That’s a good start. Can we talk more?
Thanks for this. Would be interested to hear more from you first hand.
Thanks for the tips.
This is gold, thank you.
Thanks for the recommendations, much appreciated.
The second movie clip you’ve posted! Want to talk movies?
Thanks a lot.
As a former hole snipe ( Steam Engineer ), I believe you might find better subject matter writing about the cast of characters that endured operations down in the boiler room.
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I’m looking for any crew who have experience on container ships - any POV is useful. Would you have time to talk?
Wow, I just watched that last night, kinda makes me reminiscent about my stint cadet-shipping up there almost 20 years ago. Denis Leary watching steam gauges is icing on the cake, reminds me of the conveyorman on the bulker I was on.
The realism comes from apparently the writer David Mamet shipped as a cook on a laker when he was in college so it’s loosely based on his own experiences.
Now I kinda miss the lakes!
Container ships as a location for a story may well be interesting, but as a source for material you’d be just as good not limiting yourself by ship type. I’d be willing to bet you’d get better sea stories from the old timers who sailed break-bulk or liner runs.
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I’m not sure that would work on film. The sound would deafen the viewers, heat is hard to convey with film and smell is even more difficult.
I laugh recalling us changing into a clean boiler suits, kinda washing up to go to the mess where we were regarded by some of the more polite society as loud foul creatures burped from hell. 
@Sand_Pebble might disagree with that!
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No offense, but it’s transoceanic, trans Atlantic, trans Pacific, crossing the pond, etc., not trans continental. Work at getting the lingo right so that seafarers will believe it. What’s the difference between a fairytale and a sea story? One begins with “Once upon a time” and the other with “this ain’t no shit”.
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You got some of the lingo down. You didn’t answer my question about whether you were a first timer so I’m assuming you’re green. If you are a published author/screen writer, you have an outside chance at writing a story heard second hand if you have the imagination and the right sources.
Write about something you know. As a first time writer, if you want to know what life aboard a sea going ship, go to get a job as an OS.
Most sea novels and movies are pure drivel, including the one you like, Under Siege. Read R.E. McDermott’s novels. His books ring true because he sailed deep sea as a mate before becoming an author.
BTW my knowledge of freighter travel comes from a search I did pre-pandemic while planning a trip to the Netherlands as an alternative to spending 8 hrs in an aluminum tube. I have no personal experience so I can’t comment. Let your fingers do the walking. Good luck.
That isn’t always the best idea. I read Ernest Hemingway’s novel about Spain & bullfighting when I was a teenager. He had several quotes in that book that a person can consider good advise about writing. A few of them revolved around the idea of writing about something as you are learning it to not leave out beautiful details that a person who completely understands will omit. As for me, without a doubt, the best notes I’ve taken & training manuals/videos I made have been when I was learning (or relearning) something for the first time. That being said, I think Richard McKenna’s, The Sand Pebbles is a masterpiece. But he wrote his novel about being a drunken, whore mongering engineer sailor in Asia after being a drunken, whore mongering engineer sailor in Asia for 20 plus years. He did settle down & married a librarian so maybe she edited it for him?
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This might be interesting to you:
By September 2016, Philip J. Heidner had been a member of the Masters, Mates, & Pilots labor union for more than 40 years, and, since 1982, Heidner had been one the union’s most infamous members. In that year, Heidner found himself serving as Chief Mate aboard the S.S. President Jackson operated by American President Lines one of the American shipping companies that contracted with the MMP for licensed deck officers.
The S.S. President Jackson was a break bulk “stick ship” operating near the end of that era, and in addition to cargo, the ship also carried at least a dozen passengers who paid handsomely to take a “cruise” on a working cargo ship with real sailors.
According to the July 27, 1982 edition of the Desert Sun newspaper, in late May of 1982 Angela Mary Rabe and her husband Lester Rabe boarded the S.S. President Jackson in Seattle, Washington as two of those passengers. Angela was 69 years old, Lester was 70, and the couple had booked the two month cruise to Indonesia and the Philippines aboard the President Jackson to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
When the vessel returned to Seattle in late July, 1982, Angela Rabe was no longer alive, and the circumstances of her death were shrouded in mystery.
Captain Karl Fidler a recently retired member of the IOMMP, told sources close to MLAA that he was sailing as 2nd Mate aboard the President Jackson with the Rabe’s and Chief Mate Philip Heidner during that fateful cruise to Asia and back. According to Fidler, there was little for the passengers to do aboard the vessel on the long ocean crossings aside from drink alcohol, and so that’s what the passengers did.
Chief Mate Heidner was a non-watchstanding Chief Mate, and one of his supplemental responsibilities aboard the vessel was operating the ship’s bar. According to Fidler, Heidner opened the bar for the passengers almost every afternoon at 16:00, then served drinks to the passengers and drank with them–often until late in the evenings.
According to the Desert Sun early on the last morning of the voyage, the vessel was about 300 miles northwest of Cape Flattery off the Washington Coast when the ship’s purser discovered Mrs. Rabe’s naked and lifeless body surrounded by a pool of blood inside her stateroom. It was thought that the door to the Rabe’s stateroom was partially opened as the purser walked past the room, prompting him to look inside.
According to reports, when the purser entered the stateroom he saw Lester Rabe asleep in the bed, and saw Chief Mate Heidner standing in the stateroom covered in blood. When asked why he was in the stateroom and why he was covered in blood, Heidner responded that he had been trying to give CPR to Angela Rabe after seeing her in distress.
