In principle ship’s crew are structured along hierarchical lines and this structure is made explicit by the vessel SMS (Safety Management System) In practice however sometimes things don’t work that way.
I not talking about the 1 A/E asking a nearby AB for a hand with something or the bos’n asking the E/R for a tool.
A couple of examples are a ship where the bos’n and the captain are long time shipmates, the bos’n is running the show and the C/M is a high turnover position with the C/M as sort of a paper pusher figure head.
Also a ship with a weak captain and a charismatic and domineering chief engineer.
My experience is that these are signs of a poorly run ship and if you are the captain you should correct the situation and if you are crew you should bail if you can.
Been there. Worked with a Few career deckhands who pretty much ran tugs. Mostly good guys who knew their stuff but ran the show. Not good.
Worked with a captain/deckhand combo right out of school that ate mates like potato chips. They couldn’t get enough. Scheming and $hit talking about fake close calls caused me to transfer boats within a few hitches. Wasn’t the first they ran off, and wasn’t the last.
Currently work with a chief on occasion who is neurotic and annoying to the point the captain appeases him with “doggy” treats like bunkers and divers. Only when he behaves. Issues with slack tanks, stability letters etc, as he cannot be wrong. Usually takes the office’s intervention to get him straight. Same boat had other issues with the opposite chief (honest to got incompetent) being coddled and protected by the other capt.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Was on a ship a few years ago where the bos’n was known as the Captain’s pet rattlesnake. Also had an a/b who was a gmbling budddy of the capt’s . They’d hit the casinos inport. He was the captains eyes and ears. You didn’t say squat when that clown was in the room. I was the fifth 3/M in as many months.
[QUOTE=seadog6608;99691]Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Was on a ship a few years ago where the bos’n was known as the Captain’s pet rattlesnake. Also had an a/b who was a gmbling budddy of the capt’s . They’d hit the casinos inport. He was the captains eyes and ears. You didn’t say squat when that clown was in the room. I was the fifth 3/M in as many months.[/QUOTE]
Not to hijack this thread but this brought back a funny memory.
One tug that I worked on had a Captain that would sit in the Wheel House and “Monitor” what the crew was saying by listening to the loudhailers that were mounted through out the boat. We were standing back aft by the Tow Winch shooting the shit while the Captain was up in the Pilot House with his ear to the loudhailer. Now he did not know that I had put a cut off switch on the aft speaker, just for this reason. As we are talking the AB would cut the speaker on and off. We could see the Captain working with the Loudhailer to get it to work. After a couple of minutes when we figured that the Captain had the Loudhailer Volume on high, the AB blew a whistle. You should have seen the Captain jump!!! He never said a word but he was never caught spying again. Before anyone asks I took the switch out of the circuit on the speaker, the point was made so it was not needed anymore.