GATHERING STORM

November 14, 2019 Thursday GATHERING STORM

This ship is a bit odd compared to some of the ships I had worked with in the past when it comes to design. First off and most important is that this ships pipe lines has no Fresh water pipe line on the deck whatsoever. So no fresh water means that working on the deck area will be difficult during summer time / desert area for me, if temperatures rise above 31 plus and up . No fresh water source means I have to carry my own separate water to cool (and splash) myself with and have to go all the way back to the accommodation area  just to refill water bottles I use to splash myself. ( For now this is not a problem since its winter time , But it will once summer time arrives or if this ship goes to the middle east) 

Another problem having a no "fresh water" line in the deck, Means basically deck washing is practically nonexistent or if we were to work with something that is related to using fresh water like cleaning the deck , we will be forced to carry buckets of water (and a mop) for the job instead of just doing the much simple version of hooking up a water hose and washing everything up.

I myself is not sure on how will they wash the whole deck area without a fresh water source nearby. I don’t supposed they'd be using sea water to wash and clean everything up in the deck.

(difference of using fresh water and sea water in the deck is that , fresh water is less corrosive to metal compared to seawater, less corrosion means less rust, and less rust means less maintenance).

To add another weirdness in ship design aside from the lack of fresh water pipeline., is that the crew and officers mess are joined ., I mean only a single mess hall for all the crew (officers and ratings). Heck there's not even a "divider" or at least a curtain to separate the eating area of the officers and the ships ratings and have some privacy, I have no idea why the Koreans designed this ship this way. Resulting that I always have trouble eating because I get conscious that someone might be watching me while having a chow.

Adding more to the oddness is also the laundry area., Apparently washing machines here are basically a dryer as well., Two in one machines ., Good for home use and lack of space but not so good for industrial and work use. Takes eons before getting my laundry washed and dried up and another eon getting past the long line of clothes that needed to be washed.

Another oddity of this ship is the "working organization"., There is no Bosun (Foreman) here whatsoever and the person whom we should be getting job orders are coming from the pump man. So to put it simply the pump man here is also the de facto Foreman (although in contract and SMS it only states that he's simply a "PUMP MAN" )., Normally in large ships Pump man and Bosun Job Positions are independent and separate, I'm not sure on why the company cut corners on the organizational job structure just to save money. Whatever the reasons behind this , We have a Pump man who also works as a Bosun in a VLCC ship. So as a result , working in the deck is unorganized and with basically no one to keep us in line and check our work . We just basically work on the best we could on a given job order on how to accomplish it, and usually work is unpolished.

In other matters…..

Much has happened on the past few weeks and there is so many topics I have to write on this journal . This ship went by on Singapore , and had a USCG (United States Coast Guard) Inspection there , and pass as expected probably because this is ship is just a week old. During the stay also , we received some provisions along with some equipment.

It was basically a big hassle to lower the gangway accommodation ladder on this ship in the last minute, when we were already proceeding to anchorage area in Singapore., Apparently some of my co-workers here have no idea on how to work under pressure and to make matters worse is that Pump man was yapping his mouth all the time ., we did manage to finish the job , Somehow , but it took us a lot of time before we got things moving again.

During the inspection I was unwilling turned a center of attention when I was the only person who wore a harness and climbed to secure the life boat on the strapping. Personally I never liked being the center of attention and being looked by the whole crew and USCG inspectors while doing my job.  I feel unrelaxed

A few days later , trouble and problems have already started in this ship , apparently the engine crew have started hoarding and taking all the gear and equipment meant for the deck., and stocking it on their "store" ., which in turn left us nothing but almost zero tools and equipment to work with. Pump man was yapping with his mouth as usual about this incident, but did no further action to prevent the "hoarding and ransacking" of equipment by the engine crew. Bottom line is that working in the deck area would be difficult than expected because of the lack of tools.

The only equipment left by the engine crew was , some equipment they didn’t like (TAKE NOTE "LIKED" , DIDN’T Say "NEEDED")., Practically they took almost everything. 

(Apparently this ship's design was meant to have a single common store of equipment for both deck and engine crew, compared to other ships were equipment stores for deck and engine crew area separate) .