/travel/freighter/Conversations with Crew (and Officers, too)
The crew are very friendly and welcoming. The officers consist of one Finn and six Germands, and the crew are 13 Philipinos, as I understand the divisions. They don't seem to draw strong lines between crew and officers; though they eat in different places, the officer's lounge seems to be fairly inactive, while the crew watched football, and the officers joined in.
The Ship Master is a burly man, of appropriate stature for a captain. His English is accented by comes easily, and is easily understood. He is friendly, and invited me up to the bridge to see us exiting port at 03:00. The captain was talking about how he was trying to get internet access onto the boat, but that no satellites covered the mid-Atlantic, and no company would give you an account that would work in both Europe and North America. I guess the non-stationary market is pretty limited.
The Chief Engineer is also German. He seems somewhat quieter and more surly, and has slightly more halting English, though he was easy enough to understand. He still seemed quite friendly, though.
The electrician -- one of the Philipinos -- was particularly friendly, asking me questions and answering mine. He was very careful in his questions, making sure it was alright to ask me where I worked and such. I guess when you carry two thousand containers without knowing particularly what's in them, you gain a sense of presumed privacy. He's been on boats for about 11 years, and an electrician for longer. The money is better on boats than in the Phillipines, though he said being on the chemical tankers wasn't worth it, for the fumes and other risks.
The ship's generating capacity is around two megawatts, the bulk of which goes to the "Reefers" (refrigerated containers). It's 440V AC through that stuff, 220V AC through the cabins and such, and there's a 24V DC control system. They normally generate even when they're in dock, though if they're in drydock they can accept power from land. There are two tiers of backup systems.
The ship has many signs up for procedures, and papers about various protocols (or "protokolls") lying around, with some references to ISO-9001 practices. Thers's a flowchart about waste disposal -- plastics and toxics are always separated and dumped onshore, while dumping food waste and other (nontoxic) waste into the ocean has a requisite distance from shore.
We'll have TV for about a day, if we're lucky.
The route that the boat will take is decided almost exclusively on weather and distance. Under ideal circumstances, it's six days, but more normally seven or eight. Wind direction and speed is basically irrelevant, except inasmuch as winds make waves. We're heading north, over Ireland, and then down by Newfoundland, so that we can avoid a low pressure system. The companyy that charters the boat (MSC) provides their desired route, which the captain can override if he sees fit, but then he takes responsibility for what happens.
One person's job is to control flow of water in and out of the ballasts as the cargo is loaded, to keep the boat balanced and floating with enough freeboard.
Jani, the fourth mate, works roughly 3 hours in the morning, 3 at night, and then has some other administrative work to do throughout. It seems like sleep schedules are all pretty flexible, which makes sense. And the clocks shift roughly with time zones -- some nights we'll change, some nights we won't.
During the soccer match (Angola: 0, Mexico: 0), the crew and officers were swapping tips about where to go when they get to shore: shops and parks and pubs within walking distance. I was a bit confused, since we were packing up and leaving that night, but of course they'll be back in about three weeks, and have been here several times before.
