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Fatigue & The Knock on Effect

Published September 20, 2008 in bridges, Antwerp, cigarettes, Pilot, coffee, pinch of salt required, Belgium, Pilotage and On the ship. 8 Comments

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.

Wake up

Published May 4, 2007 in orange juice, milk, coffee, stations and On the ship. 4 Comments

Early on the a.m. of the 1st of May, I was jolted to a state of wakedness close to zombie by the phone ringing in my cabin, a voice told me ” mooring stations in 20 minutes, fresh coffee on the bridge”. I pulled on clothes and stumbled up to the bridge, the old man and the pilot were standing facing the radars one apiece. I call him the old man but there is only a month between us in age, but aeons between us otherwise. The green glow of the radar screens gave the two men a space age look, the VHF was spluttering numbers and names and the engines were rumbling at manouevering speed. I mumbled a good morning, and set about the task of waking up with a good cup of strong Swedish roast coffee, Gevalia dark roast, black roast, the Swedes drink it neat, I have to have milk.
Observe if you will the 2 cartons in the photo, one is milk the other orange juice. Both are the same size, and have a similar screw top cap. Tetrapak standards. Imagine a near dark bridge and a hand groping in the fridge for the milk, feeling something that resembles the mentally stored object in the head and pours it into the coffee and before you can say, why is there a smell of orange juice splat in the sink followed by eurrrgh what the fuhhhk!. The unwanted cocktail woke me up though.
Funny how coffee and orange juice are great for breakfast along with toast and the morning papers, not together at 3 am before mooring stations though.

Exams over part 2

Published April 25, 2007 in Stout, coffee, Dublin, Exams and On the ship. 0 Comments

The Liberator above, Danny O’Connell in the middle of Dublin, I was feeling fairly liberated after the exam and would have proceeded to get inebriated only I had a plane to catch.

I have had time to reflect on the day that was in it also. I got the bus from my parents home at 6am on the 17th of April the news was full of the massacre in Virginia Tech, what a waste of life, I couldn’t take it in at the time, I had to get to my appointment. I was suited and tied, and feeling uncomfortable, trying to revise notes on the bus, my attention was hard to focus. In Dublin I got off at Busaras, and decided to walk across to Leeson Street to the Department of Trade my destination that day.

On Westmoreland St. I noticed the Bewleys was all boarded up and for sale, couldn’t spare too much time thinking about it, I was caught up in the morning melee of coffee mug holding Ipod listening office workers marching to work all trying to be different and aloof. I stopped at the Bewleys on Grafton St. and bought myself a mug of coffee and became a short term member of the legions of suited coffee mug carrying peoples marching about, I felt very self conscious walking around with a paper mug of coffee and a briefcase, but everyone was so interested in themselves that no one noticed. I took a bench in Stephens Green and sat down to drink my coffee, the sun was warm and the tulips blooming, I only remember now, interesting that I can recall now something that I only barely acknowledged at the time, my stress levels were so high I couldn’t breathe properly, the coffee was good but it probably sped up my heart rate making me more jumpy and sweaty.
I walked in to the reception of the Department of Trade at 10:00am, the next 3 hours were some of the longest and torturous hours I have lived through. It was all over at 12:55, bar the shouting, the ordeal was over, and I phoned home, then to my folks and then the list goes on….

I nearly got creamed by a bus crossing the street from the bottom of Leeson St. to the Green not the featured bus above which I took on Westmoreland St., I’m sure the driver jumped on the accelerator and not the brakes, still it would have taken more to dampen my spirits that day.
The buses are yellow and blue these days, they were green when I was in college in Dublin in the late 80’s, and orange before that and I think they were even Black and Beige in the CIE days before Dublin Bus…..and then there was the trams or LUAS as they call them in Dublin…you can make out the dome on the top of Gandon’s Custom House in the background.

Then there was time for a few pints of the black stuff, and by the Lord Jaysus they were extremely good, worth the abstinence during the study days, or relative abstinence at any rate, I didn’t get plastered every night, doesn’t help retaining the subjects studied. And the retention is bad when you are pushing 40, get all the exam shite out of the way before 25, don’t put yourself through the mangle later on, Carpe Diem as they say or it will be too late, or lots of hard work, or both.