Basic Safety Training

As part of my college program and training required by international maritime law, I had my basic safety training this week. This entails survival training and fire fighter training. I have learned a lot and there is nothing like becoming competent with the gear to boost your self-esteem. After a successful day learning how to extinguish different types of fires and running an obstacle course in the dark, while breathing through a mask with compressed air, I felt pretty good about myself. Today we went one step further and entered a burning structure, once through a door and a second time through a hatch in the roof. We removed a victim (read: a stuffed fire-fighting suit that supposed to represent a human-like doll) and we practiced extinguished fires from inside an enclosed space. The day ended with some survival training, for which we had to wear survival suits and life vests and jump in the water from two meters high. I was a little wigged out about the jumping part and the water was damn cold, but it was a fun and useful training.

I trained with a group different from my classmates, they don’t go to my school and with the exception of myself and one other guy, they were all white guys. During some of the training a few were a bit unfocussed and more interested in goofing around than paying attention to the instructors. One of the instructors got a bit weary of their general behavior and started applying some bigotry in an effort to scare them into paying better attention. One of the trainees was standing in the wrong place (behind another guy, rather than next to him) and the instructor said to him “Don’t stand over there. What are you, a homo?” He also got them to focus their attention on me during a water huddle (huddling in the water with a group of people is what you do to better conserve body-temperatures and also to prevent people from floating away). The instructor said “You finally have permission to cuddle with a girl, so do it”. This caused one guy to join the huddle so enthusiastically that he nearly dragged me under. Throughout the day I was also regaled with the stories about the breasts of various women, in other words: Dumb boob jokes.

After the training ended we gathered in the cafeteria and the instructor expressed his concern about the general attitudes of some of the trainees. The trainees in question were unsure what he meant and I joked at them by saying “he feels sorry for you”. Well, clearly I had now crossed the line. The guy later took me aside and said that I should not have said that and that in their place he would have been furious. “They are simple guys,” he told me, “with a simple education (a two year maritime program, rather than a four year college).” I was told that they can’t handle such an insult and it was further implied they were fragile. I had seen them joke around and goof off all day, so clearly they had understood the concept of humor, and I thought those complaints were a bit rich coming from an instructor, who less than two hours before, had called one of the trainees “gay” and not as an inappropriate inquiry into that guy’s personal life, but as an obvious insult. I told him that they make comments all day that could also make me “jump out of my skin”, if I should so choose, and that I was sure they had understood my remark to them to be a joke. The instructor however insisted that I need to be more careful not to hurt their feelings and that he was sure they would not have understood that it was all suppose to be in good fun. I repeated that it was merely a joke, shrugged my shoulder and dropped the matter.

I was not the least bit impressed by the instructor’s beratement and I thought him a total hypocrite. However, it kept playing around in my mind, because I had not seen it coming, particularly not from that guy. He clearly has no problems whatsoever taken down his own trainees a peg, but as soon as he thinks someone else is (he thought I called them stupid, but my comment about pitying them referred to their unfocussed behavior during the training and how they would end up if they acted like that during a real emergency, which was the whole purpose of the training in the first place) there is a problem. I am not certain about the true reason he was upset with me, but I thought it was weird.

Internship Orientation

Last month I got word that I was accepted into the internship program of a cruise ship company. I was really proud. Of all the internship spots that I could have ended up with I wanted this the most. I have spent the past years getting familiar with this company and didn’t need to do any research going into the interview, but I did anyway. I could be perfectly happy about this arrangement, where it not for this tiny issue that is slowly turning out not to be so tiny after all.

Like you would expect with a cruise ship company, the crew wears uniforms most of the time. This makes them recognizable to passengers and other crew members and has the added bonus of clarity of dress policy. I am highly in favor of company clothes and uniforms, as long as they are also practical and comfortable; considering you will be spending a good many hours every day wearing them this would be the minimum requirement. Safety is also a great concern for me. As crew members you may be involved in emergencies where your own safety and that of the passengers is vitally important. Uniforms should allow you to spring into action as soon as an alarm sounds.

