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.
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