Nomad Mariner

You would be wrong if you think the next generation is without hope.

I find this message so simple yet so very powerful.

I hope you find it as motivating and encouraging as I do.

Climate changing rapidly

Some of you may well be skeptics with concern to human activity influencing climate change and while Al Gore did an amazing job to bring this to all of our attention, this clip may bring some physical reality to the debate.

I for one am convinced that we are accelerating global warming with our over use of resources in particular fossil fuels. This won't be a concern for those of us in our late forties and onwards but it will for those who are younger. Imagine a world with out oil or at least affordable oil. This could easily happen in the next ten years, where would we be with out cheap transport, cheap heating of homes and all the products that come from an oil base. All the plastics in our homes, clothing, containers, cosmetics etc. and even if it is not made from petroleum products it was certainly transported to you by trucks, planes and ships. If we were suddenly unable to transport food cheaply and efficiently from growers to markets, would the western world starve?

I believe climate change is always happening and always will but we are speeding things up and because of this can we adapt as fast as we are changing our world?

Climate changing rapidly

Some of you may well be skeptics with concern to human activity influencing climate change and while Al Gore did an amazing job to bring this to all of our attention, this clip may bring some physical reality to the debate.

I for one am convinced that we are accelerating global warming with our over use of resources in particular fossil fuels. This won't be a concern for those of us in our late forties and onwards but it will for those who are younger. Imagine a world with out oil or at least affordable oil. This could easily happen in the next ten years, where would we be with out cheap transport, cheap heating of homes and all the products that come from an oil base. All the plastics in our homes, clothing, containers, cosmetics etc. and even if it is not made from petroleum products it was certainly transported to you by trucks, planes and ships. If we were suddenly unable to transport food cheaply and eficiently from growers to markets, would the western world starve?

I believe climate change is always happening and always will but we are speeding things up and because of this can we adapt as fast as we are changing our world?

Promoting the lifestyle and history.

Just finished reading Kim Carvers latest post in her Jack Tar Magazine. The post was regarding how many tall ship crews consider themselves above and beyond those who are not part of the immediate crew. They have become isolationists and have distanced themselves not only from the real world outside but also the realities of tall ships.

 

When I was master on the Duyfken sailing from Sydney, Australia to Texel, Netherlands I asked myself many times why people go to sea. Obviously this is a tough question as there would be as many answers as there are people. With thought though and looking at my own crew for inspiration (there were seventeen of us on a 20m vessel), as well as twenty-three years of being at sea. I could break the answer down to just a few scenarios.

To me the primary answers are obvious we go to sea to look for something, adventure, romance, comradeship, work etc. Or we go to sea to escape from something, bad relationships, boredom, routine, complexity of modern life, commitments etc.

 

Either way we all definitely go to sea on tall ships for the romantic aspect and the challenge of sailing and maintaining complex vessels from one location to another.

For achieving this we take a lot of pride and deservedly so. We just have to remember that we do not do this alone. That to be aboard a tall ship and to have the great fortune to experience this amazing life style we rely on others.

 

We rely on the people ashore to organise, promote and raise funds so that we can have this privilege. What we sacrifice in time, rough living conditions and long hours is insignificant to what others do for us. For this very reason we must encourage the social connection with people from ashore and from other vessels. Remove the barriers for those ashore to gain a connection with the vessels and the lifestyle. Most cannot go aboard full time due to other commitments but they work hard and commit themselves to the tall ship world because they want to become a part of it even if it is in only a small way. We as sailors can only step up to them in admiration and embrace them into our lives, as it is only due to their contributions that we stay afloat.

 

So if you board a vessel and they look at you as though you have stepped off an alien world (to them you probably have) tell them to pull their heads in and look at the bigger picture.

If you are presently sailing aboard a tall ship, remember where the money comes from to supply the vessel with materials, berths, provisions, crews pay (meagre as it is). It comes from people ashore who wish for tall ships to remain, and in both respect and admiration step up to them and engage in conversation, break down the barriers.

 

We all admire the celebrities who step down from their lofty heights to become real people and talk to others with out looking down upon them and we all despise those who are arrogant and look down upon others, forgetting that they go to the bathroom the same as the rest of us.

 

Don’t be arrogant, be humble and thankful for the privilege of sailing tall ships.