Unfortunately, not having a penis means that my uniform won’t fit that description.  I will be required to wear a pencil skirt and pantyhose, where the men get trousers.  It is “preferable” for female cadets to have shoes with a heel, whereas the male cadets get to wear comfortable flat shoes. During official events the uniform for female cadets becomes even more outrageous. We will then be required to switch to a long skirt and a low-cut jacket for which we have to buy some type of lingerie shirt, just so we won’t be flashing cleavage to the guests. The pencil skirt is also way shorter than anything the men wear, so that means continuously shaving legs and always making sure those frail pantyhose are still in one piece.

The fun part of pantyhose is that it takes time and skill to put them on. I don’t have that skill, which means that tend to break at least three pair just to put one on. Even if I go for the cheapest ones (at €2,- each) I will be spending at least 6 Euros a day and likely more on an article of clothing that I wouldn’t be forced to wear if I was born with a penis. Runs in the pantyhose also makes you look so brilliantly professional, and they happen frequently.

Another fun fact is that you can’t run with such a skirt and you have to be careful not to display you crotch, as that becomes significantly easier too. So if an alarm goes off I wouldn’t be able to get to bridge right away, because I am severely hindered by my uniform. I won’t even try to explain how I am supposed to get into an immersion suit, should it ever come to that, because I just don’t know. Those things can already be tricky to get into when you are wearing proper clothing; a skirt just won’t fit and such a suit is meant to save your life should you ever have to abandon ship and/or be outside a life raft in cold water.

Another thing that irked me a great deal was the explanation regarding the sexual harassment policy. We were sitting there with some thirty people in total and less than a handful of women. The men got taught what they should not do if they don’t wish to get fired or sued. Here are some of the tips they received due to the sexual harassment policy:

“If she is drunk just get as far away from her as possible, because if you don’t you could be sued/fired.”

“Whenever you hook up with a girl make sure to do that in your own cabin, so that it can’t be said that you must have forced entry into hers. If you get her into your cabin then she followed you there willingly, because otherwise security would have seen it.”

“Women have all the power when it comes to sexual harassment, so don’t fall for it.”

And with “it” was meant women who apparently throw themselves at men, only to later press charges.  From the way the women were described you’d think they are all a bunch of crocodiles lying in waiting to snap their legal jaws shut on those poor, innocent, horny men. During that particular discussion I wondered why they had a sexual harassment policy at all. It was certainly not to the benefit of potential victims of sexual harassment, but more for the legal protection of the perpetrators. They received lots of advice on how to minimize evidence of wrong doing. I felt like I was not even in the room. The ones who were being addressed were the men. I fell neither in the category of crocodile or perpetrator. When really, shouldn’t the sexual harassment policy also apply to me?

The Sinking of The “Prestige”

So for a class assignment we had to write a short formal report about the tragedy with the Oil tanker “Prestige”. I wasn’t really sure what my teacher was after, exactly, and I tried to focus on the ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship communications that resulted in The Prestige being denied entry to port. I ended up finding something about it’s hull-design instead, so here is what I wrote:

Oil Tanker Prestige

The Accident

On November the 13^th 2002 the oil tanker Prestige sent out a distress call, requesting an emergency tow to the nearest port.  One of the Prestige’s oil tanks had ruptured and the ship had developed a dangerous list of thirty degrees to starboard. The crew had counter ballasted the vessel with two portside wing tanks, but the captained feared the ship would sink and tried to get the Prestige into port, where the oil could be pumped out. At the time of the distress call the ship was sailing off the coast of Galicia, Spain. The ship was denied entry and was towed north-west, further out to sea. However, due to pressure by the French government, who feared an oil spill near the French coast, the vessel was towed south again and finally broke apart and sank on November the 19^th 2002, a 130 miles off the Spanish coast. The captain was taken into custody and 26.000 volunteers began the long and arduous process of cleaning up the contaminated coastlines of Spain and France, since neither the Spanish nor the French government was interested in getting involved; many of the volunteers have developed health problems due to the direct and prolonged exposure to the oil.

