There is a rumor that the head of marad Lucinda Lessley read this blog post and got really angry and wants to call all KP cadets back from Sea Year.
Sal Mercogliono talsk about it on his youtube channel.
I mean, if you read the blog post you’d have to be pretty upset too.
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I read this young lady’s story a few days ago & was so disturbed by it I didn’t want to think about or comment on it. For me, her accusations are the ones to break the camels back for me, there’s no way in hell I would support my daughter attending a maritime academy if she wanted to attend. I don’t care if it was free or not. I realize sexual harassment & sexual assaults are rampant on college campuses across the nation but the victims are usually believed, accusation are promptly investigated but most importantly the victims don’t have to live with & work under the accused for months & months everyday afterwards. These young women must be incredibly strong to be able to tough it out until the end of their cruises. I couldn’t do it, I don’t know how they can.
Furthermore, WHAT THE FUCK!! I’ve worked with a bunch of scumbags & sexual deviants in my 25 years sailing but NEVER worked with a full fledged rapist. But, I never worked on the bluewater ships that these academies send the majority of their female cadets to where all these accusations of sexual harassment & sexual assaults come from. If it were just one accuser or one accuser every 5-10 year that would be one thing but these horror stories from these young ladies come out almost every year. If this shit had been going on at mom & pop tug boat companies, at publically owned push boat companies, at OSV’s companies or on drill ships the rape victims would have been rewarded so much money in lawsuits they would own the companies or the companies would have went bankrupt by now. Anybody who excuses, ignores or condones a rapist isn’t too much better than a rapist IMO. From all the accusations I read year after year I can only conclude there’s a serious culture problem on those ships. Fuck those people, sicko bastards.
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That you know of.
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#MidshipmanX
MLL has initiated an investigation? It should take them less than 10 minutes to figure out what ship it is. 15 if somehow there are two ships with 2 engine cadets, one male and one female from KP.
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Real life story from more than a few years ago. Some crew went out drinking at the favorite watering hole. A notorious drunk groped a young crewmember at the bar. She reported it first thing. She only had 1 witness who knew the drunk a lot longer than her. The Master was doing the investigation before normal 1st coffee & the young witness who had every thing lose & nothing to gain by telling the truth told it. The perv drunkard was on a flight that night. Unfortunately for me I was on a flight there to replace him 2 days later. That young witness knew right from wrong, knew sexual assault was wrong & wasn’t sailing with a piece a shit. If I’m sailing with rapists they better keep that shit on shore & not let me or the witness know about it. I can’t fathom a culture where a person accused of or suspected of being a rapist can go about his business normally as described by the victim in her letter. That place is fucked up.
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Did he leave the industry or did he just go out and get on another ship somewhere?
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He went home & the office called him in for an official investigation. He wasn’t a dummy & said no thank you & resigned. The company has too much to lose & not known for standing by liabilities. He knew he would have been fired. The guy was in his late 50’s & I heard he was running a shop where he lived. If he is sailing it isn’t with my company. I checked in the last year or two.
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Wait, isn’t this maritime legal aid guy the same one who published allegations against the Maine Maritime President Brennan and got him to reaign
And didn’t he also go after the Schuyler’s Alfultis and commandant Hanft?
How did schuyler is the only one to get away scott feee.
Yea, this is the same guy who makes a lot of noise on Instagram. Once in a while he has valid arguments.
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I don’t know Maine but there is no shortage of hanft stories on the forum and by this guy that marad has ignored.
I think Marad ignores him for the same reason that everybody ignores the fire and brimstone preachers on the corner in Manhattan or on Bourbon St. He might have a valid point, but the way he goes about it doesn’t seem to be the best.
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He has a lot of valid points. He might be a bit crazy but unfortunately he’s the only one championing this cause. (And it absolutely does need someone sounding the alarm)
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Boys and girls of at sea cadet time, if you find yourself working with a bunch of weirdos or chip on their shoulder that you’re there assholes, email your school with specifics right away and tell the Captain. If he won’t do anything about it, hit the SSAS button on the GMDSS console. That’ll get his fat and or indifferent ass up there on a conference call with your school. A database will be born.
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At this point, with these situations continuing unabated apparently, it may just be time to call it quits.
When they restarted sending cadets out into the fleet they were all given satellite communication units that they are supposed to check in with the school weekly and can report any problems they are having. I was hoping that it, coupled with more stringent training for the officers and crew on sexual harassment and assault would turn the tide, but apparently it was not enough. If I ever caught wind of shit like this going down, it would not matter one bit if I had sailed with the offender for a long time and we were friends. Wrong is wrong and the fact that any of this is allowed to carry on is just bullshit.
It saddens me and sickens that this is what our industry is becoming infamous for.
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All industries have that one older male department head that preys on younger females looking up to him one last time and could care less about the repercussions. The difference is you can’t just walk off a ship underway.
Solution 1: Don’t hold seatime above cadets heads if they decide to get off of the ship for whatever reason.
Solution 2: An all female operational ship/boat from captain on down to cook to send female cadets to that choose to go there. (pay the shit out of the ships crew)
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TECO had a rapist aboard one of their bulkers years ago – he raped the QMED (male on male) and the company reached a settlement with the QMED by buying him a new truck. It was a scary and odd story.
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Thats wild!
Also kinda funny how they metaphorically try and restore his masculinity with a new truck.
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