I just read about another case of the “magic pipe” being discovered on a ship by the US Coastguard in Tampa, Florida. A magic pipe is a home made pipe used to bypass the oily water separator and to pump the oily water over the side into the ocean. Some ship operators seem to think that it is cheaper to pollute the ocean than to use the equipment fitted onboard to separate the oily water, and in this case the company had ordered their engineers to routinely dump oily water over the side.
Every ship has a log of all oil filling and transfer, even oily water, but these logs had been deliberately falsified so the illegal oil dumping could take place.
So how did they get caught? They had covered up their tracks, faked the records, and removed the magic pipe before arriving in Tampa.

Someone onboard blew the whistle, and tipped off the authorities, so the USCG came onboard and found what they needed to hold the ship and make arrests. Two Filipino citizens now face up to 6 years in prison and fines of $250,000. They carried out the act so they carry the can, but they were ordered to carry out the deed by their company in Japan, or probably lose their job, so lose job or go to jail….magic! They have 6 years to think about what they did.

And the whistle blower? He gets a hefty reward, probably more than he’d earn in a year. Maybe he might think about his shipmates in jail?

And the company, hardly a cheap alternative…not so magic really.

And the magic pipes? They will magically appear again on some other ship, carrying flat screen TV’s or cars or oil or whatever…….

The Netherlands coastguard ship “Frans Naerebout” heading back out to sea again with a few buoys for repositioning. We were alongside near Flushing for about 30 hours and this lad was back and forth at least twice in the time we were there.

Note the hull markings are not entirely unlike the US Coast Guard.

Kustwacht The website link.

Night time operations, once you get started on them the whole tour ends up happening at night. We were heading into Dunkerque fortunately in ballast condition, the ship being easier to handle when light. The first hazard was at the breakwater a 90 degree turn with an easterly current, so you have to put on some power and turn into the current, but not too much power because you don’t want to end up half way across the basin and miss the lock entrance, then you could find yourself in all kinds of trouble. All the talking stopped when we made the first turn, all that could be heard was the background buzz of radars and the occasional blast of VHF traffic, I eased the engines and she started to turn nicely for the locks, no other helm or thrust was required, the pilot remarked ” she knows the way”, I said “yeah she’s been here more times than I have”. Once we were lined up for the lock I angled the bow towards the quay wall on the port side and gave a quick burst astern, she started to move in to the lock wall a bit too quickly so I gave the rudder hard to port and half ahead which stopped the advance towards the wall, then another belt astern and she sat nicely on the tyre fenders. The mooring ropes were already out and the pilot said “position”, so I said position to fore and aft.

After the lock we crept out and got ready for the first turn “hard to port, half ahead, full thrust to port” and she started swinging on the first 180 degree turn, she came around nicely and we made our way up the “Chenal Brocquaire” we needed to have some speed for steering but not too much that would make the next swing difficult, a balancing act, anyway the ship is right handed so when it was time to turn I gave an unmerciful kick astern to kill the way, the entire ship juddered as she came to a halt then “hard to starboard, half ahead, and full thrust to starboard”, and she gently came around and we came up to the pier and made fast. There were only about 2 or three sentences exchanged in the entire manoeuvre, and inaudible sighs of relief once alongside, then off to change underclothes! Not entirely text book, but they don’t mention the adrenaline rush in the textbook or the cold sweat dripping, and the silent tension, and I don’t think an astern manoeuvre is called unmerciful in the books either, but if you don’t give a savage kick astern you’ll end up in the next parish.

The entire manoeuvre was tracked nicely on the chartlet above. The curved red line is the actual track and the orange lines the intended. You can see where the southerly wind pushed us up to the north in the “Chenal” but we made it in the end as one pilot from Lancashire once said to me “without twatting anything”!

One rule, 2 countries, 2 interpretations. In Rotterdam I couldn’t set foot off the ship without incurring great expense and hassle, and my bicycle was blacklisted, In Dunkerque, there was a free bus laid on to take us up to the Mission to Seafarers, free, gratis and we were treated with great respect. France 1 Holland 0. The French are enlightened. Vive La France!
The Mission itself (featured above in the photo) was no great shakes to be honest but it was not the decor we were there to admire, it was a bit of a change of scenery the Gallic bonhomie a few of beers and a game of pool. There were 2 out of tune pianos, 2 pool tables with worn out cloths and the cushions were like wood, but it didn’t matter. There was also a full size billiards table in one corner, I don’t think anyone else there apart from myself had ever played billiards or knew what it was….proficiency at billiards, sign of a misspent youth…..I’m crap at billiards, pool, snooker, the lads used to call me harpoon when I’d take a shot, my cuing action was that bad.

