Here's an article I read this morning that I found very interesting, but also it hit home. It's long, and my post that goes along with it is long too, but I do recommend reading the article at least because it gives you a sense of what things can be like out there.
Although one thing I do want to add is that Containerships are similar to Cruise ships in that Scheduling is extremely important. The only difference being that Cruises worry about getting to the dock while containerships just worry about making it to the buoy that signals the entrance to the port. Labor costs for unloading containers are extremely high, and so showing up on time is a huge deal to the office (and therefore, a huge deal to the Captain).
Anyway, here's the article, I found it very depressing to read, and a bit familiar as well.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/12/el-faro-transcript-ntsb/510662/?utm_source=fbbThe Pathos of El Faro's Final Hours
Across 500 pages of transcript drawn from the sunken freighter’s bridge, crew members question the decision to sail into Hurricane Joaquin and gradually grasp their perilous situation.
Few forms of literature carry quite the mix of feelings that a National Transportation Safety Board docket does. The federal commission produces reams and reams of evidence on each accident it investigates, much of it rendered in dry, technical language and buttressed by pages of mechanical data. But these reports also tell the story of people’s deaths, sometimes in excruciating detail.
On Tuesday, the NTSB released a transcript of audio recordings from the bridge of El Faro, the freighter that sank near the Bahamas in October 2015, after sailing into Hurricane Joaquin. Over more than 500 pages of transcript, the ship’s sinking unfolds. Anyone reading it knows from the start it will end with the deaths of all 33 sailors aboard. But the characters in the drama don’t know of their impending fate until the last moments, though some of them clearly had their hesitations. Although the NTSB redacts conversation that isn’t pertinent, the transcript captures small talk that lays bare the crew’s hesitations, the captain’s frustrations, and the day-to-day tensions in any workplace.
The NTSB has not yet drawn any conclusions about why the freighter sank. Such sinkings are extremely rare today. But the boat sailed directly into the path of the hurricane, and the recordings, as well as previously known phone calls that Captain Michael Davidson made to land, show that the vessel began listing and was taking on water, and that El Faro lost power before sinking. Davidson gave the order to abandon ship, but the sailors, equipped with life vests, immersion suits, and open life rafts and open lifeboats, must have stood little chance in the middle of a howling hurricane. Although rescuers spotted what they believe was one body in an immersion suit, they were unable to recover it, nor were bodies of any of the other sailors found.
As the drama opens, it’s 6:35 a.m. on September 30, and Davidson and Chief Mate Steven Shultz are discussing what course to pursue as they head north, toward the hurricane. They puzzle at the storm’s name. Davidson had been a captain for 10 years and worked at Tote Marine, El Faro’s owner, for three. Shultz was new to the boat, having arrived in August.
“Should I be scared?” Shultz asks. There’s no clear answer. It’s one of the many moments of foreshadowing in the transcript. A few minutes later, Davidson looks up. “Oh, look at that red sky over there,” he says. “Red in the morning, sailors take warning. That is bright.” They chat about ways to skirt the storm, and Davidson chuckles at nervous types who might be worried.
Later that morning, Third Mate Jeremie Riehm is chatting with another sailor on the bridge. “We’re gonna get slammed tonight,” he warns. They keep talking, as Riehm complains about staffing issues on the boat and the impossibility of getting competent electricians to join the crew. The sailor agrees, but adds that El Faro’s current crew is one of the more competent and less tension-ridden ones he’s worked on. “This is just a breath of fresh air from what I'm used to,” he says.
Around 9:20 a.m., the captain is back on the bridge. “This ship is solid, it’s just all the … [censored] umm—uh—survival suit-safety meeting thing very seriously,” she says. “Then it's, ‘Yeah, whatever. It fits,’ but nobody actually sees to see if their survival suit fits. I think today would be a good day for the fire and boat drill—just be like, ‘So we just wanna make sure everyone’s survival suit fits,’ and then with the storm people are gonna be like, ‘Holy [censored]. I really need to see if my survival suit fits—for reaaal.’”
By 3:45 a.m. or so, the sound of an alarm informing the crew that the ship is off course is sounding regularly. The crew is struggling to keep the boat where they want it because of the waves and wind. At 4:10 a.m., the captain tries to buoy spirits.
“There’s nothing bad about this ride,” Davidson says. “Sleeping like a baby.”
“Not me,” Shultz replies.
“What? Who’s not sleeping good? Home come?”
Shultz replies with a string of expletives.
At 5:15 a.m., an engineer notes that the ship is listing badly, more than he’s ever seen it. “Only gonna get better from here,” Davidson says.
