2007 February archive at Tims Times

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Archive for February, 2007

Tank diving

Published February 27, 2007 in Politics and On the ship. 4 Comments

Yours truly descending into the murky depths ofÂ a cargo tank to inspect the quality of the cleanliness prior to loading ULSDÂ (Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel)Â the sulphur content is measured in ppm (parts per million) and is usually around 6 or 7 ppm. So if the last cargo had a high sulphur content, some have 2000 ppm or more they will contaminate the Ultra and then your in the shit, or more specifically I’m in the shit. Clean tanks equals a happy mate. The blue thing on my head is a fine particle filter, keeps the nasty shit out of the lungs.

As seen from below, these tanks hold a fair amount of petroleum products, over a million litres. The little oval of daylight is the hatch I was climbing into in the above picture. In the belly of the beast!

Greenpeace and the Japanese whaler.

Published February 25, 2007 in Politics and On the ship. 0 Comments

Found a great blog from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. Currently on duty in the Southern Ocean where a recent fire on a Japanese whaler has caused concern for pollution to the Antarctic. The whole story is told in detail on the blog, the Greenpeace ship offered assistance to the disabled whaler the Nisshin Maru, but the Fisheries ministry in Japan rejected the offer and called Greenpeace terrorists. The esperanza is a former Russian firefighting tug, with good towing facilities, handy for putting jets of water onto whalers also! It would be ironic for the Greenpeace ship to help a whaler in distress, but at sea sometimes roles change and at the end of the day there is a responsibility to save life first and foremost, then the environment and then property. The Japanese claim that the whaling is for research purposes which is complete bullshit, unless its research to see how much blubber they can eat. Having been in Japan a few times I know some of them don’t consider sea mammals anything but fish and thats for eating. Intelligent life?
Check out the blog anyway http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders

Lingua Franca

Published February 25, 2007 in On the ship. 4 Comments

The lingua franca of the shipping world is English, if you look up lingua franca in Wikipedia it describes it as a vehicular language, or one used and understood by many, not being their native language.

Someone should tell the French that they should be speaking English on the VHF radio when communicating with ships, or English that can be understood at least, last night the vessel traffic channel at Joburg Normandy was trying to communticate with a South Korean ship, the report usually takes 2 minutes and has a standard format which can be found in the radio handbook that all ships should have, ours went smoothly but this ship Carl Alexander had a tough time. Imagine if you can a French lady speaking English on a radio with an AlloÂ allo dialect and a South korean speaking likeÂ theÂ Spitting image version of Ester Rantzen with extra teeth and mouth wide open.

Joburg traffic: “wet ass yir nam in cillsin, cars in spid?”(What is your name and callsign, course and speed?)
Carl Alexander: “rees wapreet” (please repeat)
Joburg TX:”wet ass yir nam in cillsin, cars in spid?”
Carl Alexander: “rees wapreet”
Joburg TX:”wet ass yir NAM, plese spill yir NAM” (What is you name please spell you name)
Carl Alexander: “Harley(charlie) alra(alpha) lomeo(romeo) reema(lima), this went on for a while
Joburg TX:”plis repit”(please repeat)eventually after several attempts the first piece of info was exchanged

Then came the last port of call next port of call section, the Carl Alex was loaded with iron ore from Port Walcott, Australia
Joburg TX:”wit ees yir list pirt if coll?”( what is your last port of call)
Carl Alexander: “rees wapreet”
Joburg TX:”wit ees yir list pirt if COLL? yir list lodding pirt?(what is your last port of CALL?your last loading port)
Carl Alexander:”forh wankah”(port walcott)
I’m on the floor at this stage
Then she asks him to spell it, more misunderstanding
Of course now the French lady suspects piss taking and gets up her gallic heckles

After about a half an hour, they get to how much iron ore is on board and where the destination port is, meanwhile the information being transmitted by AIS (see http://www.ruttledge.se/?p=116 for AIS) all the time, after about 45 minutes they get finished

2 hours later, the Carl Alexander passes Cap Gris Nez traffic, and the whole rigmarole starts again, the exasperation radiating from the VHF, this is just routine traffic folks, God help us when something serious happens.

Pinko in Thailand part 2

Published February 23, 2007 in booze and From the ship. 0 Comments

PreviouslyPinko having gotten away with blue murder decides to take a “run up the road” in Pattaya, he had 12 hours to get ashore, do whatever he was going to do and get back again. Besides there was a taxi boat organised and there were a few other of the boys off ashore also,Rab the Glaswegian too. Pinko and his merry men all decked out in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses looking like extras from Magnum PI all clambered down the ladder to the taxi and off they went.

Pattaya is not a place for the faint hearted, the bars are fronts for brothels and the place is pretty seedy, to protect the innocent I won’t say what went on with whom, but everyone looked fairly pleased with themselves when they got back, because of fresh air or drink or lady friends who knows! There was one man MIA(missing in action) unsurprisingly Pinko managed to miss the taxi boat and nobody had seen him since going ashore earlier.

24 hours came and went, the old man had called the local police but it was too early to post a missing persons poster, needless to say the atmosphere was fairly low, what could have happened to the thick bastard.

Some time later that afternoon a fishing boat lurked up beside the gangway and up jumped Pinko in his underpants looking like he had been dragged through a ditch backwards, he was looking for the lend of $100 US to pay the boat with, having lost everything ashore, clothes wallet, fake rolex, he had met a nice lady and the next thing he wakes up on the beach with nothing except his y-fronts and flip flops, but with no organs removed, they couldn’t have been after his brain anyway.

Pinko came to work later, big smile on his face, as if everything was normal, for him I suppose it was.

Frenchmen, frenchman.

Published February 23, 2007 in Shipping, Politics and On the ship. 0 Comments

Winch avec mud……Â

We are away again on our travels, having left the port of Ambes and Bordeaux astern of us. We were moored in the Garonne river or La Garonne a muddy brown river full of sediment and is probably great for viniculture, but is less good for ships, the mud gets everywhere on the ropes the deck, the ballast tanks are full of brown shitey water, which will have to be pumped out when we get out of La Gironde.

The French have small habits that distinguish them before they even say a word, the shoulder shrug and facial twist simultaneously can mean anything from yes to maybe or no depending on the question. I made the almost fatal mistake of saying a few words in French, which meant I got spoken to in French, which is ok if it’s a beautiful woman,Â not great when it’s an old mooring guy with a face which has smoked aÂ lifetime ofÂ Gitanes, and they expect you to understand. Fortunately there is the gesticulation which directs quite well. We had to coil up these wire ropes on the deck, and anyone who has ever coiled wire knows that sometimes the coil changes direction so you have to put a turn in back to front or upside down, known as a frenchman I don’t know the real reason probably because the French can be a bit contrary? Anyway nothing was right we were too slow or too fast, so the shouting and roaring went on for a while tirez, non arrete, alors tirez,Â oui comme ca, non comme ca……….Â in the end we all shook hands and wished each other a good day, so French. The Pilot was a twin brother of Richard Harris, uncanny, except for the shoulder shrugs it was the spit of him as the emperor in Gladiator.

RichardÂ Harris’ doppelganger climbs into the Pilot chopper……..Â

Onward to the Bay of Biscay, sometimes called the bag of biscuits or today it will be the bag of shite with all the Atlantic swell we are about to face into.

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