Blog 96 - A Drunk Crew Greet Me on My First Day - A Stuck Container Delays Ship

“Marine Musings 30”

Neptune Rhodonite - 17th March 1996 to 12th May 1996

Vessel’s name changed to

NYK Providence - 13th May 1996 to 05th Oct 1996

Second tenure on NYK Providence from 08th Feb 1997 to 03rd Oct 1997

Both above Courtesy Shipspotting

Previous Names:

- Hira Ii (Until 1991 Dec)

- Hira Maru (Until 1987)

IMO: 7807263

Build year: 1978

Builder: Mhi Kobe Shipyard Machinery Works - Kobe, Japan

Vessel Type: Container Ship

Gross tonnage: 30,575 tons

Summer DWT: 31,227 tons

As my “Musings” pass into the last one third of my sea career, paradoxically, I find that I am unable to recall, with the same depth, the incidents on those ships.

Only some stray memories remain, in-depth ones now probably embedded too deep for recall.

The ‘Neptune Rhodonite’ / renamed ‘NYK Providence’ is one such.

I mainly recall that I had put in a lot of effort on this ship during my first tenure, which induced me to go back to the same ship, when it was offered.

Coming back to a container vessel after a hiatus of a few years made me feel good, even though the ship was old and had been 'jumboised'.

The run was good. 4 ports in Japan - Yokohama, Chiba, Nagoya, Kobe.

Then to quite a few Australian ports on the East Coast, then southern ports, Hobart in Tasmania, finishing with Freemantle on the west coast. (Not in order).

Port Klang, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan.

A decent stay in each port, allowing enough time for maintenance and for the staff to go ashore in batches. (After a while, most would rather sleep than go ashore).

This ship was managed by NYK, Hong Kong. Barber’s were doing the manning - supplying all man power requirements.

I remember joining the ship in the early hours at Hong Kong and immediately thrust myself into the taking over process.

The Engine Room staff seemed competent enough.

We sailed out in the early evening and it was 8 pm by the time I went up to my cabin. Not having slept on the flight and having had no rest at all prior joining the ship, I immediately fell asleep after a shower.

ALCOHOL AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS

Nearing midnight I was awakened by very loud voices, laughter, singing, loud music from speakers.

Wondering what was afoot, I went out into the corridors, searching for the source.

In the ships of today, each deck of the accommodation is isolated from the one above and the one below by means of heavy fire doors, making each corridor nearly sound proof.

It was not so on this ship. You could vend your way from one deck to another and through the corridors through large, open, unisolated, staircases.

The loud music and loud singing was coming from 2 levels below my deck.

When I reached that deck, I was astounded to see the entire crew in the corridor, singing loudly, with loud music from stereos from almost every cabin with open doors, with none of them being bothered about the amount of noise they were making. All of them had beer cans or whisky bottles in their hands, almost all of them drunk.

When they saw me come down, they just looked at me and continued with their revelry, as if to say “I don’t care”.

Taking everything in at a glance, I immediately realised that discipline on board was very lax for such a highly visible and noisy scenario to exist.

Standing two steps up on the stairway, where all could see me, I raised my voice and shouted “What nonsense is happening here? Switch off all the stereos immediately”.

With a shuffle of several feet, the music was turned down.

“Where is the Bosun?”

One of the (nearly) sober ones came forward.

I told him “Bosun, I am giving you two minutes. All should be in their cabins and no more noise, music or singing should be heard. All others are sleeping and need their rest. Otherwise, I will take action”.

I walked back to my cabin.

No more sounds were heard. But I could not sleep.

The Second Engineer was surprised to find me in the Engine Room at 4am. When I told him that I could not return to sleep after being woken up by the noise below, he told me that the others were used to it by now and slept with ‘ear plugs’ on, a very dangerous and unsafe thing to do in a ship as, in an emergency, they may not be able to hear the Fire Alarm or Abandon Ship Alarm.

I came to understand that this was quite a common and regular occurrence, practically every time after the vessel departs a port.

