ROUGH SEAS,REPAIRS AND INSPECTORS

28July - Well the storms continue to subside as we leave the Monsoon waters. Remember the closure I talked about with the cargo? Well somebody decided to open it up again. They love to throw all these diverse scenarios at me and want to work out . . . just . . . one . . . more . . . box. They asked if we fueled somewhere in Brazil instead a full load in Durban. How about if we left all the cargo equipment, except the cranes, ashore and shipped them later. What if we suddenly invented a machine that could shrink the containers smaller and we put Raquel Welsh in a tiny submarine . . . you get the idea. I stuck to my guns. First off my experience with containers and their loading is that the numbers you get are never the same. I've loaded containers in India and found them to be 15 tons heavier, each. Quite the surprise when you realize, you just went through a major storm with 15 boxes over the capacity of the weight limits of the ship. Fun stuff like that. So I send in the plans showing the ship killing figures of stress and balance and go to bed.
05August12 - Well we made it Durban where we promptly went to anchor. All that rushing and pushing though rough seas only to sit and wait for five more. There is a ship in our berth so we have to wait. We are anchored just off the coast, sandy bottom and strong winds. We put out plenty of chain to hold us, as did the other 23 or so ships in the area. Durban doesn't really have an anchorage designated on charts as many ports do. It's more like a guide line. It's a small curve in the land just north of the harbor entrance. You can anchor to the West of an imaginary line coming 178 degrees from a light to the north. It's the nautical equivalent of saying, "Yeah, anywhere over there is good . . . " So we anchored and enjoyed the sights of the land. From our spot we can make out condos, hotels, rolling fields of green, great African vistas extending to the unknown lands where the first man rose on two feet and . . . is that a Hooters? Write that spot down Second Mate.


The anchorage has an unusual feature that is not found often at sea, this nuance was discovered almost immediately. Namely that it doesn't behave like a normal anchorage. You aren't shielded from anything and everything is contrary. Normally you have seas and winds coming from the same direction. Not here. We had strong winds coming from the South making the ship point in that direction like a wind vane. Then the storm from the East causing the winds is blowing up big swells from the East. So there we are taking 30 degree rolls at anchor. Not comfortable and not fun. In Fujairah we had loaded gear to secure the containers we were having to come aboard. We stowed in on the stern and secured it well. No problems during the previous storms at sea. So there I was in my room taking a break and reading a book when we took a roll and I heard scraping along a deck and a crashing sound. I cursed and walked out on deck looking for the source. I heard the scraping noise again and looking to my left I jumped as a ton and a half of steel in a 5 x 5 x4 foot box made a run at me. The lashing had broken loose and was smashing its holding bins to bits on handrails, vent pipes, each other and the occasional Mate on deck. Since my jumping space was limited I ended up jumping on the box itself. Sitting amongst steel lashing I grasped the edges as I sailed down the deck for the handrails. The ship rolled the other way and I stopped before crashing. I sighed and as I was climbing down the box went the other way making me jump back up to keep from getting run over again. The Second Mate and the Bosun were standing in the doorway as I slid by. They discussed what they needed to do to secure the boxes again as I passed in front of them again, vocalizing my displeasure . As they debated over process and procedure to alleviating predicament my cursing went from a generalization of the universe to those two in drive by fashion. They dodged the verbatim bullets as the two were trying to figure who Jane was and why she should stop this crazy thing. After a few more well narrated back and forths by me the Bosun checked his watch, finished his coffee, placed the cup in a dry place, made sure it was secure from falling, and stepped out of the doorway. Walking calmly he followed my ride down the deck. As I slammed into the handrail he pulled out a large triangle wedge of wood and jammed it into the bottom of the box against the deck stopping the box from moving. I jumped down and after thanking the Bosun for his skilled thinking I then asked politely what the Hell took him so long. He pointed to his watch and said "Coffee time." As if it explained everything and on a ship and it does actually. The ship hit a lull in the rolls and we got the lashing gear lashed down with heavier line before real damage or loss of equipment could occur. All told it could have been infinitely worse and we lost nothing over the side.


