My Experience as an Engineer, as a Mariner.

[karthikjr73]

@nozzlering
@ gearhead2

Sirs, this is truly anExcellent thread. Stumbled onto it in my casual browsing and for sure missed out on the last few years of this thread.
The joys of the open air barbecue on the poop deck with ice cold beer, good food, music and onboard colleagues is something every tankerman misses.
When I was a third engineer on a gearless bulk carrier plying between Australia & China, the master would ensure we had a party every Saturday evening at sea and Badasaheb would give non watchkeeping engineers and crew a holiday on Sunday.
Good times I could never replicate on my tankers for obvious reasons - zero alcohol policy on tankers.
Best regards and hope to hear more from senior marine engineers and read varied experiences

 

[gearhead2]

@nozzlering
@ gearhead2

Sirs, this is truly anExcellent thread. Stumbled onto it in my casual browsing and for sure missed out on the last few years of this thread.
The joys of the open air barbecue on the poop deck with ice cold beer, good food, music and onboard colleagues is something every tankerman misses.
When I was a third engineer on a gearless bulk carrier plying between Australia & China, the master would ensure we had a party every Saturday evening at sea and Badasaheb would give non watchkeeping engineers and crew a holiday on Sunday.
Good times I could never replicate on my tankers for obvious reasons - zero alcohol policy on tankers.
Best regards and hope to hear more from senior marine engineers and read varied experiences

Hello karthikjr73,
It was great hearing from you! And you are right - the time spent on car carriers was truly a sea-change for me too. Mitsui's car carriers (MOSM Tokyo-based)are all running unmanned E/rooms so life is really not a strain. The strenuous bit came during port stays, where our usual port stay would be from 2 hours to a maxm. of 16 hrs or so. That was the only maintenance break we would get, so we had to make the best of it! Earlier I had worked for several years on handy-size bulkers and life was strenuous (as expected on middle-aged bulkers!) with running maintenance taking up a good deal of time. But still, like you said, there were pleasant interludes too, when we would get more time on our hands to relax and unwind! So yes, I sympathize with you fully - on tankers life is truly hectic.

I hope you can put in a few photos of your tenures on board too. That would add to the flavour of the thread!
Regards,
Shashanka

 

[gearhead2]

The 3 wheeler car looks like a Robin Reliant which is used by disabled people in the UK. Not sure if it is still sold been a few years since I left the UK.

You are spot on JOHNLORD! That is indeed a take-off on the Reliant Robin, aka Sipani Dolphin in India. One of my friends bought one in Mumbai in the mid-80's. The Dolphin was a perfect example of our domestic "jugaad" entrepreneurship! The only thing going for the Dolphin was the fibre-glass body which was rust-proof - a real help in the city's sea-laden air. Also, with Maruti already in the market, jugaad engineering's days were numbered, and Sipani wound up soon enough.

 

[gearhead2]

Alright, a couple more from the Mitsui & OSV archives:

 

[gearhead2]

I came upon this video while doing my usual perambulating around the net. I am not sure if it belongs here, so mods if you think it inappropriate kindly delete it :-

"Top 10 coolest largest ships in the world" -

I don't know about the largest but certainly they are very certainly a very interesting group of ships!

 

[gearhead2]

"Last-minute US intervention fails as Gibraltar frees Iran tanker". This post from Quora was in my in-box, and I felt it may be of interest to fellow mariners, both active and retired, like me.
The link :
Last-minute US intervention fails as Gibraltar frees Iran tanker – IHS Markit Safety at Sea