Oh I’m sooooooo sure that diversity & inclusion helped put out the fire!!!
Would someone please tell me how D & I, in and of itself, promotes good seamanship & firefighting?
Oh wait. I know. The nozzleman can spray better now!!! The AB can tie a better bowline!!
GOOD GRIEF!
Can you tell me how uniformity and exclusion make better seamen, or better fire fighters??
My experience is that a crew of mixed nationalities makes for a happier ship and a better crew.
But of course that doesn’t apply to American ships, except if they are flying FOC flag.
In 1978-80 I was Captain on a Drillship where we had 19 different nationalities in the regular crew on my shift (+ national crew from wherever we were working and an international bunch of service hands)
The ship was owned and operated by an American drilling contractor and worked in S.E.Asia, (mostly) for American Oil companies.
The diversity was intentional and company policy.
No it was not to pay less, since the wages and conditions were the same for all, incl. the few Americans that was employed outside the US. (Dependent on position and experience, not nationality)
PS> And GOOD GRIEF back to you.
Can you explain how no diversity and exclusion promotes good seamanship and firefighting?
While being very aware of your anti-American ramblings, you appear to have a false narrative when you say, “But of course that doesn’t apply to American ships, except if they are flying FOC flag”, in reference to a crew of mixed nationalities.
There are a mixed bag of nationalities on the US FLAGGED ships – some Yemen, some Filipino and others. Hell, I’ve seen a couple of Norwegians.
They were good seamen NOT because of their nationality; they were good seamen because they wanted to be. And some were lousy seamen, irrespective of their nationality.
Diversity did not enhance their skill-set when learning from teachers, irrespective of the teacher’s nationality. They learned because they wanted to - and because the teachers were THAT good.
I’m not advocating for, as ombugge suggests, “uniformity” and “exclusion”.
However, to actively seek one nationality over another simply to check the “uniformity & inclusion” in the H&R box is in fact “exclusion”.
Sorry, didn’t understand the context from which you were speaking. With the splitting off of topics by the moderator it is difficult to keep up. Posts from one thread suddenly splits off onto another topic.
Nothing anti-American in pointing out hypocrisy, or pointing out the obvious: there cannot be diversity when 70% have to be of one nationality. (or don’t you accept hyphonated-Americans as REAL Americans?)
Good for you that you have even seen a couple of Norwegians. I have seen MANY Americans. So what???
At least you admit (finally) that there are GOOD seamen of all nationalities (irrespective of who trained them)
Yes there are some lousy seamen of any nationality even Americans, you say?
Amen to that. I have the same experience, from many years experience with seafarers of all races, religions and nationalities. But then I have said that before, many times.
There are various ways of measuring diversity. By measure nationality alone a ship with say Polish officers and Filipino crew is 50/50 or thereabouts while a 100% American crew has no diversity.but by other measures my crews at least were much more diversified. My American crews came from all over. As was said, Filipino, Yemen, Vietnam, Trinidad, Jamaica, Puerto Rico (part of U.S.), Cape Verde Island, Cuba, and on and on.
Looking at an old crew photo right now, six out of 20 only are of European origin and two of the six are from Poland,…
Scroll up to the first post and find a link to the original thread.
Scrolled up, I don’t have the global ship experience many of our posters have. I don’t give a shit if my guys came from Venus. As long as they were properly trained and could handle the work, quite alright with that. The right crew matters, on all vessels.
Agree. When I first went to sea (1959) I sailed with mostly Norwegian crews, diversity was between people coming from the North, South, East and West in Norway.
BIG difference in dialetc and way of thinking and behaving then. (Or so we thought)
Yes there were the odd foreigner, but usually Norwegian residents and Norwegian speaking.
Then, in 1962, I joined a ship as OS, where half the deck crew was Spanish (from Galisia) and did not speak Norwegian (or much English) The Ch.Mate was a smart guy who pitched the two groups “against” each other when it came to work.
I ended up as part of the Spanish group, as I had learnt a bit of Spanish (w/Galician accent) from joining them meals etc.
