And your chosen subject is? The bleedin’ obvious.
Our rules and regulations sometimes go beyond a joke and into the sublime regions of the twilight zone and the “more than me jobs worth” attitude kicks in, first though a small glossary to assist the land lubber in understanding what I am going on about.
Tank cleaning: fairly obvious this one, the process of preparing tanks for the next cargo, usually by washing with hot water or other methods.
Gas free: The atmosphere in a cargo tank must have no explosive gas, and for the technically knowledgeable that is below 1% LEL
LEL: lower explosive limit of a gas, I won’t go any further on this definition.
Inerted: Tanks are inerted with a gas to below 8% oxygen.
Now a story of the triumph of rules over reason, aka common dog f..k.
We arrived at a certain port with tanks clean and ready for loading, furthermore the tanks were gas free and had a breathable atmosphere having been ventilated for 12 hours, to facilitate the gas freeing the cargo hatches had been opened at the final phase, round covers about 1½ metres in diameter you can see all the way to the bottom of the tank 12 meters down if you have a flashlight. If you look in you can see that the tank is empty and clean and there is no liquid whatsoever of any shape or form, it is dry in other words.
If you wanted you could go in the tank and look around and reemerge unscathed still breathing in fact you would have been invigorated from your experience, ok point made the tanks are clean and the atmosphere safe.
Enter tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber,
TDTD….are the tanks inert?
ME no they are gas free and clean.
TDTD Then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME eh? Why? the tanks are clean and dry and have fresh air in them, I have just been for a walk down there and am unscathed nay invigorated.
TDTD The rules say if the tanks are not inerted then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME, ok but all the tanks are open and have fresh air in them, what do the rules say about that?
TDTD The rules say if the tanks are not inerted then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME is there an echo in here or have you a parrot in your pocket, come on guys live a little, a bit of common sense here?
TDTD (producing a well thumbed tome of rules and regulations and leafing to page whatever subsection blah) The rules say…….
ME (throwing eyes up to heaven) OK, closed inspection it is…..
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle dumber proceeded to the deck and looked through the near opaque glass inspection hatch, the beam of their flashlight glaring against the glass confounding the view nearly completely, barely a stride away was the open cover with a clear view of the tank……
Later they signed the document that said “Tank Inspection Approved”, even though they were unable to see in the tank but signed anyway, because the rules had to be stuck too, I appealed to their sense of adventure, -now lads the papers are signed everybody is happy, would you like to go for a walk inside one of the tanks?
No sense of humour.
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