Ha! Will do.
An old (2-house) product tanker without a control room (250+ valves out on deck) on short runs on the west coast (Ferndale, Anacortes, Tacoma, Portland, SF Bay, Estero Bay, El Segundo, Long Beach, more than 2 days at a time at sea was rare).
Yes but… I’d prefer learning in a place with less rocks. Creeks and back bays are an excellent combination to learn ship handling on a single screw but I’ve learned more in areas where I was not afraid to run aground. I use to be fearless in NYH and the LI Sound (I spent nearly a day in Hell’s Gate once practicing various maneuvers) but after hitting my first rock (luckily I only chipped the prop… but still a costly mistake) my willingness to navigate creeks/back bays, and thus my level of learning, dropped significantly. I find the best way to learn is to be fearless. And to be fearless you need 2 things: Someone watching over your shoulder who knows more than you AND a safe environment.
So, if I was going to learn shiphandling I’d take Anchorman or Doug Pine on a singlescrew boat in the LA swamp and practice, practice, practice the same maneuvers over and over. Then I’d do the same in Winter North Atlantic (to learn heavy weather handling) , the Columbia River Bar (to learn handling breaking waves), NYH (to learn collision avoidance)… with eaqually good and experienced mentors.
“Sailing Vessels of any type.”
Indeed! Growing up sailing the north shore and fishing the south shore (of Long Island) taught me many lessons I still use today.
I’ve heard the danger signal sounded more times in the Boston area than everywhere else combined.
That’s because the VHF is useless in Boston Harbor… you can’t understand a thing anyone is saying!
[QUOTE=jdcavo;52460]An old (2-house) product tanker without a control room (250+ valves out on deck) on short runs on the west coast (Ferndale, Anacortes, Tacoma, Portland, SF Bay, Estero Bay, El Segundo, Long Beach, more than 2 days at a time at sea was rare).[/QUOTE]
5 point mooring is a skill every mariner should have and a few of those runs up to Valdez, with heavy beam seas, where as bad as 90% of North Atlantic conditions.
Of note, Estero Bay is gCaptain’s HQ and a great place to learn about currents, heavy weather sailing and crossing the bar (the literal, not figurative one I hope). But the mooring here was removed a decade ago and replaced with pipe-lines ashore. El Segundo still uses their moorings… but their is nothing more than a dwindling fishing fleet left here at Estero Bay.
Doing ship assist on a 40 year old, single screw tug with a six second delay in the air throttles and a very fast idle. No flanking rudder or thrusters of any kind…
I cut my teeth on the USCGC Tamaroa, 1943 vintage, she saw action at Iwo Jima. Single screw. We did everything the old fashioned way, lead lines, tallow on the taffrail, lookout on an unprotected flybridge 3 inch 50 cal manual gun Helmsman on hand steering, fixes on the chart every 15 minutes We have come a long way.
Almost died during a winter UNREP in the Med…
I hear ya MtSkier! Sometimes I wax nostalgic about my days at MSC. then I wonder if its just the mental ramblings of a man getting old before his time.
[QUOTE=john;52584]5 point mooring is a skill every mariner should have and a few of those runs up to Valdez, with heavy beam seas, where as bad as 90% of North Atlantic conditions.
Of note, Estero Bay is gCaptain’s HQ and a great place to learn about currents, heavy weather sailing and crossing the bar (the literal, not figurative one I hope). But the mooring here was removed a decade ago and replaced with pipe-lines ashore. El Segundo still uses their moorings… but their is nothing more than a dwindling fishing fleet left here at Estero Bay.[/QUOTE]
My first trip to Estero I provided a softball of a perfect setup/straight line, but about 2 or 3 years too early. I’d learned that ships had 10 shots of chain. So as we are backing into the mooring I watched the 9th shot go by, and it kept going. With increasing panic I reported we were about to run out of chain. The Captain, no doubt containing his laughter at the dumb-ass new 3rd, explained we had an extra shot for Morro Bay. Had this been a few years later, after the release of “This is Spinal Tap”, the obvious response would be “this one goes to 11.”
Most of my learning at sea was onboard a couple old mid-house steam tankers built in 1959 and 1960, learned more there than I have anywhere else, these ships were 30+ years old by the time I worked on then. Had the oppurtunity to work with some great old Chiefs who really new their stuff. I thnk one of the biggest differences between now and then is the engineers actually fixed things and made parts from scratch. Seems something breaks now and people just order a new one with out even trying to determine what is wrong, or if repairs are needed it just gets put onto the yard list, what ever happened to engineers actually picking up the welder or firing up the lathe. I remember turning out pump shafts, winch parts, wearing rings and stripper pump parts all the time. Spent days on end welding up pipe on the stern to replace leaking steam lines on deck and welding doubler plates down on entire decks. My current employer was amazed whem I told him I could add a valve into a 6" line and we did not have to have a shipyard do it, certainly not rocket science by any stretch, but it is getting harder to find people who actually know how fix things and almost as hard to find people who are willing to go the extra step. A lot easier just to tell port engineer it is a yard job just and kick back in the control room. Just this morning had a 3rd engineer who had been tasked with cleaning the lifeboat engine compartment the night before, he told me he found some engine oil inthe bilges and wanted to know if I wanted it cleaned up?? WTF. Enough ranting for now.
I sailed the mighty TAM too!
Hi, Im about to go to sea for the first time, on a capesize bulker for 6 months, as an engine cadet. can someone describe me how will the next 6 moths of my life look like 
? and what should i take with me to sea?