You mean just like on steamboats? No problem, the engineer phones the bridge and tells the mate that if they keep doing what they are doing they will lose the plant in less than a minute. That usually trains them for a day or two.
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no, what happens now is ChEng calls the bridge and says "ok all gen sets ready,( saying that whilst one gen set online) make your choices "
and off we go on a passage then on DP.
Dp checklist will including the eng room checklist that says yes everything avaliable.
Or they forget to call the eng room…
I’m not really sure anymore. There’s at least 4, which is not a lot in the grand scheme of things but they’re all activated and it was tricky finding steam engineers. Luckily their ROS crew is CE, 1AE, and 2AE so all they really need is 3rds (unless senior engineers quit).
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At what point do USMMA grads get the call? A draft? When there’s need? Because it sounds like there’s a need right now, they may as well start calling if for nothing else than to see just how truly screwed their system is.
Or on slow speeds… “Hey Capt, you’re using a lot of start air, I can only guarantee two more starts til the compressors have a chance to catch up”
To what degree is the USCG complicit in this manpower shortage in the domestic maritime industry as a result of 46 CFR Part 11.402(a)(2)?
"(a) To qualify for a national ocean or near-coastal endorsement for service on vessels of unlimited tonnage—
(1) All the required experience must be obtained on vessels of 100 GRT or more; and
(2) At least one-half of the required experience must be obtained on vessels of 1,600 GRT or more."
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-46/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-11#p-11.402(a)
Surely more mariners in the United States would have gained their unlimited tonnage licenses if only it were not so difficult to hawsepipe passed the 1600-ton mark. In my opinion that makes this a manufactured, or artificial, crisis.
The regulators have done this to themselves. I am not prepared to give any consideration to what Washington thinks about a manpower shortage in the maritime industry for national security reasons as long as they willfully maintain regulations in place that exacerbate the issue.
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I made a thread about this earlier, and i beleive the conclusion is that there is no plan. The system is entirely voluntarily, apart from KP for 5 years. I think the SSOP brass can see their program is a farce as well.
In previous wars, Merchant Marine exempted you from the Draft, so thats how they got people to join.
But yeah we shouldn’t laugh too hard at Russia’s paper military… our merchant fleet is a lot similar.
This is an STCW issue not a washington issue, what are we going to do with national unlimited mates and masters? There are only a hand full of jobs for folks like that.
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Did the regulators representing the United States at the various different STCW conferences over the years advocate to make it easier for limited tonnage licensed mariners to hawsepipe passed 1600 tons? Or did they advocate for the opposite? Or did they do nothing at all and just go along to get along? I don’t know the answer to that but I would bet good money that the U.S. delegation did not do much to advocate to make it easier to hawsepipe an unlimited tonnage license.
So you’re right, not all of the blame can be placed at the feet of U.S. regulators and delegates, but they sure aren’t helping the situation either.
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No it isn’t. STCW doesn’t set such strict (if any) gross tonnage requirements on unlimited licenses.
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I have no idea when they literally start cold calling people. I don’t they’d force anyone to give up a job shipping at another company to take a temporary position for a MARAD activation and no one would voluntarily do that.
Any KP grads out of work that are looking for work would likely be on the activating ships already. That leaves calling people with an active license that stopped sailing and asking them to quit their land job and come back for temporary work.
I doubt many people called would take the jobs, though maybe some are available that otherwise aren’t aware the work is there.
That’s not how the reserves work for any of the other services, why should it be different for the USMM? I agree, don’t pull them if they’re already on a ship, but otherwise what’s the point of the USMMA? The other services require one weekend a month and two weeks a year. The majority of activations are less than two weeks…
I’m not of the “SHUT IT DOWN” crowd, but it does really make me wonder, truly, what the value of the USMMA is if we can’t even call on the alumni for an activation.
That may be, but the majority of activations that actually matter (the ones where they actually carry DoD cargo somewhere) are 2-4 months minimum. I don’t know how hard it is to crew the 2 week activations, it may be easy since the people don’t need to quit their normal jobs, but the actual sealift activations are what I’m talking about.
The MMP and MEBA job board
Most likely AMO ships then. Haven’t heard of any MMP or MEBA ships being activated and haven’t heard a desperate need for any 3AEs.
Correct. AMO and SIU. They’re are still open jobs for them on the SIU board that the union can’t fill.
They don’t have to quit their normal jobs though. If they’re called up as reservists they’re protected by the USERRA: USERRA - Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act | U.S. Department of Labor
It works for the other branches, why not the USMM?
Because the USMM doesn’t have reservists. USMMA graduates are in the US Navy reserves and their civilian jobs are on US merchant vessels.
They are required to sail on their licenses for a certain number of years after they graduate but that’s the only requirement as far as the USMM goes.
The Navy representative onboard the activated MARAD vessels is usually a reservist doing their annual duty, frequently a KP graduate, but I’m not sure if the Navy can legally call up reservists and force them to sail commercially as their reserve duty.
It’d be nice to change this so that USMMA grads would actually serve in a capacity that they were trained for.
Also, the USMM is not, and never was, a branch of the military. The military branch was the USMS and that hasn’t existed outside Kings Point for over 70 years.
If they’re working in commercial shipping then that’s accomplishing that goal. Every Kings Pointer in the work force is one more person available to crew up an RRF vessel if necessary.