In the morning, a few hours later, I called the Engine crew and told them that this is going to be the only warning. If they were to come down to the Engine Room even smelling of alcohol, let alone being drunk, it will be their last day on board - they will be sent home.

I, then, went up to the Captain and, telling him about the night’s revelry in the crew deck, asked him how the crew had access to unlimited alcohol, despite Company rules.

Soon I came to know that he was appeasing a militant crew by giving them free access to the Bonded Store, to make himself popular. After my complaint, he showed his true colours by calling the Bosun quietly to his cabin and telling him “The new Chief Engineer is making trouble about all of you drinking and making a noise. Please cut out the noise, drink silently”.

Two days later, I found three of the five day crew members of the Engine Room half drunk when reporting for duty in the morning. I sent them out of the Engine Room for their own good as well as the safety of others.

I drafted out a message to Barber’s Hong Kong, asking them to relieve the three crew members on ‘drunk on duty’ charges, adding that most of the crew drank heavily practically every night, due to there being no restrictions on supply from the Bonded Store.

The Captain did not like this message one bit and refused to send it. I, then, told him that I would have no recourse than to call up the Office on the Inmarsat or from a shore telephone (if he disallows me from using the Inmarsat) and apprise them of the alcohol usage on board.

He quickly clambered down from his haughty position and told me that he is normalising all alcohol sales as per Company policy and to let off the crew from disciplinary action once more.

I did so.

Soon everything settled down.

Over the course of the next two weeks, the Chief Cook and many of the crew members, including the Bosun, quietly came to me and thanked me for stopping alcohol abuse.

The Chief Cook was happy that, now, he would not be disturbed at all odd hours by crew members demanding alcohol from the Bonded Store. It was now restricted to once a week, with a set monthly maximum for each crew member and Officer.

The Bosun was happy that he did not have to cover up for those having hangovers on an every day basis and was able to get some work out of them.

The more frightening aspect was the fact that the ABs, who were the helmsmen and steered the ship when on pilotage and also were watchkeeping look outs, were also part of the inebriated crew.

There were four crew members, two deck and two engine, who had been the militant ones and who had scared the Captain. Anyway, the ships that this particular Captain had sailed on were known to be indisciplined ones because of a lack of control, an idea of appeasement fearing any militancy, unless somebody stood up.

These were the years before the strict implementation of the “No Drugs - No Alcohol” Policy, where no liquor was available for all on board.

Before the strict implementation of this “No Alcohol” policy, only limited quantities could be bought by ship’s staff from the Bonded Store. It was not unusual to see the Chief Cook open the Bonded Store every week, when at sea, to cater to the needs of the Officers and crew.

But there were limits as to how much alcohol one can buy from the Bonded Store. The imposition of limits was the exclusive preserve of the Captain. It could be one case of beer and one bottle of hard liquor per week or once in two weeks.

Obviously, high alcohol consumptions by an individual was frowned upon.

But on this ship, as I found out for myself the very same day, the Chief Cook - also acting as Chief Steward - had orders to supply one and all as much as he desired at any time of the day and even into the late evenings, making his life difficult.

The crew were all from a large island nation, tough, raucous, and near mutinous if thwarted. They spent practically all the money they were given on drinks, whether on board or ashore.

Luckily, their government had put in place laws that mandated persons working overseas - seafarers included - to send in 75% of their foreign currency income into their bank accounts held in their name in their hometown.

Apart from earning valuable foreign exchange for their country, the seafarers were forcefully obliged to look after their families at home.

The remaining 25% was theirs to spend as they liked.

Starting from around the mid 1980s, numerous marine institutions of this country were churning out seafarers of all ranks by the thousands. Even though there were examinations being held, certificates were guaranteed.

Many unruly ones found themselves in the midst of the more willing workers. The troublesome years with this crew were between the mid 1980s to the early 1990s.

As the impact of STCW standards that had been implemented in 1984 slowly started making itself felt in most countries, the quality of seafarers improved.