I was there with the deck cadet and the 3rd engineer, the poor cadet was what it seemed to me to be in a perpetual state of fear and looked like he was going to shit himself or cry every time I addressed him, and he answered “yessir” the whole time. He must have had it rough in the academy. We drank a couple of cold ones played a few frames of pool, warped cues and wooden cushions aside. The place filled up with seamen from around the globe, I was the only westerner in the place, apart from the staff, and I was getting looks from some people as if to say are you really on a ship? One crew had just arrived from Port Hedland, Australia. Their voyage was as long as my entire tour, 4 weeks.
Some of the guests had been shopping for food, eggs and milk, corned beef and sardines. I was thinking I won’t be complaining about the food again on my ship.
One of the staff was a living advertisement for Gitanes, he went out to the smoking area every few minutes to smoke a fag and cough up half a lung in the process and hack up and gob a few times on the ground before uttering something in French which could be translated as “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” then he pulled out a paisley patterned handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his brow from the exertion, and snorted heftily before stuffing it back in his back pocket. Then back to the bar for another swig of Vino. Lovely, it nearly put me off my beer, but not quite.
One of the other staff could speak about 5 languages apart from French and English, and was conversing away with the Filipinos in Tagalog much to their delight, then the VHF set on the wall hummed to life and another bus was sent out to collect more thirsty seafarers.
Most of the visitors wanted to avail of the cheap phonecalls home, I could see them sitting behind the smoked glass cubicles calling their loved ones somewhere in the world. Hard auld life for some of these lads, but the Mission provides some solace for them.

Is it about a bicycle?

We arrived at our jetty, or should I say, I manouvred the ship to the jetty with the very helpful advice of the apprentice pilot. I listened to him, but it’s my ass if the ship hits the jetty. I don’t fancy the paperwork. A headache of titanic proportions….

Ship’s these days cost a LOT of money MILLIONS of dollars, and we carry DANGEROUS cargoes, petrol and chemicals themselves worth MILLIONS of dollars, so you want a crew with COMPETENCY and RELIABILITY to manage your ship. A crew who wouldn’t RISK anything for the SAFETY of the ship? After all we all want to get home at the end of the day.

So we are at the jetty of this BIG oil company about to handle oil cargo for about 24 hours, perfect chance for me to get the old Rothar out and go for a spin into town for an hour or two, when the Loading Master hands me a document saying that no crew are allowed on the jetty and no crew can walk or cycle in the refinery area. In the meantime half the employees and contractors are cycling by on the way to the main gate 1 kilometre away, Friday evening and time for the weekend, its like the Tour de France with hard hats out there.

I look in complete disbelief at the document and say so I can’t cycle to the main gate? NO

But everyone else is cycling to the main gate? Yes but we work here. (and I am working here too?)

OK, so how do I get me and my bike to the main gate? You have to order a taxi from your shipping agent.

OK, I have to order a taxi to get me and my bike 1 km to the gate? Yes, listen I don’t make the rules, I’m only following orders…

Thats what the NAZI’s said…. (I didn’t say that only in my thoughts)

But it’s a pretty stupid rule though you’d have to agree? Yeah the world has gone mad since 911

So I rang the agent. Listen, I said how do I get to the main gate here if I want to get out for a cycle? Oh the loading master will help you. He says I have to get a taxi….Do you want a taxi? I can get you one but it will cost you….No listen, I don’t want a taxi, I have a bicycle which I would like to take for a spin, but I can’t get to the main gate what will I do?….Oh, the loading master will hel…CLICK I put the phone down.

So it is OK for me to manouvre a 20,000 ton ship worth millions to the jetty, but not OK for me to cycle my bike 1km to the gate. I’m a security risk once the ship has stopped moving? The security rules are a complete farce these days, punishing the ordinary sailors for something they have nothing to do with, namely 911. It has been a windfall for the fence manufacturers and installers, it has been a goldmine for the security industry. There are tattooed skinhead fuckwits with no formal education everywhere with uniforms and radios controlling gates and checking ID’s, they haven’t a clue about what a ship is. This is security don’t make me laugh, I know who is laughing the real terrorists. Meanwhile in the container port, boxloads of guns, explosives,drugs and God knows what are being moved around and nobody has a clue, but for the love of Christ don’t allow that bicycle out.

