When I first started at sea at the ignorant age of 18, I asked this guy with four gold stripes on his shoulder, "who the hell are you"? The beer instantly froze over, the silence was deafening and the clock simply stopped ticking - nobody moved!
The Captain was God and from that moment forward and until another six years had passed I could never really look one in the eye again!
Captains used to live at the top, they sunbathed, they sauntered onto the bridge during manoeuvring, they sat at the head of table, they could be grumpy, dour or happy and nobody would say "peep"! They lived an existence than no man could interfere with - except perhaps the Chief Engineer with a bottle of heavily fortified spirits - Captains were respected by agents, communities, chandlers and any who visited the vessel and should he grace the bridge with his presence the pilot showed deference to a man of vast experience! A sage was he!
Times have changed considerably to the extent that today a typically Captain is overworked, underpaid and overstressed for most part of his tour but worst of all he is no longer respected by those who visit the vessel!
As one Lloyds Surveyor recently put it "I'm sure ships crew used to look forward to coming to port, now they look forward to being at sea". And this is so notably true amongst the thousands of Captains and crews who sail the high seas today! A Captain used to be the respected figure in a community, now he's "that strange man who goes away for a while and then comes back again".
Today ships crews must keep a security watch, seafarers who once out-proved themselves in splicing, steering, chipping and painting and lashing are now reduced to standing for twelve hours a day at a gangway, come rain, snow or shine, asking anybody who deigns to visit for identification! The ultimate insult to a trained man! The Captain, he who once floated around with his four gold bars, now suffers the arrogance of Port State Control, surveyors, cargo-surveyors, the internal audits, the external audits, company visits, the Coast Guard, immigration, customs and anybody else with puffed-up shoulders who feel that they have something to prove!
I was always told and thus assumed when ISM first reared its head that it was all about protecting the seafarer! To package up his rights and safety in a manner that no company could interfere with! At last I thought "here comes something that takes the seafarers interest first". Then along came Security (ISPS) which has all but knocked safety on the head by battening down the ship so tight that in an emergency all the doors will be locked and by ensuring that no maintenance is done in port as the AB's struggle to keep awake at the gangway!
It is not the rules alone that have knocked the Captains down to the level of "subservient peon"! It is those very rules and thus the people that enforce them, those that came to protect that have caused this. Those guys, the Port State Control, the flag state, the coast guard agencies, the surveyors and auditors all come onboard with a self-inflated status, a need to find something, to show that they are in-control, that they are in-charge and that only they know - it is not about protecting a seafarers rights, it is about filling a role to the extent that none can leave a vessel with a good comment, none can leave a vessel without having something negative to put down onto paper to justify their very existence!
If no points are raised during an audit or inspection, if there is nothing "bad" to create the paper-work trail then what after-all is their purpose in-life? The job has been created, now it needs justification! As one Singapore Flag State Auditor said to me "give me something, I need to write something down onto paper". Indeed, a friendly Auditor but even he felt the need to justify his position to some boss with a bean calculator back in the office!
I recall clearly one Port State Control Inspector who came onboard with a right stuffed-up attitude! No smile, no handshake, no "give" just the impression that he was in-charge and that the whole vessel was criminally inept! Guilty until proven guilty! He found things that mattered not, like IMO numbers that were one-centimetre too small and the fact that the AB on security detail seemed nervous, a need to find something to prove his worth? His visit occupied the whole day and involved the Captain, the Chief Officer, the Chief Engineer and the cook who could no longer plan meals due to an attending Health and Safety rep who seemed to have his head stuck in the fridges!
This inspector has not helped! He has not found anything worthwhile, he has not improved the safety or environmental integrity of the vessel, in-fact he has worsened life simply by making the port stay disagreeable and stressed! The ship left port with a group of disgruntled, tired and disillusioned seafarers who did not manage to have a little rest after a hard sea voyage and who will most likely now receive grief from the company superintendent for not completing the required maintenance that had been prescribed during that very same port visit!
No surprises then that nobody wants to come to sea anymore! "Go to Sea and see the world" the careers advisors would chant! Now they should say "go to sea and bow your head in subservience whilst Auditors, Surveyors, self-inflated Port State Control Inspectors and Coast Guard Officials come onboard without due respect to a vessels crew and treat all like ignorant first trippers"!
As many seafarers now mutter, what comes next? What can possibly be the next missile landing on the deck! All those office bound desk jockeys in IMO who dreamt up ISM and ISPS now need to justify their jobs by creating something else! Alien watches perhaps? Guns mounted on the f/castle? A need perhaps to re-look at safety as statistics do now show that humans are responsible for 95% of most accidents - replace seafarers with robots and I'm sure many would say "at last"! Maybe a fitness regime; spreadsheets monitored by a "fitness controller" in each port who come snootily onboard to check that each officer has been correctly filling in his exercise sheet! Twenty press-ups in the morning, knee jerks at lunch-time and an hour of tennis in the cargo hold (don't make excuses that it was full of cargo) before dinner! Detain a ship and talk down to the Captain because the Second Officer had not brushed his teeth that morning!
The Captain used to be at the top, now he's fallen from Grace!
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