ADVANCED TRAINING
Advanced training lasts more than a year and is very expensive, so the main contingent of this elite educational institution are sailors striving for international recognition and high earnings. Some study with their own money, but most students are sent by shipowning companies that have purchased new passenger vessels and want to engage in passenger transportation and cruises with great profit.
LANGUAGE
Any sailor, even the lowliest seaman, can communicate in English – it is something like a universal law. In an international crew, English becomes the working language – all commands are given and communication takes place in it.
The official language remains that of the state whose flag flies at the stern. Although it is clear that if it is a Panamanian or Liberian flag, this rule becomes a pure formality.
MECHANISM
In Moscow, about two dozen organizations are registered that have the right to engage in crewing activities. Four or five actually work. The same ratio is in St. Petersburg. There are also firms directly in port cities – in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Novorossiysk, Kaliningrad, Vladivostok.
A shipping company usually recruits crews for a certain period: most often for six months to a year.
To find these people, the operator sends requests to crewing agencies, specifying the requirements for the crew and all information about the vessel: where it needs to go, what to carry, the specifics of the voyage and cargo, who the captain is and what he wants. The agency, having a computer database of available sailors, selects those who meet all requirements, coordinates their data with the operator, and sends them to the port where the vessel is currently located – either individually or as a whole crew.
Previously, this service was paid for by the sailor. Although throughout the world, since the time of John Silver, this has been prohibited, money was taken from the job seeker not only for the contract, but even for accepting his data – from $20 to $200, or even a whole salary, naturally, in advance. This is no longer practiced – a much larger sum can be taken from the shipping company or directly from the shipowner.
The only thing a sailor who decides to find a job through an agency pays for is training. For example, today a navigator cannot do without knowledge of global maritime satellite communications, and a three-week training course in this discipline costs from $700 to $1,000. In addition, a navigator – like any other applicant for work on a vessel under a foreign flag – must present a host of other certificates. It is good if the sailor managed to obtain them at the nautical school, but if not, he must undergo a bunch of different trainings, and pay separately for each.
The issue of training military sailors is particularly acute. Due to army reform, they are being discharged ashore in massive numbers. But military vessels do not sail under a free flag anywhere in the world, so the chance for our military sailors to find employment in their specialty is zero. They need to master a civilian profile and gain experience on dry cargo ships, tankers, and reefers.
FLOW
Recently, the activities of crewing firms have become efficient and streamlined. Hundreds of people pass through them, and everything has been simplified as much as possible. Having returned from one voyage – "coming from a contract" – a person can immediately report this to the agency, and during the time he rests ashore, they find him work for the next few months. From several proposed options, he has the opportunity to choose the one he likes best. After that, they buy him a ticket, get a visa, and send him to the vessel's berth, be it Venezuela or New Zealand. Yes, for those who have made it into the loop – have the appropriate qualifications and experience and have started sailing under a free flag – this procedure is, one might say, well-established. True, first you have to get into the loop.
LABOR
Despite the constant rotation of personnel, the shipowner is interested in the recruited crew working with him as long as possible. Therefore, the contract is usually signed for six to nine months. Working conditions at sea are not at all like on land. And it's not just that the deck is always underfoot. Much has already been said about the psychological problems of closed same-sex groups. In addition, on land – even if you work non-stop from morning to night without days off – you still, at least at night, are at home, see your family, relax, and if you wish, you can go to a restaurant or take a walk. But on a ship, although there are shifts, during all these ten months you go ashore only a few times. You can only call home or send a letter. Therefore, after a contract, I usually take a vacation for about three months.
If you stay longer, you can "fall out of the loop" – they will stop considering you. Not responding to offers from the crewing company – not because you preferred one thing to another: refused, for example, to carry oranges from Argentina to Europe in favor of New Zealand butter and dry milk, which Russia is now feeding on – but just like that, you want to spend more time with your wife – is not accepted. First, they will call you, casually inquire about your plans, then casually, for control, inform you that in a week there will be a spot in Havana or Los Angeles, and if you don't take the hint, no one will bother you anymore – they will switch to a more disciplined candidate.
RETURN
In the first few weeks at home, you have a lot of problems with sleep. Every night at exactly four o'clock I jumped up and started getting ready for watch – according to the ship's regulations, the chief mate works from four to eight in the morning and evening. You sit in the dark on your own bed, look around, and try to understand why the ship has lost power and where the vibration and noise have gone. There is never silence on a ship: at sea, the engine is constantly running, and if you are at the dock under loading, diesel generators providing electricity are always humming.
FUNCTIONALITY
Time at sea flows by watches. My navigational watch lasted, as already mentioned, from four to eight twice a day, the second mate's from midnight to four, and so on. Standing watch – as shown in movies, where a sailor holds the wheel, leaning on it with his stomach – has nothing in common with modern reality: everything is automatic. The watch officer, while on watch, is the main person on board. The entire crew, led by the captain, can sleep, except for the watch seaman, the watch in the engine room, and you, the officer. The seaman takes the wheel only when passing through channels, narrow places, or when passing other vessels.
In the ocean, when you have to go for several days on the same course without maneuvers, the autopilot is turned on, similar to an aircraft autopilot. It maintains the set course and only needs to be adjusted occasionally.
In unusual situations, you can send for the captain to be woken up, and if something extraordinary happens – like meeting an iceberg – all navigators are called to the bridge.
HYDRODYNAMICS
Any maritime transport is very inert in motion. If for motorists driving in a skid and controlled drift are extreme phenomena, for navigators there are no other types of movement except "skidding." In navigation, only the laws of hydrodynamics apply, in which all formulas are empirical, and nothing can be calculated precisely.