10 Aug 12 - Well we finally made it to the dock. Durban is a condensed city. The buoys coming into the harbor and not only bigger than they need to be but they are also in sync. All the buoys flash at the same time. I know its not very spectacular but it isn't something you see every day in shipping. Channel to our destination dock coming into the harbor goes along the water front of the city and ends at a broken down dredge. The City is a modern place with bars and restaurants scattered oddly along the water. Then it becomes more industrial as you enter the the working docks. These docks are owned by a large company whose name appears in different places around the city. Grindrod. Sounds like a porno star's name, like Lance Grindrod. A young man who put wisely invested his savings from movies in the Adult Industry and created this Durban Industrial business. Not a bad story to make up so basically it was a regular chuckle when I saw the name. From the time we entered to the docking was about two hours. We secured to a dock with warehouses and stacks of grey containers. I assumed it was our cargo. The agent came aboard and subsequently denied anyone shore passes. It took us all of one hour to find out he was lying through his big fat teeth. Teeth that would have seriously in question if the steward had gotten her hands on him. The Seaman Center got us what we needed to know. Yes there were no shore passes. What you had to do was leave the dock. Get a 'safe' cab (as opposed to the ones that rob and kill you) and you have to take it a few miles out of the harbor to the monstrous Immigration building located no where near a damned thing. You walk in and they stamp your passport and you can enter the country you've already entered ten minutes before freely.
Getting ready for cargo took us almost 12 hours of straight work. Shifting items moving hatch covers and the tween decks (removable lower decks set to split the holds from top and bottom). Since we were taking on containers they all had to be stacked at one end of the holds. Most were but the cargo lashing gear I needed was behind the bottom gear and I had to move all of them about one inch more to accommodate the containers coming aboard. We had to get permission to place the cargo on the dock. Apparently you get charged for anything you do here, including placing items on the dock to make room for cargo on the ship. Finished I got about 3 hours sleep before the cargo people came aboard and demanded breakfast.
I inquired about the cargo weights. They gave me the same list I had argued before a month ago. I gave permission to start loading the heavy weighted cargo below decks. As they were loading the Port Captain (a man assigned from the company to assist the cargo ops from the shore end of the opertation) had the dock workers check the weights of the boxes randomly using the heavy lift units used to carry the container to the ship in reach of our cranes. The first five were off by as much as 2 tons, the next five were off up to 3 tons. This kind of discrepancy can get light boxes below and heavy on top. I've seen ships flop over on the dock because of this mistake. So we had to stop the cargo and off load every container to come aboard. We then had the lifts check every single box and then, using chalk from the ship we had to mark every box. Budget being what it was I supplied the chalk, Then sort them out. All I prayed for was that it didn't suddenly rain and wash all the chalk off. This all cost money. Replacing the containers and on the dock was at the tune of over 200 bucks US per box. Then they wanted to charge us to check the weights with the lifts that had the read out right in the cab. So we were talking twenty bucks a glance. We were so far off in weights that somebody somewhere who did the original weighing was out about 25 grand. So we were delayed. Once I had the weights I created a stow plan and we began again. All heavy cargo on the bottom. It worked out pretty well even if was like doing cargo in 1972. My sleep was a mystery as I would get called for every single thing. It was tedious where I found myself asleep sitting on a hatch cover as containers slammed all around me.
It took some doing but we finally got all 463 containers aboard. My stow plan worked out and we got underway with the paperwork we needed and everyone was content.
That little contentment lasted about three days.


17 August 12 - In the months of June through August upstate New York enjoys a rollicking good time of warm days and heady sunny days. New York is in the Northern Hemisphere. Down this way around the Cape of Good Hope its dead on winter. The seas have picked up to almost 30 feet and move. Winds at Gale force and its not exactly tropic. We are facing seas that I have not wanted to see in many years. Everyone knows the beatings of the North seas in winter or the hurricanes of summer. These waters extending from the Antarctic and the Ice limits do their best to keep up with the reputation of their Northern Sisters. It is brutal. Deep swells, waves cresting like a surfer's dream and about even with my bridge at forty feet in the air. The only good thing is that its all taking us on the head. The bad thing is that its taking us on the head. We are loaded with prehaps the heaviest accumulation of cargo weight in the history of the ship by almost three times. 3500 tons. This is nothing compared to say, an LNG tanker carrying over 125,000 tons of liquid but its all relative. We are a fraction of the size of such a ship. But we are tender. What that means is that ship tries to react slowly due to the weight on board. These seas are fighting that and the ship is fighting back. The waves push the bow up as we pitch. The ship sinks deep into the water when we come down. Then there is the change in the pattern, because the seas have no real pattern, where the ship is coming down as a huge wave starts coming up. The result of the classic irresistible forces causing a resounding boom as we suddenly loose three knots of speed and everyone is thrown forward as the ship shakes and rattles in the aftermath. Then it happens again and again. I watched spray literally blast twice the height of the ship as the water slammed off the angled bow and straight up into the slate grey sky. I could not wait to see the damage it caused. We slowed the ship down to almost 5 knots to heave to and minimize the banging, if anything so we could sleep. That wasn't going to happen for those except the most seasoned of us and we were hard pressed from that.
What a lot of sailors have in the back of their minds in this weather is the fact that we are surrounded by thousands of square miles of what is essentially death. Grey merciless unrelenting death. I allowed no one to go outside for any reason. The cold seas were cresting along and onto the decks in five foot waves. The sea pitched in roller coaster speeds making people stagger and grab ahold of anything. A man in those waters would be gone before we turned the ship around and if the seas didn't capsize us making the attempt when we were sideways to the waves and swells. We have a small rescue boat that would be destroyed with the first crowning of a wave at its bottom and the people on the boat would be gone. So we stayed inside and endured with what looks like a solid week of this stuff. Every day and night the watch stares at the bow and breath some relief when the bow heaves up. Its when the bow stops fighting the seas you have a problem.


