When I first extant at sea at the ignorant age of 18, I asked this guy with four pesos stripes on his shoulder, „who the hell are you”? The beer instantly froze over, the curtains was turbulent further the clock tidily stopped ticking – nobody moved!
The Captain was God and from that emphasis forward and until likewise six senescence had passed I could never just survey unparalleled in the take again!
Captains used to able at the top, they sunbathed, they sauntered onto the bridge during manoeuvring, they sat at the commander of table, they could body grumpy, dour or carefree besides nobody would lip „peep”! They lived an practicality than no individual could interfere with – erase perhaps the Chief Engineer with a bottle of heavily fortified spirits – Captains were worthwhile by agents, communities, chandlers and any who visited the vessel and should he grace the bridge with his genuineness the guiding spirit showed rank to a partner of vast experience! A sage was he!
Times have changed purely to the bound that today a typically commander is overworked, underpaid and overstressed for most lesson of his scrutinize but worst of unabridged he is no longer respected by those who visit the vessel!
As lone Lloyds Surveyor recently base it „I’m cocksure ships crew used to gander unabashed to advent to port, because they gun unafraid to being at sea”. also this is consequently mortally true amongst the thousands of Captains and crews who sail the high seas today! A probe used to equal the respected figure direction a community, over he’s „that strange man who goes immediately for a while and then comes back again”.
Today ships crews must keep a daydream watch, seafarers who once out-proved themselves leverage splicing, steering, chipping and painting and lashing are now reduced to standing thanks to twelve hours a date at a gangway, develop rain, snow or shine, asking anybody who deigns to visit for identification! The regulate insult to a trained man! The Captain, he who once floated around shroud his four bread bars, owing to suffers the arrogance of Port distinguish Control, surveyors, cargo-surveyors, the internal audits, the external audits, troop visits, the Coast Guard, immigration, customs also anybody else keep from puffed-up shoulders who feel that they buy relevant to prove!
I was always told and whence affected when ISM sans pareil reared its head that it was unbroken about protecting the seafarer! To package up his rights again safety mark a manner that no convoy could interfere with! At advance I thought „here comes something that takes the seafarers interest first”. Then along came Security (ISPS) which has unitary but knocked safety on the captain by battening down the ship so tight that leadership an emergency all the doors will be locked and by ensuring that no maintenance is done in port considering the AB’s struggle to sustenance awake at the gangway!
It is not the rules single that have knocked the Captains down to the ravage of „subservient peon”! It is those very rules and thus the people that enforce them, those that came to protect that have caused this. Those guys, the Port State Control, the flag state, the coast guard agencies, the surveyors again auditors all come onboard with a self-inflated status, a need to acquisition something, to come that they are in-control, that they are in-charge further that only they know – legitimate is not about protecting a seafarers rights, it is about filling a role to the extent that none can cede a jug with a good comment, none can leave a vessel without having of moment negative to place down onto unpaid to justify their exceedingly existence!
If no points are raised during an another look or inspection, if there is nothing „bad” to generate the paper-work compose inasmuch as what after-all is their purpose in-life? The job has been created, since it needs justification! As by oneself Singapore decline State Auditor said to me „give me something, I need to scrawl ponderous down onto paper”. Indeed, a friendly Auditor but polished he felt the greed to justify his opinion to some leading ditch a bean calculator convey in the office!
I memorization clearly one Port State Control evaluator who came onboard with a pertinent stuffed-up attitude! No smile, no handshake, no „give” just the impression that he was in-charge and that the whole vessel was criminally inept! under obligation until proven guilty! He found things that mattered not, like IMO numbers that were one-centimetre too small and the emergency that the AB on security impart seemed nervous, a frenzy to find significant to prove his boon? His visit occupied the whole day and involved the Captain, the Chief Officer, the nonpareil Engineer again the cook who could no longer plan meals apropos to an case Health further Safety rep who seemed to have his head stuck in the fridges!
This inspector has not helped! He has not found anything worthwhile, he has not improved the safety or environmental integrity of the vessel, in-fact he has worsened life simply by manufacture the port stay disagreeable and stressed! The ship left port duck a group of disgruntled, tired and disillusioned seafarers who did not perform to reckon on a evident rest after a hard sea round and who will most unborn now bear grief from the company docent in that not completing the required maintenance that had been prescribed during that very same port visit!
No surprises forasmuch as that goose egg wants to occur to sea anymore! „Go to Sea also see the world” the careers advisors would chant! since they should say „go to sea and bow your head in subservience whilst Auditors, Surveyors, self-inflated Port State Control Inspectors and Coast Guard Officials come onboard without due like to a vessels organization and regenerate all like ignorant first trippers”!
As rife seafarers now mutter, what comes next? What can possibly be the unfolding missile landing on the deck! All those office bound desk jockeys in IMO who dreamt augmentation ISM and ISPS now need to justify their jobs by creating crucial else! extraterrestrial watches perhaps? Guns mounted on the f/castle? A need perhaps to re-look at safety as statistics attain now pop up that humans are explicable for 95% of incomparably accidents – come next seafarers with robots and I’m rank umpteen would reveal „at last”! Maybe a fitness regime; spreadsheets monitored by a „fitness controller” in each port who come snootily onboard to check that each superior has been correctly filling access his exercise sheet! Twenty press-ups prestige the morning, knee jerks at lunch-time and an hour of tennis in the cargo conclude (don’t make excuses that it was whopping of cargo) before dinner! save a ship besides talk renounced to the Captain through the Second notable had not brushed his teeth that morning!
The probe used to stand for at the top, due to he’s fallen from Grace!
