That article blew my mind. It sounded like the General Manager & Captain made statements admitting guilt the same day of the incident. The words, “lawyers”, “wind”, “current”, “mechanical failure” or “medical condition” weren’t even mentioned. The company already committed to initially sticking with the captain & fixing the damage, on day 1. The homeowners didn’t mention anything about sueing, PTSD or emotional damages either. God Bless all these people involved because from this article it sounds like they are the decent type of people who are sometimes hard to find nowadays.
A good company with good people.
That’s probably the ugliest tugboat in Seattle, but she is workhorse putting loaded barges into the tightest berths everyday without a problem.
The company won’t need to fire the captain, the CG will do that for them when they yank his license.
There are a lot of people that think falling asleep is something that happens to the other guy. They don’t use watch alarms as a result, and every year there’s a preventable grounding because of it.
Glad this one wasn’t worse, could have easily been fatalities.
What makes you think that?
They didn’t yank the license of the master of the ferry that rammed a yacht a few years ago and that was done while wide awake and supposedly aware of COLREGS.
I hope the Captain has MOPS license insurance with 60% of lost income coverage.
The Captain might get about three months of license suspension. The company may create a temporary shoreside job for him until he gets his license back.
If anything is to blame it’s the decreased crew size and dogwatches. Standing 6 and 6 is exhausting and after a few weeks turns you into a zombie.
The Swedish watch system works better than 4/4 or 6/6 IMHO.
0600-1200
1200-1800
1800-2200
2200-0200
0200-0600
You get 2200-0200 every other day and 2 6 hours off stretches.
I liked 3 watch system, 4 on 8 off with Captain and 2 mates pulling a watch. Got rest in between ports until both mates went to 6 and 6 to discharge/load cargo.
i’ve done 12 on and 12 off for military but 4/8 for watchkeeping most all my life. i couldn’t get use to that 6 and 4 or whatever it is… bs. if this guy fell asleep at the rudder it looks like he was full awake comming off the bridge … ha ha… gawd what a phok up that’d be.
and the lady asking “are you going to leave the barge here?” … tee hee … he could of said “lady i’m getting outta here, you never saw me” … sure was a lot of noise huh?
I stand 6 and 6 now and prefer it over any off cycle type watches. Way back when I was on deck, I set it up (with the Capts approval) to do 8on 8 off with the other AB. Yes there were days you worked 16 hours but you had a solid 8 hours off in between. It was something I’d try again.
4/8 assumes enough people for 3 watches, a luxury I have never enjoyed. It would be much nicer if you can do it.
Has the boats watch schedule been mentioned, or are we assuming this boat did a 6/6 schedule?
Who cares! I’ll add my two cents.
4/8 sucks when you are sharing rooms. Common on most tugs, tight berthing…so not many options there.
6/6 has more negatives than positives, but of course most tug companies will continue this lunacy until they can’t. Something is going to break when you expect people to survive on two naps a day. Just because it worked and was normal 20-30 years ago doesn’t make it right. Some specific jobs or regions may justify certain watch schedules, but in general 6/6 is going to shred years off someone’s life. Especially if you are on the back watch for years.
You are correct yacht-sailor. Did 6 and 6 for quite a few years, it was not the best routine. Although my last employers downsized from 12 to eventually 8 crewmembers, an extra mate was added instead of the OS. . We made it work. The 2 engineers, cook , and I took care of stores, supplies,maintainence, etc, while the mates and AB Tankerman did cargo. We were glad to get the hell out of port.
Spell that out a little better. How many people are required to make that happen?
I re-read the article…admits falling asleep, no mention of watch schedules. Sky is the limit on reasons to speculate why the capt fell asleep.
Is this boat not required to have a bnwas? Was it not on? Was there a deckhand/engineer up too, and where the hell were they?
At an absolute minimum, 8 with good license and documentation, Exception, a decent AB Cook that pitches in. Worth their weight in gold if you got the right guy. Was lucky on most occasions.
Generally speaking with a tug-oil barge…I agree with you, however i was curious on this 'Swedish ’ watch rotation. I got a headache looking at it, and wanted more specifics of the size of crew from yachtsailor.
Cancelled by author