Cadet Hrvoje Musulin considers the North Pacific rain and possibly his choice of a career at sea. One thing he's learning is long ocean passages are easier than dealing with unsympathetic landlubbers.
Merchant sailors complain that their work is vital, but unappreciated. In his 2004 book, The Colombo Bay, Richard Pollak termed it “The invisibility of their calling.” You only hear about ships after an oil spill (as now in New Zealand). Rather like an essential, but unloved, sewer worker dealing with an effluent overflow.
Officers and crew feel people at head office, immigration, terminals, suppliers, agents, etc. (in no particular order) don't understand; they've not been at sea for months, facing problems far from convenient terra firma. Seafarers are not the only ones to deplore parsimonious accountants and uncooperative bureaucrats. However, the sea's an inhospitable workplace - one alien to most of us - and that, combined with isolation, can make sailors especially prone to grousing.
Among the major complaints are cuts in crew. Amber has twenty-two officers and crew, two being dogsbody cadets. The P&O Nedlloyd container ship on which I previously circumnavigated had thirty-three officers and crew, including two cadets (In fairness to CMA CGM, it survives while PONL doesn't, having succumbed to cutthroat competition and been bought out).
It's worth noting, as a pre-container example, the Melbourne Star. Launched in 1947, she was typical, British cargo ship of her time and had a crew of seventy-three.
Economizing has been blamed - and here I'm talking about the industry, not just CMA CGM - for overwork and fatigue. In areas where ships quickly move in and out of a series of ports - for instance, East Asia and the American eastern seaboard - the hours can be long and hard.
We already know, although registered in the U.K., Amber's crew is anything but British. Many British officers are represented by Nautilus, a merchant marine union, and, at least in the past, often spent entire careers with one line. Amber's contract officers and crew - hired through manning agencies - are mostly on their own. They have no loyalty to any particular company or ship, but I'm impressed by their commitment to working the vessel as best they can.
Major international shipping lines have largely said farewell to Western sailors. While companies would never publicly say so, Third World seamen are easier to manage - and certainly cheaper - than assertive, unionized crew.
I don't know what the East European officers earn, but have some idea of a deck crewman's basic monthly wage - $550 U.S. - on what is usually a nine month contract. On top of that are seniority, overtime and 'incentives'. Low cost seafarers are another reason why the 'made in China' iPad on which I'm writing this blog was affordable.
History says low cost isn't new. 19th Century tea clippers weren't built to look supremely beautiful; they were constructed for speed and efficiency. They weren't designed for oil paintings in expensive galleries, but to get a product from the Far East to European and American markets as fast as possible. They were launched to make money for hard nosed owners and crews were pared to the minimum. The price of tea came down.
Ordinary Seaman Arniel Iabrea mops the passageway outside my cabin. He and some 300,000 Filipinos are at sea. The Philippines is the world's largest source of seafarers, on all types of ships, cargo and passenger.
Arniel is treated a whole lot better than the cold, wet, often abused sailors on the clippers. He has a private cabin with bathroom, a cozy crew lounge (where he can sing karaoke!) ...
... and is well fed. Here's the crew mess. Don't know who chooses the pictures.
The Filipino seafarer may be low cost, but earns more than he ever would at home. Still, the work is perilous, confined and lonely, lonely in the sense of separation from family. Watchman Elmer Sedicol says, "Time at home is so short and time at sea so long." One of his contracts was on a ship that, for ten months, sailed only in the sweltering Persian Gulf. In Iraq, it was too dangerous to get off, so the crew's one break on a voyage was a few hours in Oman to go to a shopping centre.
Here's Elmer on the bridge.
The workplace is a potentially hazardous industrial setting with all sorts of opportunities for injury: falling down hatches; burns in the engine room; being overcome by fumes or lack of oxygen in enclosed spaces.
Two people were killed in an accident on a CMA CGM ship earlier this year. However, the company emphasizes safe working with regular drills and information sessions, duly recorded in the ship's documents. I rather liked this 'happy' sign at the top of the gangway.
The Balkan officers are a moody, broody, contentious lot (not surprising given the region's past), though with a rough humour, sensitivity and bursts of generosity. The chief mate and second engineer at first treated me cautiously ("This is not a cruise ship"), but have been particularly welcoming.
The Filipinos are ever cheerful, at least when I'm around, and, it strikes me, have more dignity than cruise ship waiters and stewards hustling for tips. Amber's bosun says, "We have to fight the ship." It's war, but, wearily coming off duty, Filipino sailors - below on another freighter - told me, "We got the money, sir!"
Here are Able Seaman Oliver Legal and Arniel. I will miss them and their resilient, gritty shipmates.
