Blog 90 - "Blount" of the 100 Days - An Ignominous Exit - Getting the Boot

“Marine Musings 26” - WH Blount - Self Unloader

18th June 1993 to 30th Sept 1993

Under BSM New Orleans

I do not carry good memories of the Blount as, many a time, I was at loggerheads with the Owner’s (Vulica’s) Representative and had several sharp exchanges with him during the course of the 3 months I was on board. He also expected me to be deferential to him, as he was the Owner’s Representative, which deference he did not receive.

Had it not been for a very good and very decent Superintendent from the Barber New Orleans office, I would have quit within the first two weeks. In the first place, I had been reluctant to go back to Self Unloaders, more so on Vulica ships. Barber's had been hard put to find competent Chief Engineers for the Self Unloaders managed by their New Orleans office. But Captain Mehra of the Bombay Office, sweet talked me into accepting.

My run in with the Owner’s Representative had started on my previous ship, the Bernardo Quintana, another Vulica Self Unloader. During the naming ceremony of the Bernardo, he had been insisting that the Officers and Crew act as servers for the group that had assembled for the naming ceremony in Punto Vinado, Mexico. I had refused to do so, following which most of the Officers also refused to act as servers. That was the start of a sour relationship.

The Blount had been in service for a year more than the Bernardo and we were already seeing the result of neglect. It was an uphill task but we managed to gain ground in maintenance.

One day the Starboard Loop Belt drive gear box was found to be very noisy. We had to stop discharge to check.

It was a drive with multiple gears. When we opened the inspection cover and looked in, we could see some broken gears and some cracked gears. Opening the top cover confirmed the damage.

This drive could not be used and there was no spare.

It was possible to run the Loop Belts on the Port Gear Box alone, but with reduced capacity.

In order to continue discharging, we had to now decouple the Starboard drive from the shaft.

Meanwhile, calls were being made to the New Orleans Office, the duty Superintendent and the General Manager. It was a long festival weekend and not one person answered the phone. To make things worse, the ship’s regular Superintendent was on leave, a back up Superintendent now supposedly in charge - who was also not contactable - and the General Manager also away. These were the days before cell phones.

I needed workshop assistance to decouple the starboard drive. Not being able to contact anybody from the New Orleans Office, I made the decision to call a workshop, through the Agents, to assist us. They showed up in 2 hours, went back and brought the required gas equipment in another hour and did what was needed in another 4 hours.

The day was breaking when they finished. We started the plant at 50% capacity and completed discharge.

My report went out within a few hours of the workshop finishing their job. There was also an urgent requisition for a new Loop Belt gear box in order to get back to full discharge rate.

Unknown to me, other factors and actors were at play,

The workshop that had helped us remove the coupling of the Starboard Loop Belt Drive had sent in their invoice to the New Orleans Office, with a copy to the Owners at Vulica.

The Owners’ Representative queried the BSM Office on the invoice. The stand-in Superintendent panicked and told Vulica that the Chief Engineer had called the workshop on his own without consulting us and is solely to blame.

The Owner’s Representative - there had already been bad blood between us - immediately asked that I be sacked.

The gutless stand-in Superintendent, instead of supporting his staff, conveyed the message to the ship that Vulica was unhappy with the Chief Engineer, so he is to be sent on leave.

Subsequently, I did not mince words. I wrote a reply that “If this is the support that is given by a Management Office to its senior staff, I do not intend to be a part of that kind of an organisation.” I also pointed out that it was the fault of the Office that nobody was available during that weekend to make a decision and, hence, I had to make a decision which benefited all. If I had not made that decision, the vessel would have been idle for more than 48 hours, which would have meant heavy losses for the Owners.

I packed and was ready to leave, whenever my relief arrived.

Self Unloaders are notorious for the fact that Chief Engineers - almost all - are unwilling to join them. Their reasoning - why burden yourself with 200 to 300 % extra work, for the same pay as you would get on a Bulk Carrier?

So, it took a few weeks before they found one.

The most humorous and laughable part was that I was asked to stay on for at least 2 weeks to teach the new Chief Engineer the rudiments of Self Unloader work and practices.

Hardly a week passed within which time the new Chief Engineer was disillusioned and wanted to quit. I had a hard time persuading him to hold on till I had left.

Before I left, the ship’s regular Superintendent visited the vessel and said that he was disappointed and angry at the way the issue of an invoice had been handled. My response was that I no longer wished to work on a Vulica ship.

I left the ship after just a 100 days.

===== Blog 92 Continues === "Marine Musings 27" Begins =====