Hull Design

The tanker Prestige was a single hull Coulombi Egg tanker and was built in 1976. This made the tanker 26 years old at the time of the accident; the Prestige was pre-MARPOL. Inspections preformed on the tanker suggest that the Prestige might be suffering from metal fatigue in certain areas, but no evidence of this was recorded and the tanker was certified by the American Bureau of Shipping that same year. The tanks of the Prestige were designed to minimize and prevent spilling by utilizing the hydrostatic pressure from the seawater. (When a rupture occurs the seawater flows into the damaged tank, forcing the oil into an adjacent empty wing tank via a non-return valve and thereby preventing it from spilling into the sea.) It was doubtful that the Prestige was actually leaking oil at the time of the rupture. However, the tanker had become unstable and immediate action was required to prevent further damage to the hull. MARPOL now requires that all oil tankers must have a double hull by the year 2012; single hull tankers have not been allowed in US waters since 2000.

Politics

The captain spent 96 days in custody and was eventually released on a bail of € 3m. The Spanish government tried to convict the captain of “failure to comply with Spanish authorities’ orders” to tow the ship further out to sea. Furthermore, the Spanish government has also sued the American Bureau of Shipping for certifying the vessel as “in class”; the case was dismissed. Neither the Spanish nor the French government partook in the organization of the clean-up of the coasts and both refused to pay for the damage. It is unclear to whom the Prestige belonged to. The ship was registered in the Bahamas and fronted through a Liberian company, allegedly by a Greek family. Legal trials are still going on to determine who bears responsibility for this catastrophic environmental disaster.

Responsibility

In MARPOL Annex I it is stated that by the year 2012 oil tankers may no longer have merely a single hull. The idea behind this is that if the outer hull is damaged the oil will remain within the tanks and not spill into the sea. The advantage of this is that the ship has a buffer against a low energy impact. The downside is that when the impact is high enough to damage both the outer as well as the inner hull there is no hydrostatic pressure to hold back the oil and it will in fact spill into the sea at a much faster rate than a vessel with a mid-deck single hull or Coulombi Egg single hull. It is also worrying that two governments were able to refuse a ship in distress entry to the nearest port, further exposing it to rough seas and eventually causing it to break apart altogether. Proper inspection of the ship was lacking, which was particularly disturbing considering the vessel’s age and the fact that it’s sister ships had been taken out of commission due to metal fatigue, several years before. It is rather odd that a ship can be registered in three different nations and thereby be subject to three sets of regulations regarding some of the safety issues. Whistleblowers don’t seem to get much hearing in the shipping industry, or outside it; one captain resigned in protest of the poor condition of the ship.

Two Separate Crews

Yesterday I had a very interesting night meeting some former graduates of the maritime college I attend. It was generally a fun and interesting evening and I acquired some useful information about the maritime industry.

One issue that stands out was an asshole, who wasn’t even a maritime student, who fucking kept discounting my experiences in the software industry. I explained some of the processes for distributing software and on several occasions he actually told me: “No that is not what they do. That is not how it’s done.” At one point he even told me to “use some logic”. I would have been speechless, if I hadn’t been so annoyed by his “all knowing” attitude. Besides the things I already told him last night I would just like to add: “Go fuck yourself, you arrogant prick, for thinking you know better than someone who was actually there.” I think it is safe to conclude that this particular conversation was very unsatisfactory for both sides.

I later met up with a fellow maritime student, who is a sophomore, and one of the guys who organized the event. We got to talking about ships policies regarding hiring procedures, interns and crew. I related the situation I experienced on board last November, when I shipped out as passenger on a container feeder. I was wondering what a former maritime professional thought of the situation and he was of the opinion that something had happened on that ship that caused the distrust between the captain and the deck-crew.

I then asked him if it was common that there was such a divide between the Filipino crew members and the officers and he said that it was. The reason is that their culture is different and that they feel very uncomfortable socializing with the captain, the mates and the engineers. They eat in separate mess rooms or at separate times and they prefer different types of food. I am not entirely convinced of all that I was told. This situation may be true on European vessels, where most of the mates and the engineers are white. But even in these cases, all crew members are certified and many have a lot of experience with ships.

