that its boiling point is coincidentally the temperature of the engine exhaust gases (about 85C), and then heats it with exhaust gas. This evaporates the salt, and does other things. The result is distillate – pure fresh water. This is water we use as potable water on board, but we don’t recommend it for drinking. We drink bottled water. But in a pinch we could drink it, there’s no health hazard, it’s just not great. Every so often, if the engine has been off for a while, like a long stay in port, we have to buy some water. And we take on bottled water at each port. But the water we shower with started out as sea water that we purified while underway.

The main engine is 7 cylinders. It is a two-stroke turbo diesel, where “diesel” in this case refers to the fact that it is a compression ignition engine rather than a spark ignition engine, not the fuel type. It is a bit amusing to me that the tachometers for this engine are not representing hundreds or thousands. When the meter says 90, that means that the engine is doing 90 RPM, period. For the past couple of days we’ve been running at about 90 RPM, which translates to a ship speed of about 17 knots.

This engine is considered a low speed engine (no kidding!), and there are medium speed engines (up to 400 or 500 RPM) and high speed engines (up to 1200+ RPM). There are tradeoffs. In general the advantages of our engine are these: An ability to direct-connect to the propeller. Simple, direct. An ability to use extremely low grades (think cheaper) of fuel. Disadvantages: This engine is very tall, which can be in the way for some other ship configurations. This engine must be placed directly in front of the propeller (the other engines use reduction gears so can be offset), which also limits ship architecture. This engine is heavier per power output than others. But it is economical in both “mileage” and type of fuel usable, which are significant advantages.

The main engine is about three stories tall, with metal stairways going this way and that to access different areas. Each cylinder has a bore and stroke of about 3 x 10 feet. Each cylinder head has two injectors feeding it. Each injector is roughly a 6 inch by 2 foot cylinder, and the fuel lines are 2 inch pipe. The injectors have modes (and I think different nozzles but I am not sure) that can be used so that the engines run efficiently at a set lower speed and a set higher speed. The crankcase is the size of a room. Each cylinder has an access door so that maintenance can be done on the lower end, the crankshaft and rod. Each of those 7 doors looks like an ordinary ship’s door that a person could walk through, except for the type of fittings keeping it closed.

We went to another room, and the Chief Engineer lifted a small (meaning, humans can lift it) hatch cover, and we looked down at the spinning mainshaft, leading away from the engine, and connected to the propeller. The shaft was about 2 feet in diameter. We went to another room, and up some stairs, where there were two electric pumps keeping hydraulics pumped, and there were lines feeding the steering gear. The steering gear looks a bit like a motor, and is maybe 10 feet in diameter and 5 or so feet tall. Below it is the rudder.

There were rooms devoted to maintenance, looking like small machine shops, active. We didn’t spend a lot of time there, we would have been an annoyance to people trying to work.

We went to the control center, a noise-protected control room. It looked a lot like some small industrial control rooms that I’ve been in. There were a couple of engine management screens, control panels for the three generators, and a control panel each for each boiler and the fresh water system. There was also a control screen showing the various fuel tanks and the fuel sanitation system, and the pumping systems between them.

There are many fuel tanks throughout the bottom of the ship. There are a couple of special tanks into which the others feed. The first of these special tanks is one in which about-to-be-used fuel sits for a while, allowing sediment to get to the bottom. From this tank fuel is then pumped into another special tank in which filters of many types remove impurities. From this tank fuel heads to smaller, pressurized tanks feeding the engine.

My description above applies to fuel oil, the primary fuel. But there are at least two other similar but smaller tank systems. One for diesel, and one for lube oil, the oil that goes in the crankcase and eventually throughout the engine. Remember that our engine is a two-stroke, which means a constant-loss oil system for lube oil, at least for a part of it.

I think I wrote about this earlier, but a recap here is apt. We have 2600 tons of fuel oil and 400 tons of diesel on board. We switch to diesel in environmental areas, such as US, Europe, and soon to be Chinese ports. Everywhere else we use fuel oil. Diesel is more expensive. We burn about 30-35 tons a day at sea.

I learned that the engine could be controlled from the bridge (the usual case) or from the engine control room, in an emergency. There are several parameters being measured that can raise alarms in the control room, on the bridge, and in the Captain’s and Chief Engineer’s cabins, and can automatically reduce engine speed or stop the engine if not acknowledged fast enough.

Major engine maintenance occurs on the basis of hours of operation, unless there is an emergency problem like a part failure. Generally, the exhaust valves need to be resurfaced at 16,000 hours, and since so many other items can get accessed if the engine is opened enough to service exhaust valves, many other parts, intake valves, pistons, piston rings, crank bearings, piston liners, all that sort, are serviced as well. We average about 500 hours a month of engine time, so it works out to major maintenance approximately once every 3 years, given the normal (almost constant except at port) usage.

Tour’s over! Up from the depths, into a cool and (relatively) quiet hallway on the poop deck. Quite fun.