I could understand if they wanted to increase security in the US, OK they got attacked it is understandable. But it’s everywhere, paranoia rules. Fortunately some ports have a better attitude to ship’s crews, and don’t treat us like criminals. One of the small pleasures of the job at sea is getting an hour or so ashore, to see something interesting in another land. But if you can’t get a bicycle off the ship because you are considered a security risk, well then it isn’t worth the hassle. Stay in your floating prison. It’s no wonder they can’t get anyone to do this job anymore, but soon the problem will go away. There will be no more Europeans or Americans working in these ports or on ships and no one to complain about the shit conditions people have to put up with.

Looks like rain today, I think I’ll stay onboard.

Trawlers moored on the quays at Wexford. The only remaining commercial activity on the quays of Wexford harbour are these Mussel boats, who harvest from the Mussel beds in the harbour, and unload their blue mussel cargo on the ferry bank breakwater side of the river Slaney, opposite to the side these photos are taken. Earlier in the 1800’s there was a vibrant shipping industry with wharves and shipbuilding, there are old photos of the quay full of sailing ships. In the earlier part of the 20th century there were shallow draft coasters arriving on the quays from the UK and continent, delivering directly to the warehouses on the quays, but due to the silting and hazardous navigation in the harbour further development of the port was not possible, and Rosslare took over as the main port of Wexford now all of the warehouses are gone, some of the granary buildings have been preserved but most of it is commercial property and apartments. Some of the pubs on the quay have a few relics from the old days. The nearby Rosslare Harbour is a deep water port and has regular traffic with the UK and the continent, then there is Waterford further along the coast to the South east and of course Dublin to the North. The construction of the dykes in the late 1800’s on the North and South sides of the harbour to reclaim land in polder fashion to form the sloblands was the reason that the harbour silted up, and also the construction of Rosslare harbour contributed to this silting up, this and the change of currents led to some coastal erosion and deposition in the harbour and the sea slowly swallowed up the Forth Village where some of my ancestors came from, many of them seafarers, there is no trace of the village now.
The Vikings were probably the first to discover the mud and silt in the harbour around 300AD, no doubt a few of them ran aground on the sandbanks and the named the place Veisafjorðr which means harbour of the mudflats and the name became Wexford eventually. A few notable Wexford mariners are John Barry “father of the US Navy” ( debatable if you meet any John Paul Jones fans) and Robert McClure of Northwest Passage fame. No wonder I chose a career at sea, with all the salty blood in my veins.

While the size of Ireland’s economy has grown since I left, the size of the parking spaces is still the same. The only space left was between these two behemoths, I was sorely tempted to drive in at speed and scrape steel, but I had a hire car and the owners of the beemers were probably lawyers. Or their wives, it was after all the Brown Thomas multi story. For some reason a lot of people feel the need to extend their egos with large motor vehicles, the likes of which were never meant for the Irish inner city road network. When I was a young lad, farmers had Land Rovers for pulling beasts in boxes around the highways and byways to marts and horse races, note the term Land Rover, for roving the land, not the city. These days it’s the yummy mummy’s and yuppies and anybody else who feels the need to drive a big fuck off jeep, in the city mind, you wouldn’t want to be getting any shit or dirt on the alloy wheels. There should be a test (no gobshites) before being allowed to buy one and you should have to own a horse or something, but the car salesmen don’t give a shite either. No one cares and everybody complains? How does that work?

Apparently there was once two way traffic on the Main Street in Wexford, but the propulsion method was horses, and the only fumes were from manure. This is a classic example of Irish parking, halfway up on the path as if that will make it better, no consideration or thought put into this manouvre. The pram drivers are forced out on the road, into the raging torrent of traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists might squeeze by, but could scrape the paintwork, oh dear. I didn’t notice any scrapes but I walked on the outside, the cyclist who swerved to avoid me while I was taking the picture might have done some damage as he mounted the path and made for the space between a car and a hard place…..bloody photographers, a menace to society!

The reason for not writing so many posts recently has been a renewed interest in playing Irish music and the recent purchase of a mandolin which will accompany me on the waves. I will still be writing the other stuff too. Maybe even a few podcasts in the offing when the tunes are practiced well enough. Ah well back to the jigs and hornpipes!

