I am a QMED in the GOM. I have experience from Navy and I have been on many overseas delivery trips so I am not new at this. I have a concern that I would appreciate some professional input from so I wont continue to think I am crazy. I work on a 255 ft AHTS. We have started to list our boat to take on chain into our chain lockers. In detail our Chief Engineer requires us to list the boat over TO the side we are taking on chain. If we are taking on chain on the port side then he wants to list the boat to the port side. He wants it listed to 3 degrees then leave it alone untill they are finished with chain. In other words he does not want us to maintain 3 degrees he wants the boat to go on over. This last job we finished chain and we were at 7 degrees by the time they were done loading. Bow was also about 2.6 feet heavy. Many crew members were concerned about this new practice and stated their objections. When the Chief is questioned he said several things that caused me to lose faith in him. He said 1. This boat cannot possibly be capsized 2.Engineering has no reponsibility to stability. 3. He said he has had this boat at a 30 degree list before(which I know is not true) the captain doesnt say anything. None of this makes sense. I am concerned about our safety on this boat to the point that I may change companies because the company I work for wont move me to another. I have video of these days of unsafe lists and thought about showing the office but I know that will kill my career with this company. I am happy there with the exception of working on this particular boat. I have other Chief Engineers that want me on their boats but noone will come replace me on the boat I am on because everyone in the fleet knows how it is. What the heck should I do? Am I overly cautious or am I right on being concerned? jeb1620
I wouldn’t be so much concerned about degree of list as concerned for sea-state, draft/freeboard and location of plimsoll marks during this evolution…don wury mon bee hoppy!!
Then why is the Chief Engineer telling them to list the boat over? An why doesn’t the Captain speak up???
The location of the load line marks doesn’t change.
The boat will have a “stability letter”, ask the mate to explain it to you and show you how to calculate the stability before and after loading the chain. The chief is half right, it is not his job to figure out stability but it is his job to know when he is doing something that effects stability and to develop a plan with the master and/or mate and work according to that plan.
When performing operations that have any impact on list and trim I always confer with the mate and have in writing a limitation on the maximum list and trim available for that operation during the time I will be doing it. Unless you are dealing with some real cowboys, the master and/or mate will know the stability at the time you begin working and can easily tell you what the limits are. If they can’t, get off that boat and live long enough to find another one. Life is too short to waste it on amateurs.
Steamer,
guess I needed to be more specific…“location of plimsoll marks” relative to the surface of the water.
Does your company have a safety manager who goes by the name Allwyn by any chance?
Thirty degrees?
Man, you better hope nothing shifts. I don’t mind rolling, but constant list is something to be corrected. The mate needs to get on it.
And there ain’t been a boat yet that couldn’t be rolled over or sunk.
Nemo
sounds like BS…speculate that a 30 degree list would under most conditions submerge the loadline and put the waterline somewhere near the deck knuckle!!
<— AHTS capt.
depending on the boat’s design and the arrangement of the chain lockers, it can be quite normal to have to list the boat to one side to load chain. For example, on my boat the spill pipes for the lockers are at the extreme inboard side causing chain to have a tendency to stack up and block the pipes, so we usually put a ~5 degree list to the loading side in order to allow the chain to stack in the locker more evenly.
We only list it at the start, once the chain is in and stacking properly we start moving water back to level her out.
Of course, we only do it under good conditions with a close eye kept on the stability of the vessel, but done properly there’s no inherent danger.