Safety at sea now

[j.sabourn]

John , I and many others are quite aware on paper of the authority that the master holds. By your posts will not understand the different situations. There is no such thing as black and white you are discussing ordinary cargo carrying vessels which are mostly routine and mundane jobs. Also discussing possible straight forward scenarios of whether to sail or not, which the average village idiot could make, it is a bit more a bit more complicated. Unless you have sailed on such vessels and know the who has the most pull for future business and a few other points, your job can be at the whim of some charterer, all he has to say to the owner we will take the ship for x number of days on the condition you replace the master. Where do bits of paper come into it.? We had a saying offshore "you are only as good as your last job" and this is true you can be the blue eye one minute and the next day gone, through someone just pointing the finger. An ideal world is regular shipping, unfortuanetley there isn't much left and all your students are going to have to face the harsh realities of going to sea in trades that didn't exist in the past. lets hope they have the right morals for a seagoing career of today. 13.5 hours to 2015 all the best, refuse any invitations to Cappys he will only use you as a baby sitter while he goes on the town. PS Peoples visions of a master pacing the Bridge would get a surprise if they were on a seismic vessel where 12 hours of the day one is probably sitting steering the ship on seismic courses and the mate doing the other 12 hours this is for weeks at a time, so there is half the day gone before any other duties you may need to do. Cheers JS

[John Pruden]

thanks lads for your answers there dos not seem to be much thought of safety but to me like a pilot of an aircraft anything goes wrong you are in the front seat and it seems the fall guy.. jp

[j.sabourn]

#66... John at the end of the day all the pieces of paper in the world are not going to save you. I had a contract with Seaforth Maritime of Aberdeen if any one is interested which was supposed to top up the MN pension one. This was a supposedly legal binding document and know when they went to the wall some received and others did not. I chased them for a long time with legal bodies with no success, I hope someone may read this and sue me for defamation of their working practices and would then get at least an answer from them as why they did not abide by the agreement. I then might get some satisfaction at least of a straight answer from one of the insurance companies that they kept switching to. The same as any legality whether it be in Shipping or any other industry is always open to corrupt manipulators. Why do you think the Gaols are full, mostly are corrupt swindlers, unfortuanetly or fortuanetly as the case may be they are only a very few of the ones caught and prosecuted, otherwise they would have to bring back the prison hulks for extra accommodation, which might in itself be a good thing. Cheers JS

[Captain Kong]

A lot of those conditions changed after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster at Zeebruge when they brought in the new Law of "Corporate Manslaughter" where the blame could also be pointed at the Owners in an incident.
Cheers
Brian.

[John Pruden]

common sense would/could tell anyone the what if factor of being in charge of passengers lives even though there was concern about the safety of the ship in reports. jp