Entry log : November 17, 2017 Friday
Location : Enroute to Singapore
How
is day to day life onboard an LNG tanker for me ? First and foremost , not all
in UPL-Shell that they advertise are true. The reality is that it's just half
as packaged and not really worth the effort to join their fleet. It didn’t
surprise me to find out that something was indeed going on and I got good
reasons to be suspicious, thankfully I have a natural talent of being one.
On
my previous blog entry I have already establish that my theory was right and
the truth behind why are they mass hiring O.S. ratings.
And
here are some negative aspects I had noticed in just a few days' time, although
the Filipino crew here are helpful on their fellow Filipino's (and I am
thankful enough that they did) ., They're helpfulness are somewhat restrained
as if something is wrong - and one thing I had notice is that they are afraid
of something - something big which I suspect they are afraid of ship officers
here. Here is some debatable facts.
Every time i turn the wheel of the fire hydrant, A.B. "art" is uneasy and scared over it. Mumbling always about breaking the fire hydrant drill and point id be in big trouble if I break it. In a liquid tanker this may seemed harmless because we occasionally suffer equipment breakdown every now and then (especially on my previous ship and that's the reason why we're doing maintenance. If it breaks then just simply call Pump man and he'd fix it up.). I was puzzled why A.B. "Art" reacts like that as if like it’s a big deal and mortal sin if I break something.
Every time i turn the wheel of the fire hydrant, A.B. "art" is uneasy and scared over it. Mumbling always about breaking the fire hydrant drill and point id be in big trouble if I break it. In a liquid tanker this may seemed harmless because we occasionally suffer equipment breakdown every now and then (especially on my previous ship and that's the reason why we're doing maintenance. If it breaks then just simply call Pump man and he'd fix it up.). I was puzzled why A.B. "Art" reacts like that as if like it’s a big deal and mortal sin if I break something.
Anyway
the only logical reason I could think of , is that Filipino crew here are
somewhat afraid of ship officers - and no matters how much they say that
ratings here have their own voice. From my perspective it doesn’t look that way
here and that things here are still backward - like in the old days. It was
dismaying that the world has moved on and there is MLC and ILO , and yet here
in UPL Shell / Nakilat principal things
here are still what it used to - way back in the 90's . Even other long time
crew members are somewhat like this in some way and that they still think ship
officers here still have the power of "life and death" were they can
terminate a person's employment., even to the extent that even a simple and
minor argument with any ship officer could be professionally deadly. (nowadays
this practice has been banned thanks to MLC / ILO)
For
now I will still write about what I had experience on work. What I can comment
is that Filipino deck ratings here are unusually terrified when it comes
to Ship officers and terrified on the
management as well. I am still establishing the link in why this is the
situation.