Having such a gap between deck and bridge/engine-room, means that you will lose a lot of experience and knowledge. With such a divide and a lack of communication it is almost like having too separate crews on board. What could be the use of such a system? Most ships also don’t require that many mates and engineers anymore. Which means that the number of officers have declined and that can sometimes lead to a feeling of isolation when you have very few people to talk to. This to me seems all the more reason to try and make the crew one unit, where the members will talk to each other, especially in informal settings.

Meal-times are an excellent informal setting where people can talk about the day and situations on board. It’s not an official meeting, but in my experiences in college and working in offices, such settings usually reveal problems people would have otherwise not brought up. This would apply to an all Filipino deck-crew as well. Though I know that deck-crews aren’t always all Filipino. I only use the situation I encountered as an example here.

Would they feel such discomfort dining with the captain? When I was on board, I would occasionally share a beer with them and the ship’s intern. They weren’t shy to talk to me, so I doubt that race is an issue. The problem seems to be with rank. However, some other comments that were made last night, make me wonder if it isn’t also the captains who are more comfortable with the situation. One of the guys I talked to said it is very easy when people just follow others without question and it might not be as much fun at the table if the crews all ate together as much as shifts would allow.

It might entirely be possible, that I won’t see it this way, once I have been on board for a couple of years. Perhaps I will then see it as an impossible situation, but I sure hope not. Because it looks to me that people can only gain from a united crew.

Why I started writing this blog

A few months before I actually started this blog, I became fascinated with the idea of writing one. I was already working on a career change at the time and I wanted to blog about my experiences in my new career. Unfortunately the type of careers I am drawn to are mostly male dominated and in a lot of cases women are merely tolerated.

This blog would be my reward for passing the entrance exam and getting into college again. Well, I started blogging about two weeks before I actually took the test, but passed with flying colors. What I want to do is go out to sea and in order to do that college seems the most logical way. I passed my math test with a 96% percent score (so don’t go telling me again that women’s can’t do math) and was accepted.

Before I took signed up for college I was advised to travel with a ship first to see what a life at sea is like. This post will be about my experiences on that first sea-voyage and I will be quoting myself from the journal I kept on board the ship.

“Arriving on the ship was a surreal experience. It was dark and all the lights of the harbor were on. The place was huge and difficult to navigate.

The first few hours I ran around, trying to see everything on board. It was fascinating to see the containers being loaded onto the ship. It’s very precise work, both the loading and the planning of where each container should go. There is a lot of light pollution in the harbor. One of the terminals was automated. It was liking walking into a science fiction film. The cars where driving themselves, moving containers around and some of the cranes were automated too. This greatly annoyed the crew, because apparently the last time they were there they could only load a container per hour and were eventually told to leave, because it was taking too long.

For two days, I kinda destroyed my sleeping pattern. Every time something happened, such as docking or departing I was either on deck or on the bridge to try to see it all. I must have walked up and down those stairs at least 20 times that day. The muscles in my legs ached in the evening.

I spent a lot of time on the bridge, I looked around the engine room a little and wandered around on deck. For that last part I needed to ask permission every time and I was not to wander too far into the engine room by myself. I have asked lots of questions and the crew has showed me a great deal of what they were doing. Though many of the details don’t mean that much too me yet. I confess that I feel tired right now and would like to sleep, but I am determined to try and keep some sleeping pattern.

This morning we headed out to sea. The sea was less rough than expected and I never got seasick. Though when I first came on board I was aware of every movement the ship made and when we got out to sea the movements of the ship felt a bit weird and I had trouble to keep my balance at first.”

Then I got to talking with the Captain. He knew why I was there and was very eager to share his views on the industry, though he wasn’t exactly recommending me it to me. Here are my initial thoughts on that conversation:

“The captain has told me a great deal, both the good and the bad stuff about this industry. Though he put much emphasis on the negative sides. He told me flat out that working is a punish for him, that he’d do something else if he could and that he is sick of his job. I wonder if there is a reason he is trying to discourage me.”