I acted as a kind of “Bosun” for the Spaniards as we competed on who could work the fastest when making read for sea etc. (6 hatches, 20 derricks)
That changed my view, which was in-grained in all Norwegians at the time, that Norwegians were the best seamen in the world.
Later, when as an officer, I sailed with all Asian crews, (or with Kanaka crews in the South Pacific) I learnt that there is no such thing as born seamen, but that (almost) all can learn.
Were any of them NOT holding US passports, or Green Cards?
As I recall all U.S. passports that trip.
At random here is a photo from the last SIU paper.
Capt took the photo, Capt T. Pham.
Pham was a cadet with me many moons ago from Maine Maritime. Thua if I am correct. Viet Nam refugee. What a small diverse world we live in…
An American crew is a wonderfully diverse mix of different nationalities on their own. My last vessel was a seismic survey vessel with 14 different nationalities but apart from the small number of Philipino deck crew and myself all had tertiary qualifications from universities and all spoke English perfectly. I have never found diversity of itself to be better or worse than any other situation.
I do remember when it didn’t work. Italian officers with an Indian crew.
The cooks trained in cooking for the Raj (English cooking as in India) tried their hand at Italian cuisine as imagined by the British.
It didn’t end well.
Not anti-American when you write, “But of course that doesn’t apply to American ships, except if they are flying FOC flag”, in reference to a crew of mixed nationalities? Especially when the circumstantial evidence as related by prior posters invalidates your “factual” statement.
Dude, You reek of Anti-American sentiment. Don’t hide from it. Just fk’g embrace it. I’d respect you more for your honesty!!
And “I finally admit good seamen”? Jesus. You’re full of reindeer dung!
My initial post had one singular point: That how does diversity & inclusion, in and of itself, have anything to to with technical competence as a seaman (regardless of what department one works in).
And somehow you deflect and conflate this into your continuing Anti-American crap.
I don’t know if you are aware of it, but American corporations and interests.own the 5th largest fleet of commercial ships in the world. The wast majority of those ships are registered under various FOC flags and manned with a mixed bunch of people of a variety of nationalities. (Some are also registered in national register, either owned directly, or through majority share holdings in foreign companies)
As chief mate I took people from all walks of life, many were transferred in because the company knew I wouldn’t say no, and that other chief mates would.
We had a few fires and the two best were both “John’s rejects”. One was previously a crane operator, we had to spend a lot of time “retraining” him as to how we handled lines and such but he was willing to learn. During the fire, he got us access when nobody else could. He moved some heavy gear for us too with the flames licking at his gear.
My other MVP was a supermarket deli slicer. WTF could a deli slicer possibly know about fighting fires? In truth the answer was nothing. He learned nothing about fires from working at a supermarket… but the fire that day was the least of our problems. The big problem was managing a few pissed off electricians who refused to shut down ventilation and breakers. Man did this guy know how to manage angry people!
What does this have to do with the color of a persons skin? Nothing and everything.
One of the above mentioned people happened to be black from a bad ghetto. Why should that matter? Let me tell you it did! He had seen fire up close and personal many times as a kid. He had invaluable experience that nobody else did.
That’s the thing about diversity. You don’t know a guys life story, at least not the grittiest parts, you don’t know how he looks at the world but managing people and operations is all about looking at problems from different angles.
That’s why diversity is important.
#blacklivesmatter
I love diversity & inclusion for many reasons but at the top of the list… it really pisses off bigots & racists. Nothing blows the cover of uncovered racists than some good old fashioned diversity & inclusion. I love it, buckets of fun to watch racists & sexists walk on eggshells.
You’re wasting your time. The Buggster is just doing what he does, trolling to stir s***. His premise appears to be that diversity is only measured by citizenship. The passport question is the bait he was dangling.
Do you know what separates the casual recreational internet troll from the dedicated professional? Doing research before you troll. His asking about passports was because he apparently did some research and learned that [less than 25% of the crew on a U.S. vessels is allowed to be non-citizens.
