[QUOTE=cappy208;65808]Gawd… Makes me sort of misty, just thinking about the Sea Skimmer! You have dredged up old memories I have been trying to suppress for years. THANKS! Now where is that therapists’ number.
But seriously, I never worked on her, but her exploits were reknowned down in the GOM. The company I used to work for tried to buy her from DOW chemical. I guess its a good thing the deal fell through!
On to the original question.
I have found (having been employed on ATB ‘like’ vessels since 1981) that even before the term was universal, and there just a handful of units that were semi rigidly connected (IIRC that is the term that was used prior to ATB) the main and only consistent concept with the tug and barge idea has been to slash crew compliment. Cut costs, and slash wages.
Today this is as true as it ever was. The units I started out on were direct replacements for two Gulf tankers IIRC the Gulf Supreme and Gulf Solar. I recall wandering over to the Gulf ship in Port Arthur and found my way to the chiefs office. I was asking him about work on the ships. He was pretty derisive about how we couldn’t keep up with our 11 man crew and time would tell when we lost the contract to his 29 man crew. Of course them being more efficient and all… We see where that ended up!
The main comments are centering around crew efficiency, cost, wages, and work ethic. I have worked conventional tugs, ATB’s, and petroleum barge towing. One of the HARDEST things is creq/unit cohesion. The company I work for now has little to no company wide unanimity or oversight on the ATB’s. Most of the Tankerman are from conventional barges. They are used to being ‘the lone show’ and don’t fit in well with a large complement. (Not that a crew of 7 is large…). But this seems to be an all occurring, industry wide issue. This is a relatively new thing, with the Tankerman being barge crew. Some of them don’t’get it’ that they are a part of the larger ATB crew. This will add to the frustration if you decide to go onto an ATB. You will likely be the ONLY licensed engineer aboard (excepting a very few that have two) and you will be pulling maintenance on the whole unit. Although the Tankerman will be doing the oil changes on the barge, if one of the TICs forgets to fill the day tank and the generator dies, you will be the one who has to go on the barge to bleed it.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the SEA SKIMMER/PLAQUEMINE. I have been outed. I will say this about the crew we had when I was onboard. It was pretty clear that the tankermen worked for the Chief Mate and at his direction. One of the reasons that I put my foot down and got another engineer was just for the fact that you cited. When I worked on the hawser, I was the only engineer, and that was fine since I only ever saw the barge in port, and expect for the out ports like Port au Prince and Mobile, I never had to touch the barge or the equipment, except to get ashore from Isla Grande and get on up to Willie’s. On the SEA SKIMMER and being in the notch, the barge was always there and always needing maintenance. I probably could have worked full time in keeping the mechanical seals in the deep well cargo pumps. It just got to be too much to try and have two engineers to carry the work load. Often, after standing my 12 hours of watch, I would be up on the barge carrying out repairs. The only thing that the tankermen were allowed to operate was the crane (and they screwed that up so bad that we had to institute a crane training plan and issue certificates). The engineers kept the day tank full, started, paralleled and stopped the generators and did all of the mechanical maintenance on both the tug and the barge.
And if you think that you need a therapist, how do you think that I feel, having sailed on the SEA SKIMMER for four years (or was it more?). In that four years, I think that I was onboard longer than anyone else. Just shows what a glutton for punishment I was. I was onboard when we were aground in Tampa Bay, under tow from the middle of the Gulf to Port Everglades, when ejected from the notch bound for Freeport (I was home during the east coast ejection, just as well); made the trip to Ecuador with soy bean oil . . . . . . I guess that I stayed because I am one that likes to solve puzzles and since there were no drawings and minimal information about the equipment, operating the tug and barge was like the ultimate engineer’s challenge.
There is no doubt in my mind that the whole purpose of the ATB system is to reduce manning costs. Now, when I was onboard the SEA SKIMMER, I worked for a ship management company. They make their money on how much they can save the owners/operators. In running a vessel, very few costs can be controlled. Fuel costs are subject to market pressures just as freight rates are. The only costs that can be controlled are personnel costs. Of course, often when personnel costs are cut too close to the bone, other things suffer such as maintenance, machinery repairs, collision and grounding repairs, etc. Can a ship do the job better and more cheaply? Well, with the increase in ATBs, it doesn’t seem that way. Maybe these two new tankers that are coming out of Mobile soon might make a difference. Who knows.