The captain and the officers were not shy about their bigotry either:

“I am not entirely convinced stories the captain and the mates told me are entirely accurate. His intolerant and sometimes ignorant views of the world make him lose credit. I find that I am different person than they are. I believe the facts they gave me about the industry, but not the way they presented them.”

And this only got worse:

“A captain makes all the difference. A captain who has a negative attitude toward you makes for long and bad journey. I don’t like he how speaks to people and I don’t like how he draws clear lines between the officers and the sailors. I know there is a hierarchy, but come on, he’s acting like they are from a different planet. He even implied that they steal and that you had better lock your valuables away.

He barely speaks to the Philippine crew and complains that they are lazy and don’t deserve the meager and disproportionately low wages they get. The rest of the officers seem to make fun of them and barely talk to them either. The sailors just had a pay rise revoked and spend on average ten months in a row on a ship, away from home. Which is far more than the rest of the crew. I don’t imply he should let people walk over him, but I do feel there is a very obvious double standard here that would make me burn with fury if I was from the Philippines and sailing under a foreign flag.

He has also told me that most women can’t cut it in this industry. They haven’t got enough authority and they have to keep fighting over it in Russian and Arabian ports. I don’t doubt that in some situations it will be more difficult for women, but with attitudes like his women will mostly be kept out of the industry all together. He is an over privileged prick, who feels that everything he says is right and others just deserve their less fortunate positions in life. I hate him with a passion. As a captain he also has power over me and can determine how my voyage goes. Which is worse by the hour.”

It did indeed got a lot worse for me and by the end of the voyage I was happy to leave the ship and angry with the captain and his mates for showing such disrespect:

“One person should not have so much power over others. Over the past two, maybe even three days it has become very clear that the captain has either lost all respect for me or never had it in the first place. I have heard him speak about other women. With the exception of his wife and daughter he has merely used derogatory terms to describe them. So it is entirely possible that he was merely curious in the beginning and has now extracted enough information from me to either use me as a cautionary tail or as an amusing anecdote to tell others over a beer.

I thoroughly hate him. From the beginning he has done nothing but to try to dissuade me from going to sea. Everything I said was wrong or uninformed and he always knew better, and even when I agreed with him it was still wrong. He is a typical pedantic asshole in the Twisty definition of the word. I wish my first experiences with ships and a life at sea were with a different captain. I hope they are not all like that, but you can bet your ass that where there is one there might be others.

That said, despite my anger I feel despair. A ship is only so large and it’s not easy to avoid people you’d rather not see. The other officers, in typical hierarchal fashion, mirror his attitude of course and apart from some polite inquiries also seem done with talking to me. I feel isolated and disrespected. Perhaps I haven’t earned their respect, but I am not a damn colleague. I shouldn’t have to earn it, yet.

Everything about my situation, especially stuff that is beyond my control, is wrong and they are all acting like I am crazy for wanting to go to sea. Even carefully trying to call the captain on his attitude and statements doesn’t work, he just tells me that I either misunderstood or that he doesn’t know what I am talking about. “

This was such a negative experience that it won’t do any good to keep quiet about it. Such fossils should be exposed. It was told by both the captain and the chief engineer that they refuse to work with women, despite the fact that the idiot captain has only worked with three women during his entire thirty year career. And if he undermines his crew like he did with the Philippine crew and and me, it is no wonder that female officers can’t function on a ship run by him. He sabotages them from the get-go for not having a penis.

Anyways, I suspect I will have more stories like this one to write, once I start college. I do however sincerely hope that most of them will not be about bigotry. This blog was not only meant for feminism, but also for illustrating what a life at sea can be like. I am now convinced though that the ship topics will also cover feminist topics, but with any luck there will be some exceptions.

Finally I will leave you to ponder this “choice” quote from the chief engineer:

“As a woman it is your duty to stay at home, take care of your house and husband and to have children. You have to have children before you’re 26, otherwise all those blacks will take over.”