hatch boards

[j.sabourn]

That is allowing for the automation of a vessel. A ship still needs normal hygiene and clean conditions of living. Proper lookouts for safety of navigation as per Rules set out by International agreement supposedly. Fire and other support systems for crew and ship safety. A modicum of maintainance of ship. Even the handling of mooring lines berthing and unberthing. A ship does not run itself whatever one reads in the comics. Dan Dare is not here in person yet if ever. One man falls over who replaces him. A storm damages your battery systems and you lose radio contact. You lose automatic steering devices, the list is endless. Any catastrophe on the vessel so manned would warrant it being abandoned. It is almost already abandoned in any case. The sleep patterns of present crew are non existant except on long uneventful ocean passages. Anything out of the ordinary and you are in trouble with very low manning of a crew on certain vessels in contact with shore backing is workable I know because have done it, however it can be disasterous when things don't go to the liking of those who advocate such. Cheers JS

[alf corbyn]

if those tents had been onUCL they would have been used for camping

[Ray McCerery]

Sg1=ab sg2=edh.

[Ray McCerery]

no more abs seaman 1 and 2 no not speak our english sad mate cheers ted

sg1=ab sg2=edh

[Keith Tindell]

What goes around, comes around, only yesterday another Cruise liner launched in Italy, bigger than any other so far, but it is only a matter of time before we have a major disaster with huge losss of life on one of these ships, was nearly there with Costa Concordia, it was only the proximity of land that saved most of them. At that point there will be the normal outcry, aand some bright spark in offices will decide that more crew was needed, and offf we go again, KT

[Chris Isaac]

My suggested minimum manning of a ship nowadays would be Master Mate 2 Mate, 6 seamen, Cook. Steward. 3 engineers Total 14. At present on the type of vessel I am visualizing total manning is 9. This is cutting to the bone the manning of a vessel. The total of 9 crew members is totally unsafe by even todays standards. 14 is smaller than would like, but to go to 9 is ridiculous in most cases. This would only be experienced seafarers as well. any junior ratings would be a bonus on top of the 14. JS

I look back to one of my old ships back in 1965, SS Ayrshire. Refrigerated cargo ship powered by steam turbines. Total ship's compliment 93, just about enough!

[Les Woodard]

It is very interesting as well as worrying for me reading these posts, especially JS's as to manning now days, let alone the professional competence-experience of the crews. They could not surely do this to the commercial aircraft-line industry if only for the safety factor, so how does the system work now at sea? Are there no industry experienced people on the regulatory bodies who can see the inanity of what is occurring? No maybe naively I do not believe that it is the shipping owners controlling-directing this situation, is it civil servants gone mad?
In my profession you could not even with automation coming in cut back dramatically on manning either in the construction or operating of a mine whether underground or open cut let alone the oil or gas sector. This was so no matter where you were operating & no matter how many people you could employ, i.e. Africa Asia as you had to have a set number of well trained qualified personal on site at all times or your production-equipment would suffer at best, at worst serious accidents would happen. If you wish to see where this occurs look at Indonesia-Irian Jaya where they are raping the country in the industry with 18c methods of recovery, destroying the environment all for in many cases minimum return almost a cottage-iron age industry methodology. yes there are a number of internationally recognised mining Co's operating however most wish they had never gone in there.

See here in Oz that in some of the mines they are now using remote control for the trucks so doing away with drivers in those mega sized trucks. How long before they trial out this method with ships?

[Ivan Cloherty]

See here in Oz that in some of the mines they are now using remote control for the trucks so doing away with drivers in those mega sized trucks. How long before they trial out this method with ships?

Doing it everywhere Les, even on some of the larger farms over here, harvesters controlled by programming in Lat/Long, field area length and breadth and then run remotely with aid of satellites. Unmanned ocean going ships may cause a bit more of a challenge with the vagries of ocean currents, tides and unpredictable weather patterns that the forecasters have not yet got down to a reliable standard, not forgetting the odd rogue wave that a computer cannot see

[j.sabourn]

McGregors.... Funnily enough Keith, looking back I can recall the more or less advent of McGregors. They had their main office in Monkseaton (Whitley Bay) a very small place indeed so must of had a factory elsewhere. I remember being on the train going from Monkseaton to Newcastle and this bloke came and introduced himself as a McGregor and said you go to sea don't you. As up until that time I didn't know any better apart from the old hatchboard and tarp system, thought this bloke was blowing hot air, or was peculiar, wont say queer. McGregors made headlines in shipping circles a few years later with their hatches and franchised their invention and made millions. So from a very small business a huge industry grew. If I hadn't been young and simple it could of been the ground floor way in for me to have been one of their salesman. Chances missed. This contact would of been in the late 50"s. Cheers John S.

[happy daze john in oz]

See here in Oz that in some of the mines they are now using remote control for the trucks so doing away with drivers in those mega sized trucks. How long before they trial out this method with ships?

Les they have been trialing this off the West coast of USA for a couple of years now.
And in NZ, Dunedin, they have driverless trains.