25 Aug 12 - the seas have subsided to the point where we could actually get some rest. The crew as a whole took a day off. Aside from regular duties that need to keep the ship running. Sleep was hard and long when it was finally embraced. Appetites were on the upswing as well. Rough seas can be a powerful appetite suppressant whether you cannot eat due to nausea or just don't feel like holding on for dear life and shovel food into your maw at the same time. Our cook Audrey had a great meal waiting for everyone and snickerdoodle cookies as well. It was this day that finally went to the bow. The first thing I found was smashed heavy wood crate and a flattened 55-gallon steel barrel drum. The drum was used for steel items that were scattered all over the deck. They were behind the breakwater. A breakwater is basically steel wall just aft of the bow. Its sole purpose is a buffer to the crashing seas across the bow. So it doesn't flood the decks and the holds. I have heard of these things bending dramatically in extreme seas but without them the ship would have sunk. Ours like most is hollow, there is an opening to walk in the front to a hallway that goes port and starboard to another opening. The crate and barrel was behind these doors. This means the wave came into the forward opening, going ninety degrees and slamming down the passageway, turing another ninety degrees out the after opening and still had enough power to flatten a steel barrel and destroy a wooden crate made of four by fours. But that was the least of my problems.
The other anchor was gone. Knowing we were going to be in rough seas I had placed a twenty ton strength chain on it. Looping into the swivel at the top of the fairlead into weld rings and tightened with a turnbuckle of galvanized steel. The chain itself was held down by a 100 pound pawl to keep the chain from running out. This faced away from the hawsepipe (the 12 inch opening that the chain leads down to the anchor), so it has to be lifted towards the opening itself from the top of the fairlead.
The holding chain had been snapped like licorice and I found the body of the turnbuckle half way down the deck towards the stern. All that was left was the swivel attached to the chain. This was nestled next to the winch itself. This meant that the water shot up the hawsepipe with such force that it threw ten feet of chain, at 30 pounds a link, plus the swivel top at 75 pounds up and through the fairlead while lifting the pawl long enough to do all this and toss it all 12 feet into the air and against the windless. The pawl alone was akin to lifting open a 1 foot by 1foot 100 pound door from the hinges rather that the door knob and from below at that.
To tell the truth that I saw this power when I saw a one foot across funnel of water shoot straight up sixty feet in the air during the last storm.
All in all the people in the office will be thrilled.


30 Aug 12 - It's a funny thing about the anchor swivels left over from both anchors. A swivel is just that. A manufactured link that does what the name implies. It swivels around and at the same time can support the weight of the anchor itself. This is a necessary part of the anchor chain set up to compensate for twists and such that occur when the anchor is put on the bottom. The anchors we had from the original Chinese builders were screw in types. Meaning that they were not swivels. Unless you say that they swivelled one way. They were threaded which suggests that these were the delivery ends to be removed at the shipyard. But Chinese shipbuilders using the lead paint cost cutting and general take out food ethics of "I don't care what happens when they are gone from here" kept them on the anchors.
So over time as the bouncing of the five ton anchors from the waves, and trust me there is no tightening you can do to prevent that motion, wore out the threads just enough to let it drop one thread. This loosened the anchor enough for more, if slight, up and down motion. This millimeter of give is hard to spot unless you are on the bow and you don't want to be on the bow during those seas. Still we had the impression it was a swivel just because of how it looked. So we figured that, with the assistance of a stopper chain that could hold three times the weight of the anchor we'd be okay. No such luck.
The clarity of the nouns caused a stop gate to anyone I tried to explain this to in the office or any inspectors who came aboard. My fault. I kept referring to the broken piece as a "Swivel" and I found that using quote fingers is not nearly as effective over the phone as you'd think. With some people it didn't work right in front of them. My problem was that I had no name for the piece to refer it to. It was either 'swivel' or 'that cheap Chinese built piece of unmitigated crap that looked like a swivel but wasn't and it broke because it wasn't" which lent to great confusion.
You'd think the phrase 'non-swivel' would have worked but, heh, the word 'swivel' was still in the mix and the focus would be on that word. All I ended up with was an Abbott and Costello routine as I explained the picture I sent to the office over the phone.
Me: This is the piece that broke
Inspector: The swivel?
Me: No, it's a non-"Swivel" (I helpfully make quotation marks with my fingers)
Inspector: So explain how the swivel broke (completely missing the hand motions on his end of the phone)
Me: It didn't break, it tore out of the threads
Inspector: If it was a swivel why would it unscrew on threads
Me: Because it wasn't a swivel. Swivels don't unscrew. It didn't unscrew. It tore out.
Inspector: So you say the swivel broke off
Me: Tore out
Inspector: if something swivels then it would have broken the link that swivels instead of the threads tearing out.
Me: Its not a swiv. . . it shouldn't have threads to begin with.
Inspector: It's a screw-in swivel?
Me: Third Base.
Inspector: what?
And cue the Three Stooges Music.....#