It’s almost possible to believe him, to take heart in his courage and imagine that somehow El Faro will make it through. That makes it even more of a gut-punch when, at 6:12 a.m., Davidson says, “I’m not liking this list.” A minute later: “I think we just lost the plant,” the ship’s power. But he [censored] ship. At 7:28, on the UHF radio, he says he wants to make sure everyone has their immersion suits. At 7:29, Davidson gives the order to abandon ship.
In the final minutes of the recording, Davidson pleads with a sailor to move.
“We gotta move. You gotta get up. You gotta snap out of it and we gotta get out,” he says.
“Okay,” the sailor answers. “Help me.”
“You gotta get to safety,” Davidson shouts.
“Help me,” the sailor cries. “Help me.”
“Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Work your way up here,” the captain says. He refuses to leave.
“I can’t. I’m a goner.”
“It's time to come this way,” Davidson shouts. Then the recording stops.
The transcript is one of the most gripping things published this year, and yet it feels uncomfortably voyeuristic to catch this glimpse into the last moments of these people’s lives. It’s a little like watching a snuff film. Despite an extensive search effort, no human remains from the ship’s 33 crewmembers have been recovered. One lifeboat was recovered, badly damaged, while the other was eventually found on the sea floor, with one half shorn off. Even finding the audio recording was difficult. It was only in April that the recorder was found, after pressure from Senator Bob Graham of Florida (no relation to this writer), and only in August that it was recovered.
It’s unclear when the NTSB might release its conclusions, though as the Miami Herald notes, the information released so far seems to point toward a focus on the difficulty of forecasting Hurricane Joaquin, whether the ship was receiving up-to-date forecasts, and the condition of El Faro. Until then, we’re left with the haunting transcript of the ship’s final hours.
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A lot of folks don't realize just how much commerce is done over water. Pretty much every good you own comes via ship.
Currently I work on very big ocean going tug-barge rigs that move Petroleum, usually moving product between Houston and Charleston, and storms are frequently an issue. Especially hurricane seasons.
I find that I do sympathize with this Captain about the pressure that offices of these shipping companies put on their vessels. We call it Captaining from a Desk. The company hires their captains to run their ships, but then, when the Captain makes a decision (they were hired to do), they're hung out to dry.
We're a little different because there's only 10 of us on our vessel, whereas, the El Faro had somewhere around 30, but some of it's similar. Ships have a much more vertical hierarchy structure, whereas, we're much more horizontal. With fewer people, and less "I'm higher rank than you", I feel that it makes us much more of a family. Considering that's half the time I spend in my life, I prefer it.
We were stuck heading out into Hurricane Matthew, and there certainly was a lot of fear. That's a lot of what's familiar to me. The joking from the junior mates. Cause, there's really nothing else that you can do but sort of laugh off the terrible situation you're in. What use is there to dwell on it? Just say a prayer before you go to bed, make sure your survival suit is ready, and hope for the best. So you might as well make light of your impending doom...
I actually sent my wife an email as we were headed out, detailing what happened, and if anything went wrong, who to blame (and I certainly didn't blame my Captain. I'd sail with him anywhere).
Totally sucked though. You wouldn't believe the lack of support you get from the office sometimes. We dealt with a good cop/bad cop situation. One high up office guy calls on the phone telling you they support you in whatever decision you make, the safety of the crew is the most important thing. Then his underling calls up soon after yelling about your decision and telling you that you're on your own and if anything happens, Your Butt is Toast. During all discussions, you could tell that everything was tape recorded on their end, and the office guys would go through long periods of silence where you could tell they had to be texting eachother or messaging somehow (like all the cards weren't on the table).
It made me so sick to my stomach and really has made me question whether I ever even want to be a Captain. The crew is the ones who are gonna be stuck going out in that crap (while the office gets to hang out on shore, running operations via cellphone and laptop), and our Captain is basically told he's on the hotseat at that point. He still has this sense that anything that happens hereon is just an easy excuse for them to fire him with how the whole incident went down.
Essentially, they wanted us to leave, he refused until the Captain of the Port made us leave (which is a totally different issue). So we were the second to last ship to leave before the port was completely closed due to the impending hurricane. The last ship was a containership an hour behind us (like the El Faro, but modernized and bigger) and could move at twice our speed.
Had we lost our plant like they did, we could have been in some real trouble. Real real trouble. Lose our plant, get ourselves sideways to the swell, and become disconnected from the barge, anyone on the tug better get to a liferaft ASAP because our tug is not designed to be disconnected from the barge and certainly not meant to be out in the Atlantic in a hurricane disconnected, I don't care what any "stability letter" says.