Engine Rooms that have flooded.

Its late in the day and I have been on the go since 0530 this morning. First trip into Broome for a new contract and it has been full on. Vessel  is still not fully loaded and all of us are tired after having put so much into this new ship.

Never a good time to write but I feel compelled to put thoughts, that have been roaming around lost in my mind, to paper.

 

These are two of many episodes in my maritime career that I have been fortunate enough to not only survive but to learn valuable lessons from.

 

Episode one.

I was a very fortunate member of the crew aboard the New Zealand Tall ship ‘Tradewind’ Sailing her from Wellington, New Zealand to Liverpool, England. The entire voyage was full of episodes of adventure and this was just one of them.

The leg was from Chatham Islands SE of New Zealand to Ushuaia, Argentina via Cape Horn. The trip was to take five weeks and for most of the time the sailing was great.

I had taken the watch in the early hours of the morning on this particular day and it was easy sailing with very large ocean swells rolling on underneath us, the wind was on the starboard quarter and we were making good speed in an easy manner.

As the watch drew on I was vaguely aware that the vessels roll was slower and a bit sluggish. Didn’t think too much about it but in hindsight I should have followed up on my first impression.

The previous night the engineer had gone down into the engine room to pump the bilges, we always had water entering the bilges via the shaft stern gland and it was a regular job for the engineer to pump the bilges out. We did not have a dedicated pumping system as such. To be honest I was never too sure how it worked exactly but I do know it was a venturi system where the engineer had to get a flow of water from the sea strainers to over the side and then open the bilge suction line allowing a venturi effect to suck the bilges dry. No idea how it passed survey. On this particular night the engineer had pumped the bilges dry but when he packed up to return on deck he failed to turn off the venturi valve and sea water began to siphon back into the engine room. By the time I came on watch the bilges were beginning to get quite full and the water sloshing from side to side was the odd motion I had noted.

When the rest of the ship began to turn to, it was quickly discovered that we had a flooded engine room and all crew were called. This had disaster written all over it. First thing the Chief Mate did was to blame myself for not checking the engine room during my watch and I was quite shocked by this, certainly it put me off my stride and it took me a long time to come to terms with the accusation. In reality I was not the only one who did not check the engine room, nor were there any standing orders to do so as until then we were only required to go in the engine room to pump up fuel and lube the main engine when it was running. I now look back at that and realise how important standing orders are and safety rounds should be carried out on all vessels at all times.

The Captain, Mark, made the decision to use the emergency fire pump to empty the water out. There was urgency in everyone as the longer we took the more equipment below was getting wet. This was made worse by the wind slowly easing and we began rolling even more from side to side.

The pump was fired up but the little one cylinder East German agricultural pump could not pick up from the deck, two problems, one it was probably too high to lift the water and two the suction line was perforated in several places, just old and probably second hand. It was a race to find a good section of the suction line, cut it and refit the connections we then, to make suction easier, lowered the pump once it was running down as low as practical into the engine room. This worked fine and before long we had a good stream of water flowing out. Unfortunately the engineer and Pete the third mate had to stay in the freezing water to keep the suction line clear of all the rags that threatened to block the pump, they would not allow us to relieve them and it must have been damn cold.

It was a long morning but once the bilges were dry there was still the long process of cleaning everything of water. The main work was pulling electric motors apart to clean with fresh water and dry gently in the oven. Our main engine being a dry sump was fine and was soon up and running but the big AC generator would not work, the motor would run but no power out of it, due to the exciters being fried.

We were still two days out from Ushuaia and would be running on 24 volt power for that time, freezers were going to be a problem. 

Fortunately despite all the horror stories one can read about rounding cape stiff, as we got closer to the infamous land mark the wind began to die. To the point where we actually started to go backwards.

Our landing in Ushuaia was on New Years Eve 1991 and we had a great celebration with the locals.

 

Episone two.

 

I had recently finished sailing the Duyfken from Sydney to Holland and was firmly back at work with Tidewater. The company had at first placed me as Mate for three swings on the Osa Voyager before deciding to pull me off the boat and send me to Singapore to pick up, as Master, the Leopard Tide.

What a wreck! There is no other way of describing it and to make it worse no sooner did I step aboard then the vessel, with myself as an extra went around to the Kepel dock yard to be pulled from the water.

