The Merchant Marine Express

The ship is steaming “light” towards its loading port in Lake Charles. We use this term to represent the loaded condition, or what and how much the ship is weighed down. And, if no cargo, especially on a tanker, the term may be “light” or also commonly expressed, “In-ballast” or loaded by only using sea water.

The Chemical Explorer has once again, made good time while in Tampa as she discharged all of her fuel cargo, such as Jet, Diesel and Regular-unleaded. This period had its share of inclement days, but only as a brief down pour of rain occurred on our second morning with it clearing up by afternoon with sunshine, and drying the dampened decks.

We landed a pallet full of ship’s stores earlier, including some back ordered supplies of personal protective equipment, or “PPE” which I am responsible for inventorying and monitoring. Bunches of leather gloves and sport safety glasses finally arrived, as the ship was in dire need of this valuable supply for quite sometime. Crewmembers complained, to no end, of not having the correct set of gloves to work with, or not being able to see through their older scratched safety glasses; Delving fresh equipment out to the ship’s complement is like Christmas, all over again, as I was Santa Claus.

On the last day of cargo, just as things went as smooth as they could, as we prepared to set off the dock, we encountered a small series of challenges. Upon departing for sea, and just as the ship slowly crept away from her dock, or “slip”, the tugboat which had been secured to the portside ‘Quarter’ or aft section, had made a maneuver which caused her to nagate the normal actions which she set out to accomplish. A call from the ship’s pilot to the tugboat to start the pulling process of bringing the ship aft section away from the slip, a typical maneuver, proved futile, in this case.

The abrupt motion of the tug caused stress on the huge Hauser line to weaken, as she was attached to our bollard on the ship and as the increased pressure on the line brought tension and stress to the synthetic fabric, intertwined with hundreds of strands, the Hauser had enough with her life as a mooring line and as a result, made a loud ‘bang’ before snapping quickly and breaking away before the remaining line fell back into the water. This rare, but not uncommon situation of a line ‘parting’ could have made for a life
threatening situation, if one of us had been within close proximity of this line as she parted! The tug, at the time, was countering the effects of the brisk wind which had been building throughout the morning, as well, and in addition, her Hauser wasn’t in the best of shape for wear.

The line parted just as the bight of the ‘eye’ or looped portion fixed to the bitt on our ship gave way, and the section was left onboard seemingly as a token of what just transpired. This evidence, if you will, would be displayed for every crew member to see of how delicate a component of mooring equipment could become.

In addition, the newest Able Seaman, who just joined the ship a day earlier, and who had assumed the wheel during this whole undocking evolution, hadn’t become totally familiar with the finesse of being a helmsman and proved to be the Achilles heel of the bridge team as he didn’t help with matters.

Because, as the attention had shifted to the situation involving the tugboat, the helm’s steering orders were now vital to the ship’s safety as drastic measures to keep steady, her heading, and as the ship was now precariously poised between a dock and dangerously nearing the neighboring ship which had been at the adjacent dock, all morning long; the helm wasn’t absolutely comfortable with the barked orders from the pilot and had to be ‘kicked off the wheel’ by the master as the other Third Mate, who was standing close by at the engine controls, now assumed the wheel. A quick call from the Master to bring up a Quartermaster was an odd call on the radio, but I summoned for one of our Able Seaman as we were on the stern, to dash up to the bridge to assist in any capacity. I could only imagine that was a unique sight to see, an officer at the helm with an Able Seaman standing by.

In the end, things smoothed out, and the dock slowly disappeared off our portside and into the distance as we made headway towards the sea buoy, bound for sea.

I slept well that night, as we adverted yet a potentially dangerous situation with the quick actions and instinctual safety of, “What could go wrong,, may go wrong”, and compensate accordingly.

Folks, have a great weekend! We’ll be in port by Sunday evening.

Tags: Chemical Explorer