Back in 1994 before pocket digital cameras, and when mobile phones were still a yuppie luxury I was a deck cadet and had the pleasure of “doing” a drydock on a VLCC. It’s a bit like the way Americans “do” Europe size wise anyway and takes about the same length of time. To get this photo taken (note the pose and complete lack of any belly) I had to get permission from the Superintendent to bring my old Olympus trip into the tank. And I’m guessing it was the mate Jerry who took the shot, thanks Jerry old boy, well you must be old now, you were in your 40’s back in ‘94 and I am no longer a cadet. You wouldn’t get me near the inside of a tank these days unless it is absolutely necessary, back then I was ready to jump into any hazardous space going and crawl any length of cargo line without the slightest hint of claustrophobia. I get claustrophobic thinking about pipes now.
The condition of the tank was passable although it looks very rusty, and the ship had already carried a few 100 million barrels of oil before I ever was there and lived happily ever after until it got turned into razor blades and other recycled steel products a few years from the time of the photograph. Esso or Exxon decided to get away from the carriage of oil using their own name after a certain Exxon Valdez had a fairly notable spill in Alaska, I actually visited the Exxon Valdez after the event when they had renamed it Exxon Mediterranean, later on it changed again to S/R Mediterranean, and the Esso Kawasaki became Kawasaki. The powers that be going on the “out of sight, out of mind, out of the courtroom” policy and I’m sure it worked well for them.
Anyway back to the drydock in Singapore, it was without a doubt the most exotic place I had ever been at the time, and the benefit of being a cadet was that there was plenty of time off, the downside was that I had no money, and left the dry dock in severe debt. I wrote about one of the escapades a while back http://timstimes.net/2007/03/14/ewan-and-the-marine-corp/

VLCC prior to docking. Now I will have to try and dig out the other photos from that time and see if there are any of the finished product or if they have been lost in the wardrobe of time.

The port wing of my second and final flight yesterday, the aircraft was a Fokker 70. The first plane was also a Fokker, a 50 though, and it felt like being on a Honda 50. According to my schedule I had an hour between planes, which is grand if you are on time and you only have carry on baggage. My first plane was late leaving. Subsequently I had only 40 minutes to get to my other flight, which of course was on the other side of Schipol Airport. So I had to do the walk-trot-half run across the long corridors and through the shopping area. Anyway I got to my plane, but the suitcase had to take a later flight, it not having legs and relying on the throwers to get it on the right wagon. But I got it in the end, safe and unmolested. On my way I met

Airport phenomenon#1 Aimless wandering. If you happen to be in a rush between two flights you will often encounter these types. Sightseeing tourists, marveling and the grandeur of the airport concourses and escalators. There should be shepherds to move these out of the way of

Airport phenomenon#2 People in a hurry. If you happen to be aimlessly wandering around the inside of an airport you will be undoubtedly knocked over by one of these people. They are often in symbiosis with

Airport phenomenon#3 Public Corporate bullshitters. If you happen to be aimlessly wandering, in a hurry, taking a leak, waiting for a plane, you will hear these types long before you see them. They most likely have a blue tooth headset and look like they are talking to themselves but are actually on the phone taking a kind of gibberish designed to confuse and annoy the normal members of the public. Phrases like “downsizing” “mission statement” “business paradigm” & other corporate bullshit can be heard among the other words in the loudest possible voice known to mankind. Of course corporate bullshit was invented to give these types something to say, because they don’t appear to have normal lives where they might have recourse to using English. As you protect your ears from being damaged you will probably see

Airport phenomenon#4 Cleaners. People dressed up as cleaners with utility trolleys filled with ALL the chemicals known on Earth in spray bottles. They don’t actually do any cleaning when anybody is looking, unless they see

Airport phenomenon#5 Supervisors. People wearing lots of mobile phones and radios which are usually switched on to the “white noise” channel with full squelch, they are weighted down with security passes and keys on extendable key fobs, and have a shiny white pale palour as they have never seen the light of day.These are dismissively ignored by the

Airport phenomenon#6 Air crew. The women are tall and skinny and look important, the men are all shapes and sizes but have the uniforms that have the gold or silver stripes around the arms and the hats of course. The women walk tall too, because they are probably too tall to stand upright in the plane while looking important and serving tea and coffee and the rest (my ticket said “meal unspecified” yum yum) so they need to stretch out while parading the concourse.

There are tons more phenomena associated with airports, not least the security and the check in desks or small kids driving their parents to distraction. They should have 2 queues going in, one saying “have you ever been at an airport before or flown on a commercial flight?” the other saying”is this your first time here? or are you completely insane and intend to wander aimlessly around getting in everybody else’s way?” Ah well at least I wasn’t heading for Casablanca yesterday.