Mariners of new ERA

Mariners of new ERA

                            

IS THIS ADVENTURE

• In last 50 years Maritime world has changed completely in terms of Technology , Demand , Recognition and also the Thinking of Mariners. 

• In-fact the Experience of an Old Mariner is Totally different from what we experience and Believe today. Actually this Thinking and Thoughts of an older mariner has become a thing to be Preserved.

•  The industry has changed and probably faster than when the steamship came along and rang the death knell on the sail ships. Ten years ago everybody decided that seafarers were suffering from stress, that ships should run like shore-based establishments and that people should be accountable for their actions; i.e. a paper trail should be laid. Earlier paperwork on ships was nothing more than the daily log; the typing of the monthly stores order onto the telex machine and some night orders hastily scribbled by the captain after has last gin and tonic of the night! Today paperwork has become a real tension.

•  It has not stopped there. As a result of 9-11, the terrorist attack on the world Trade Center in New York, the bureaucrats ashore rapidly suggested that ships could be used as potential bomb carriers (a laden gas tanker running up the St. Lawrence Seaway with a bomb onboard could cause untold loss of life and damage) and so ships and the people that sail them suddenly received a whole new host of regulations to follow and associated paperwork to fill in. The Chief Officers, once a figurehead to be frightened of, now has many hats to wear - safety officer, loading master and now the security officer!

• Today not many ships stay long enough in port these days to allow anybody to go ashore! Time is precious and port stays cost money!

• Life at sea has changed. Trips are more structured and the seafarers more professional than they ever were - life onboard depends on the individuals and how they accept the life, a life that no longer depends on crates of booze and alcoholic oblivion!

• And so why would seafarers go to sea today? They go because it is an honest career that brings the bread and butter onto the table. There might not be a wife in every port, the company may require the same written entries to be made in about six different books and logs and the Chief Engineer might be a grumpy old sod because he can’t have drink but …….wow, what a life to be had!