The ship’s Captain and purser went along with Heidner’s story, and the Captain reported that Ms. Rabe had likely died of natural causes, possibly suffering an internal hemorrhage as a result of excessive drinking. Accordingly, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office in Seattle initially ruled that Ms. Rabe’s death was the result of natural causes. According to the Desert Sun,
The ship’s command evidently believed initially that death was by natural causes, investigators said. “It sounded like it would have been chronic alcoholism,” [Kings County Medical investigator Bill] Haglund reported. He said rectal bleeding occurred, which is common when heavy drinkers have bleeding ulcers. “We later discovered she had other problems,” he said.
According to the Desert Sun, The King County Medical Examiner’s Office in Seattle determined that Mrs. Rabe died from abdominal injuries and that the death resulted from “extensive internal pelvic hemorrhaging” that were the result of a sexual attack. The Desert Sun also noted,
The King County Medical Examiner in Seattle ruled that Mrs. Rabe died of abdominal injuries she suffered during the attack. Hill added there did not appear to be any weapon used, “only a fist.” Medical investigator Bill Haglund said the last-day celebration started last Tuesday evening…“Evidently there was a lot of drinking going on,” Haglund said. “They were having a farewell party. It was their last night aboard ship.” Mrs. Rabe’s husband left the party before his wife did, said Haglund, and retired to his stateroom. Haglund said the attack apparently occurred about 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The ship docked in Seattle on Thursday and the body was examined by medical specialists. The examination showed the abdominal wounds that led to the determination death stemmed from a sexual attack. “It was only due to our screening process that we were able to catch this one," said Haglund. Hill also credited the medical examiner’s office with calling in the FBI quick enough to nab Heidner in Tacoma…The S.S. President Jackson is part of the San Francisco-based American Presidents Line. No one at the line’s headquarters could be reached for comment.
Heidner had been on his way to the airport when he was stopped by the FBI. When questioned, Heidner denied murdering Rabe, but was later asked to take a polygraph test. That polygraph test led to Heidner’s arrest. According to the Desert Sun,
The ship’s chief mate, Philip J. Heidner, 43, of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, was arrested Friday in connection with the woman’s death after flunking a polygraph test, said Hill. Heidner was taken into custody in Tacoma, Wash., where the ship docked after leaving Seattle. Heidner was arraigned Monday before U.S. Magistrate John L. Weinberg in Seattle on a charge of “second-degree murder on the high seas,” reported the court clerk.
The United Press International (UPI) published an article about the murder on July 25,1982 titled “First mate says he blacked out with slaying victim.” According to the UPI:
After a party celebrating a successful 45-day cruise of the Orient, the first mate of the S.S. President Jackson awoke next to the corpse of a 69-year-old woman and realized he had done ‘something terrible.’
Heidner and Mrs. Rabe were among the guests at a cocktail party celebrating the end of the S.S. President Jackson’s voyage from the Far East to Seattle, authorities said. Heidner told the FBI he woke up the next morning beside the unclothed body of Mrs. Rabe in her stateroom – where her husband was still sleeping – and realized he had done ‘something terrible and was in trouble.’
Arvella Ensler, the party hostess, told the FBI Heidner offered to help Mrs. Rabe back to her stateroom after her husband and the other guests had left. Shortly after Mrs. Rabe’s body was discovered the next morning, Capt. Edmund Rothwell reportedly saw Heidner in Mrs. Rabe’s stateroom, standing in his underwear with a blood-stained shirt near his feet.
After taking a polygraph test, Heidner told FBI agents he escorted Mrs. Rabe to her stateroom where he blacked out then woke up on the floor beside her. The complaint said Heidner recalled sexually abusing Mrs. Rabe.
According to the January 29, 1983 edition of the Desert Sun Heidner was found guilty of the murder of Mrs. Rabe:
Phillip Heidner, who was found guilty last November of second-degree murder in the slaying of Palm Desert resident Angela Mary Rabe aboard a cruise ship, was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison, a U.S. District Court clerk said. Heidner, 42, of Goleta, was sentenced for the murder of Mrs. Rabe, 69, who was found dead July 21 in the bathroom of her stateroom aboard the S.S. President Jackson, on which he was the chief mate.
According to the Desert Sun the U.S. District Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before returning the guilty verdict, and Heidner was sent to federal prison for decades. But despite being convicted in Federal court of sexually assaulting and murdering a passenger onboard a MMP-contract vessel, Heidner was never “expelled” from the labor union, and in fact went on to work aboard at least one more MMP-contract vessel following the murder of Mrs. Rabe.
It’s from a longer piece with lots of dubious political claims, but the core of the story seems to be factual:
Some of the tunnel gang can be…eccentric, for sure.
Another POV book by a sailor/author is “Away All Boats” by Kenneth Dodson. I believe he was encouraged in his post-seagoing writing by Carl Sandberg. GREAT book, and a pretty good movie (never as good as the book of course), too.
Nicholas Montserrat 's “The Cruel Sea” is another fantastic read by someone who was actually there; fighting the Battle of the North Atlantic on ridiculously small corvettes. Parts are heartbreaking, other’s humorous, but in truth, that is the reality of going to sea.
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Read about the all the murders and “suicides” that happen on ships. It’s rampant. Just not on the tiny U.S. flag fleet.
The story starts with a murder. The 2nd mate gets off watch at 0400, walks down to his room, changes clothes, walks into the gym to work out aloneX and there is a female cadet—naked and murdered on the gym floor.
Whoa.
Whodunnit? The baker with the candlestick? Ship is in the middle of the pacific.
I got you started Jack….
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