Atc?

I know this is mostly a brown water forum, but I was wondering if anyone has first hand experience sailing with Alaska Tanker Company. It is a MEBA engine room but they seem to be always direct hiring 1st and 2nd engineers. Just wanted to know if anyone has taken a gig (engine or deck) on the Legend, Explorer, Frontier, or Navigator. All 4 vessels are pretty new (2005) 185,000 DWT crude carriers, so it seems a little strange that they are always looking for open board guys and no one seems to stay permanent. Any insight would be great. Thanks

From what I heard its mandatory 12 hr days and “no OT”…just more or less a daily rate. You also need the high voltage safety and marine electric propulsion class (two week course).

Mostly a Brown Water forum? Oh, yeah. Never mind. . .

[QUOTE=bunker305;117950]I know this is mostly a brown water forum, but I was wondering if anyone has first hand experience sailing with Alaska Tanker Company. It is a MEBA engine room but they seem to be always direct hiring 1st and 2nd engineers. Just wanted to know if anyone has taken a gig (engine or deck) on the Legend, Explorer, Frontier, or Navigator. All 4 vessels are pretty new (2005) 185,000 DWT crude carriers, so it seems a little strange that they are always looking for open board guys and no one seems to stay permanent. Any insight would be great. Thanks[/QUOTE]

i’m not an engineer, but i did sail with MOC on crude tankers before BP took all their chartered TAPS trade tankers (MOC and KEYSTONE) and turned them into ATC (approx spring 1999). it was non union mates and MEBA engineers.

i would imagine (not sure) that their 2a/e and 3/aes are still 90 day rotary jobs, although they may one perm 2a/e. i don’t know that for sure, but i can’t imagine it changing.
i do know that MEBAs new contract with OSG Ship Mgmt (MOC was simply the US flag division of very large int’l shipping comp. OSG) is some sort of 12hr schedule, so that response to your query is probably true as Jewell and co. probably put a similar proposal to a few already similarly constructed contracts in late 2012/early 2013.

as a i understand from a face to face conversation with quintana in tampa approx feb this yr, the new contract with OSG is almost no different wage wise for engineers than it was prior. they may have lost $5/day, but it helped out easton school and MEBA overall. i would think ATC deal was similar b/c of its roots.

could be wrong, though.

So what is the big deal with 12hour days? EVERYBODY in the GoM works a 12hour shift/watch/tour and VERY FEW gets any OT pay for more than 12.

GOM and shipping are very different. If nothing else, this would be the first time MEBA has had 12hr day with this company dating back probably to the beginning. Also are unmanned e/r at night. Most unmanned plants only give OT from 18 to 2000. diesel ship e/r is all day workers

Working 4hr watches as a mate with OT between is a lot more palatable than 12hr drillship dpo watches. If there came a time where they could switch to a deepsea watch schedule that would be great, but it will never happen.

Almost all shipping is on a 4 hr sea watch excluding the stewards dept, the capt and the c/e
Before diesel plants, everyone except the aforementioned and a few others such as bosuns and electricians were all on 4 hour watches. EVERYBODY who stands watch is on 4hrs at a time.

Your comparison doesn’t work.

[QUOTE=c.captain;118138]So what is the big deal with 12hour days? EVERYBODY in the GoM works a 12hour shift/watch/tour and VERY FEW gets any OT pay for more than 12.[/QUOTE]

It is how you earn more money during those 12 hours not in addition to them. Now on a lot of motor ships(especially tankers) you have a “fixed overtime rate” that you are paid for 4 of your 12 hours. Meaning in the engine room we day work meaning 0600-1800, the plant becomes unmanned at night with the alarms being forwarded to the 1st,2nd,or 3rd’s room in rotating order(there is an alarm panel in each of our rooms) and you are paid $75 additional on the night it is your turn to answer the alarms. So now on ships we have basically a “day rate” instead of varying wages based on factors like maneuvering in port or heavy work loads such as piston pulls or boiler work. So I guess if you think of it in GOM terms it has brought our “day rate” down. GOM and deep sea are just 2 very different industries. Just about the only thing they have in common is that the vessels float (most of the time) Not saying the differences are good or bad…just different

[QUOTE=bunker305;118184]…Meaning in the engine room we day work meaning 0600-1800, the plant becomes unmanned at night with the alarms being forwarded to the 1st,2nd,or 3rd’s room in rotating order(there is an alarm panel in each of our rooms) [/QUOTE]

This is the meaning of “Designated Duty Engineer” under STCW that was mentioned in another thread you had started. As I noted there, it’s not necessarily the same meaning attributed to the US license of DDE.