Although most Oil Tankers had a strict ‘No Alcohol’ policy in the mid 1990s itself, this policy very soon spread to practically all types of ships with the implementation of the ISM (International Safety Management) Code and a very strict ‘Drug and Alcohol’ policy.

It was not till after the year 2000 that these seafarers were better trained and were an asset to the ship. They were better behaved, more professional, resulting in smoothly run ships.

A STUCK CONTAINER

The one incident that I do remember involved the discharge of a container in Port Klang on my first voyage.

‘One Hour Notice’ had been given to the Engine Room. The Main Engine was ready. We were waiting to try out the Main Engine, after the gantry moves away. The last few containers were being discharged.

An hour passed, two hours passed. Calls to the Bridge went unanswered. I sent the Electrical Officer to see if anything was wrong on deck. He came back a few minutes later and said that they were having a problem discharging the last container.

Over the last couple of weeks, there had been some friction between the Captain and me, his reason being that I was unnecessarily interfering in the work going on on deck. I differed. I had started keeping away from the deck for that reason, except for my evening walks on deck. But it was obvious that the crew drinking incident was the main cause.

The Captain, Chief Mate and all the deck crew were on deck.

So, here I was in the Engine Room waiting for the last container to be discharged and restraining myself from going on deck to see what had transpired and be of assistance if needed.

Three hours had passed. Tugs were alongside, waiting. The Pilot was on board, waiting. Line handlers were waiting.

Finally a call came from the Captain wherein he said, rather imperiously, “Go and see what is wrong”. I asked him if he was asking for help on deck, when he had not liked my presence on deck. He said he was requesting my help.

I took the Engine Room Fitter with me.

The last container - a 40 footer - was stuck in its cellular guide, about 3 metres from the bottom, heavily tilted, so badly stuck that it could move neither up nor down.

Had it been a 20 footer, there would have been no problem.

I realised that there were two causes to the container being stuck.

The first was that the stevedores had used wire slings instead of a container spreader.

The second was the container itself was definitely loaded unevenly causing the container to tilt on being lifted, the wire slings compounding the tilt.

Meanwhile, before my going on deck, the Captain had made the decision to cut out about a metre section of the right angled cellular guide, thinking there was a bend in the guide.

The Stevedore Foreman was frantic, as his job was on the line.

Quickly assessing the situation, I took the following actions.

Using two heavy chain blocks, we connected the chain block hooks to the bottom of the container and tightened away till the tilt was negated, whereon we slowly lowered the container down to the tank top, all the while keeping the chain blocks tight enough to negate the tilt of the unevenly loaded container.

I had already told the Foreman to be ready to take away the slings and to keep the Auto Spreader ready for use.

It took about 15 minutes to lower the container down.

But the Captain had got one section of the cellular guide cut away. It took about 20 minutes to weld it back, a rough weld.

Using the Autospreader, the container was lifted out without any trouble.

Cellular Guides

Why did I state that a 20 foot container does not get stuck and a 40 foot container can get stuck?

The images above and below will, likely, provide some answers to those who have not sailed on container vessels. The longitudinal cellular spaces have their cell guides located 40 feet apart. One 40 foot container is bound between 4 vertical 90 degree angle bars, much like an elevator in a shaft, and moves up or down only within the confines of the angle bars.

The 20 foot container is guided by only 2 such cell guides. So, two 20 foot containers are loaded longitudinally adjacent each other, one using one set of cell guides on the forward side and the other using the aft cell guides.

All containers rest inside the hold on pads that have 'shoes' welded on to them, which fit into the slots provided under and on top of each container at the four corners. This is to prevent the containers from sliding in rough weather.

Factually, the securing of containers can, by itself, be a fascinating study.

Twenty Footers Loaded at the Bottom of the Hold

Wrong Stowage of Containers

It is possible that the 'twist locks' provided to lock the container below and the container above at the four corners, are preventing the containers from falling off.

Another disastrous loading

The Stevedore Foreman brought many boxes of chocolates on the next voyage, which I distributed to all - anyway, not all of it.

===== Continues in Blog 97 =====