Lack of sleep, one of the disadvantages of the job. Of course we have lots of rules about hours of rest that should be are obeyed, I don’t know if I get tired of the rules or just from being awake in the middle of the night, when I should be tucked up in bed. Even with “strict” compliance to rest hours regulations it’s a bad job doing night time operations, for a start it’s dark, you can’t see anything so everything takes a bit longer, and because of the “knock on effect” you get even further delays, so you have to stay up even longer which leads to frustration, lethargy and generally puts everyone in a foul humour. My sarcasm is directly proportional to my level of fatigue, the longer I’m awake when I’d rather not be awake the more dyspeptic I become, fortunately the sarcasm is lost completely on everyone here them having not been brought up in Ireland. Anyway you get the picture, crabby captain and tired crew, no one happy exactly.
The “knock on effect” is like this, if you say you will be at the Pilot station at 2am, the pilot will arrive 30 minutes afterwards. During the day time he would have been awake so he would normally arrive on time, but at night he has to be put on the shake, and he takes his time getting ready because he is also knackered and doesn’t want to get out of his bed. So you have to wait 30 minutes more.
If you are going to a port with no locks, then you only have to wait the extra 30 minutes for linesmen, who are a surly, arrogant crowd of bastards in the daytime, but they turn up the ignorance factor to full during the night, because they are blaming you for having gotten them out of bed. The banter is usually quite blue between the AB’s and the linesmen, imagine a crew of British AB’s and you are docking in an Australian port….I had one Aussie lines man cut the Monkeys fist off the heaving line once and he fired it into the water, whilst hurling abuse up at us, plucky bastard, there were 5 of us and only one of him. But he was safe enough on the quay wall.
If you are going to a port with locks, then the Dock master has to disentangle himself from his blankets, have a piss, get dressed, get the lock gates ready and call lines men, there’s another 60 minutes.
You can see the pattern. There are variations, once upon a night off Port Said , the shouting and screaming and arm waving, smell of burning cigarette butts, sweat and the humidity…. all I’ll say is Divine Comedy 9th circle of Hell. And then theres Murphy’s Law, or Sod’s Law, the night time version is even worse, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong especially at night and usually in Belgium because…….and then theres Antwerp. 2 pilot changes, 2 sovereign territiories, 8 hour river transit, locks, docks, tugs, cuts, swing bridges, lift bridges, linesmen and at night.
Put more coffee on.
“Dyspeptic”.
I learned a new word.
I feel your pain tim. Out here in the US Lightering trade, it feels the same sometimes.
But a good thing about bringing a big ship to small US ports means that often we get daylight restricted. So a good nights sleep is often in order.
Cheers,
Velu
Good man John, glad to be of service in expanding your vocabulary!
Hi Velu, any jobs going there for Irish/Swedish Masters?
As a working pilot I am very consious of how much it costs to operate a ship. In our group a pilot can get a bad reputation if we hear he/she is showing up late for jobs. The only exception is arrivals if a pilot on an outbound ship will be on station within 20 minutes of the scheduled arrival time we won’t send a pilot all the way down from Houston to cover the job. I’d say in my career I’ve had about 1 out of 10 ships that aren’t ready to sail when I get on board. Still loading cargo.
The “knock on” effect I notice is this: I figure we’ll be getting tugs for docking at a certain time, say 2110. I’ll give a tug time of 2100 to the captain to be sure people are out on deck on time. The captain tells the mate all hands for 2045. The mate tells the bos’n 2030 and the result is the poor AB’s are out there at 5 in the afternoon wondering what sort of dumbbell the pilot is with such a rotten ETA.
Regards,
Lou
Hi Lou, good to hear a Pilot’s point of view too. In general in the ports around Europe the pilots are nearly always on time or early. The big ports like Antwerp and Rotterdam have congestion always which is a vessel traffic problem and lack of free berths. I guess all these delays and knock on effects are a fact of life in the job, where everything depends on lots of different groups working together but not necessarily effectively.
We don’t use ETA for nothing, if we had no estimate factor it would be very stressful.
Thanks for commenting,
Tim.
Just got home today, last port….Antwerp!
OneEighteen, that’s the best thing I’ve heard out of a Galveston Bar pilot in a while. Having been regularly employed on that 1 in 10 ship, I can say with all honesty that we burn with shame when it happens.
Actually, I greatly enjoy being out of my bed nighttime, even when things turn bad, and problems heap up. It’s a good vibe to reassure the crew, for starters, and to show them a good humoured captain.
The job satisfaction to solve the problems, pulling all your sh*t together, is a best second.
Getting back to bed, tired, is always a happy ending.
What I can say… holy words! Let me report one of my most comic experience in Antwerp. Wandelaar Pilot supposed to come at 07:00. Approaching the pilot cutter we received the order to hold position 5 cables from it until 11:30. So, we had to think something strange on the air and by the time we were worried for the blowing northerly wind coming. Once we got “green light” we discovered why we idled for three hours! Kallolock was congested and the duty pilot boarded our ship with other four (4) off duty pilots to enjoy an Italian Sunday lunch. Then we arrived alongside AntwerpEuroTerminal and hurried up 18 hours of ro-ro/cont ops. The supercargo pushed all the time to close the ramp asap. Once closed and supposed to receive the outbound Kallolock pilot we received from Antwerp Control the following message:”Grande…, you can pick up your gangway and go for rest, you’are number 18 in lock!” And I replied:”That’s good, we will follow your suggest. Say the pilot to knock on the door when coming!” We waited so many hours that everybody could take a real rest!
Just a remind:I also had the Monkey’s cut by a lineman in Malta. But we throwed against him some old twists and garbage!