[QUOTE=c.captain;118138]So what is the big deal with 12hour days? EVERYBODY in the GoM works a 12hour shift/watch/tour and VERY FEW gets any OT pay for more than 12.[/QUOTE]

It becomes a big deal if it means less $$$ in your pocket. Alaska TAPS trade tankers have traditionally been paid a monthly base rate and OT for anything over 8 hours on a weekday and any time on a weekend or holiday. If the no OT pay scale is not equivalent to what you would make working the same hours under the base pay/OT scheme, it’s less money for you. In my own experience on tankers with this pay scheme, I rarely worked less than 12 hours in a day (usually only following a day when I worked 16 or more) and my OT each month was equal to or greater than my base pay. So if this no OT scheme was dropped on us without an 9ncrease in the base pay of close to 100%, it would mean a pay cut, aka a big deal.

[QUOTE=jdcavo;118208]It becomes a big deal if it means less $$$ in your pocket. Alaska TAPS trade tankers have traditionally been paid a monthly base rate and OT for anything over 8 hours on a weekday and any time on a weekend or holiday. If the no OT pay scale is not equivalent to what you would make working the same hours under the base pay/OT scheme, it’s less money for you. In my own experience on tankers with this pay scheme, I rarely worked less than 12 hours in a day (usually only following a day when I worked 16 or more) and my OT each month was equal to or greater than my base pay. So if this no OT scheme was dropped on us without an 9ncrease in the base pay of close to 100%, it would mean a pay cut, aka a big deal.[/QUOTE]

with reasonable OT rates (and that can clearly differ from one mariner to the next), working an avg of 4.5-5.5 hrs OT per day (to include everything that is OT from holiday, wknds, routine OT, meal reliefs) you generally make 125-135% of base wage these days. like i said previously, my conversation with florida MEBA official led me to believe that new OSG contract for them while very different in structure was very little wage diff (-$5/day) but much better contribution to training/school fund. i can’t imagine ATC contract is much different, as they were shotgunning out new contracts to multiple employers from late 2011 to this year.

to CCapt’s comment: With the advent of very strict STCW hours compliance, especially from overseas port state control, 12hr watches would never work on ships.

it’s absolutley hilarious how much plotting and scheming goes into calliing out/not calling out this mate, that AB, those engineers for docking/undocking, anchoring, maneuvering, escorting officials around who want to look at military cargo, hazmat, etc., not to mention waiting for persian gulf/red sea pilots who do what they want when they want.

[QUOTE=Johnny Canal;118216]…it’s absolutley hilarious how much plotting and scheming goes into calliing out/not calling out this mate, that AB, those engineers for docking/undocking, anchoring, maneuvering, escorting officials around who want to look at military cargo, hazmat, etc., not to mention waiting for persian gulf/red sea pilots who do what they want when they want.[/QUOTE]

Calling out mates is easy compared to posting a sailing time or calling out the unlicensed guys, figuring penalty time, premium time, shifts, etc.

[QUOTE=jdcavo;118218]Calling out mates is easy compared to posting a sailing time or calling out the unlicensed guys, figuring penalty time, premium time, shifts, etc.[/QUOTE]

The issue is that the senior officers time has to be rationed much more carefully and it has to be planned in advance.This can be very difficult if the tempo is fast and the schedule is changing. The unlicensed crew ot pt and so forth can be sorted out later after the battle.

[QUOTE=jdcavo;118218]Calling out mates is easy compared to posting a sailing time or calling out the unlicensed guys, figuring penalty time, premium time, shifts, etc.[/QUOTE]

none of it tends to be easy these days when you are on a foreign run going to the sand box and ports nearby. domestic tanker runs deal with a whole let less of the known port entry headaches and uncertainty of sailing times. and that goes for both box boats and car carriers.

there’s little difference between one guy and the next when it comes to calling out people for various port evolutions that are both planned and unplanned overseas, all while trying to stay compliant with work hours. there is a lot of calling people at different times for all hands as well as calling out 2 guys to do job that would normally be 3, just to stay compliant.

Thanks for the information and comparison.