If you need to turn, and you are at the helm of a substantial vessel – a dry cargo ship or a supertanker of two hundred thousand tons – then turning that very wheel is not enough – you need to calculate the maneuver, at least in your mind. You constantly think about where you will end up after you have done all this. Vessels are always crowding near ports, waiting their turn, you have to maneuver between them and squeeze through. This happens everywhere, including in such seemingly wide, thoroughly traversed places as the English Channel.
If nothing is clear and everything is very complicated, or you feel that you lack experience, the initial conditions of any maneuver can be entered into a CAD – a device that simulates the vessel's movement taking into account the situation.
Once I had to navigate a supertanker of half a million tons through the most trivial situation: a vessel on the starboard side with a constant bearing was approaching dangerously, and I needed to turn away. I started the maneuver from afar – as I was used to on "sukhari" (dry cargo ships) – and changed course from five miles away, which in principle should have prevented a collision. But my cargo was not bulk, but liquid, the turning characteristics of the tanker were different – and those five miles, of course, were not enough, and I almost flew into its side. We shouted at each other through megaphones and started backing away...
The charm and romance of free navigation are significantly spoiled by the fact that large vessels during precise maneuvers – when you need to fit exactly into given coordinates – are practically uncontrollable. In the open ocean, they can more or less hold a course, but when turning, they feel completely independent and continue to move by inertia for a long time. A precise maneuver ceases to be precise. Therefore, all participants in traffic in tight places constantly and tensely coordinate their actions with each other. How it should be according to maritime textbooks – and how it turns out in practice (at sea) – are categories that do not coincide.
RIGS
There are now many oil rigs at sea, but each one tends to pop up in the most unexpected place – due to the negligence of the third mate who did not bother to update the chart. How many problems and gray hairs they have caused navigators is comparable only to how much of the same those same navigators have caused oilmen on their ships. Once I had an incident that nearly cost the lives of almost a hundred people. Of course, I do not absolve myself of blame, but something must be done about the rigs.
Back in Soviet times, somewhere in the eastern seas, after two days of unloading and loading (that is, two days without sleep) – my shift came up. Nothing to be done, I had to stand watch. We left the port, though with nerves, turned on the autopilot, the crew is sleeping, the watch seaman, on the chief mate's orders, went to the galley to fry potatoes. And I fell asleep on watch, after all, two days on my feet! This has happened many times to many people, but this time the ship was heading for a rig. Huge, brightly lit, with pipelines, a berth – a whole town, in short.
On the drilling rig, unlike us, they were not asleep. The "Flying Dutchman" was spotted. Sensing its uncontrollability, the drillers started signaling us and trying to contact us by radio. Naturally, to no avail – the autopilot just kept working. Fortunately, huge powerful tugs were moored at the rig, which bring food and equipment to the rig. Seeing the futility of trying to wake the watch officer, the rig dispatched two tugs, and they began to push this huge vessel off course with their sides. At the same time, they honked, roared, and signaled at full power, and scraped their steel sides with all their might. But no one woke up.
The only one actively reacting to attempts to knock it off course was the honest autopilot, which continued to steer the ship to certain doom. It diligently corrected the ship's course, striving to return it to the set course. In the end, the tugs managed to turn the ship by an angle greater than allowed. And then, finally, the emergency alarm went off – a sharp and nasty ringing like a fire siren. And I woke up.
CHARTS
Once I did knock over a small oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. This area of the ocean is abundantly dotted with wooden platforms that were piratically installed in their time and then abandoned. As always, it was 4 a.m., I came to take over the watch from the second mate, and we started talking. The radar screen was absolutely clear, nothing on the chart, by all indications everything was in order.
In short, I spotted it just a hundred meters directly ahead, made the sharpest turn, the ship heeled over and still – with its side – rushed straight at the rig. It was within arm's reach, and naturally, it collapsed.
If a large active drilling rig had been in place of this wooden wreck, we would have been wrecked. Moreover, if not for the gate valve 30s41nzh and other high-quality pipeline fittings, the pipeline would certainly have burst, oil would have spilled. I don't know what can be done, but something must be done about this. Geological surveys and developments are now being carried out all over the world, companies install platforms, notifying the local cartographic organization. That informs the IMO, which in turn informs the maritime department of the queen of the seas, the British Admiralty. And the Admiralty prepares the so-called Notice to Mariners, which contains all the summary information about changes on geographical charts.
But a piratically installed rig, about which no one has reported anywhere, is, of course, not marked on any chart.
Sea routes are inscrutable. And, so to speak, very multi-directional. From the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia we carry oil, from France to England – grain, from England to France – corn, from Iran to Holland – stone, some huge boulder, and from Holland to Iran, perhaps the same stone – but of a different color, and all over the world – sand, building materials, fruits – containers, containers, containers, containing anything: electronics, food, clothing, footwear, jewelry, works of art, machine tools, weapons...
It often happens that a ship is carrying, for example, bricks to Italy. We approach Naples and suddenly receive a radiogram: the voyage has been bought by so-and-so, follow his instructions – and then the instructions themselves: turn around and head for the Comoros. We turn around, go. And then a message arrives that we have been bought again, and the bricks are now expected in Greece. We have to turn around again.
But by and large, it doesn't matter to the sailor. The salary is coming, the experience is accumulating, the wind is blowing. Only sharp turns and complex maneuvers are dangerous – then a large vessel becomes uncontrollable. But a real sailor is capable of turning around as many times and in as many directions as required.
Also read related material: HOW TO BECOME A SEA WOLF part 1
"Zagranitsa" No. 11, 1999