Once out of the water it became clear why. In the recent past someone had sucked in wire and chain into the propellers and they looked like large rats had been gnawing on the blade tips. No wonder the vessel vibrated so much when we steamed around.

The hull was a mass of growth and the docking manager decided in his wisdom to get some labour to clean the hull. Once clean we could see that there was not a scrap of antifoul left or for that matter a single anode. Warning bells were beginning to sound.

Walking around under the hull the chief engineer found three large holes in the hull, one was easily spotted as it had a rag sticking out the others were only from close inspection. These were spot welded closed by the yard but it did make us wonder just how sound the hull really was.

The foundry had the props off and back within twenty-four hours and they looked like new. No sooner were the props back on then we were heading back into the water, no paint no anodes fitted. You just have to shake your head.

The steam back to Loyang was uneventful and my new Australian crew were soon aboard trying to make something of the mess. I won’t go into details but it was bad news, really second rate, in fact more fifth rate. I had wondered why all the joins in the deck head of my cabin were siliconed. That night I soon found out why, it absolutely bucketed down and water was running down the side of my cabin beside my bunk. There was a rather large leak on the deck above. Further inspection the following day I found a piece of well painted but rotten wooden trim siliconed again to the bridge bulkhead. Pulling this away carefully we saw that the steel was rusted away and this neat bit of trim was hiding it all. We quickly glued it back in place and shuddered.

Finally we departed, a lot of work had gone into the vessel by the crew to try and bring it up to some sort of liveable standard, we only had modest success but I have to say the crew were great and pitched in to make the best of a very bad situation.

The following day less than twenty four hours after we had departed the Chief Engineer came up to the bridge and reported that we must have a leak in the engine room as he has been working the bilge pump but unable to gain on the water level. I immediately called the second mate up to take the helm and went below with the chief.

We began by lifting strategic floor plates around the engine room and soon found the leak between the two main engines at the forward end. Looking down into the bilges we could see a piece of 100mm pipe, which was an odd scrap piece about a metre long laying in the bilges with water squirting out either side of one place.

Now that we had found it the problem was getting to it. The bilges were about 1800 mm deep and unfortunately the bright spark who had built the frame work for all the deck plates to sit on had made the gaps too narrow for any of us to slide through. Fortunately the Chief Engineer being of slight build was able to slide down between a gap of one of the tank bulkheads and the deck plating. With him in the bilges we were able to make some progress. First the pipe was removed and stowed in a suitable place. With that out of the way we could see a hole of about 60mm diameter with water gushing up to the chiefs chest. No time to loose, we had to get that hole plugged. First step was to gather materials, we decided to place a heavy sheet of rubber gasket down with a thick piece of ply over top. To secure this all into place we then wedged in a long length of wood from the deck plate framing to the ply. This slowed the water coming in to a trickle and we could then pump the bilges dry.

To make it more secure for our voyage we build form work around the piece of ply and poured several bags worth of premix cement over the top.

The next morning the cement had sealed the hole tight and we had dry bilges.

All of this was to be in vein as we no sooner passed through Lombok Strait when I received a phone call from the office to stop the vessel where we were and wait. After a few more phone calls I found out the story.

Earlier, as we were being put back into the water at the dry dock, we were boarded by the engineer’s union representative. He had flown to Singapore so that he could inspect the vessel. He made himself known to me and then went and explored the vessel. Now unfortunately we were so busy with getting the boat back under way we could not assign an escort for him and he made his own way about the ship. Apparently unbeknown to any of us aboard he had helped himself to a sample of one of our engine manifold laggings. When he returned to Australia he had it tested and it came up positive for asbestos. There was no choice the company had to turn the vessel about and send it back to Singapore. Pretty tough when we could not be sure that the material even came from out vessel, he had not told any of us. If he had we would have noted where it came from and gave him a small bag to carry it away with him. But to shove it in his pocket and then bring out that kind of political stunt did not impress me too much and it cost the company a lot of money with the lost charter.

To cap it off the whole experience we had filled in a complete report of the incident concerning the hole in our hull and expected the vessel to once again be taken out of the water. Not so, no sooner had we arrived then a new crew of Asians had boarded and they were to steam for the next job, a rig shift!

Different standards I guess and makes me glad I sail out of Australia and yes I learnt some very valuable lessons out of it all.