Painful Rectal Itch
By The Artful Blogger
OK, I’m back from my little “vacation.” Seven months may have been a bit excessive, but what the hell. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, we were talking about spicing up your fire drills. Yeah I know you’d sooner get a root canal then do a fire drill, but hey, they don’t have to be that painful. I remember a commercial from back in the day about hemorrhoid pads. I know you all want to hear all about it (you know I’m going to tell you anyway, so bear with me). There was this husband and wife in bed asleep. All of a sudden, he sits up in bed screaming. His wife asked, “What’s wrong, honey?’ His response was, “It’s this painful rectal itch!” Now, my father had roids. I consider him the average working Joe. I believe his response would have been more along the line of anything from: “My damn biscuits are burning!” to “Somebody shoved a hot poker up my @$$!” Not, “Gee honey, I have a painful rectal itch.”
As usual, you’re asking, “OK Artful, what’s the point?” (Are you ready, kids? Well, here it is.) Is the way that you’re conducting your fire drills more like a painful rectal itch to your people, or are they like a hot poker up their @$$es? In this multi-part series, I’m going to give you some ways you can spice things up a bit, while making your training a little more meaningful. Along the way, you just might have a little fun.
The key to success of any project starts with organization. If John Wayne didn’t have a script in his movies, all he’d do is go around punching and shooting people (OK, bad example). For the sake of training, fluidity and safety, you need to have an exact script. All of your hands are actors in this movie, and your training team members are the directors. Your Captain, Master or Mate is going to produce the whole she-bang. Let’s see if we can make a Spielberg production. Read the rest of this entry »
We recently showed you the video game Ship Simulator 2008, the “realistic” (we haven’t tested this claim) simulator game for your PC, but today we point you towards another product from the company Vstep; RescueSim. Here’s the short description from the RescueSim website;
RescueSim allows emergency response teams to prepare for incidents in a virtual working environment. Under the guidance of your own instructor, any incident can be realistically simulated. Crews experience the incident as they would in real life. They determine the best response strategy, implement it and then observe the consequences of their decisions.
The training platform can be supplemented with industry-specific training modules that include environments, scenarios and equipment relevant to that industry. Today, modules exist for Ports; developed with the Port of Rotterdam and Rotterdam Harbour Fire Department, it includes training incident scenarios with various vessels and industrial fires.
While we still recommend any organization in need of this type of training contact our friend Tom Guldner at Marine Firefighting Institute, we look forward to learning more about this product.
If any gCaptain readers have experienced Ship Simulator 2008 or RescueSim, please let us know what you think!
I don’t have many pictures of my father but I recently ran across this one posted on the website of his fire company “Rescue 3“. Following Vietnam and the Physician Assistant program at Cornell he joined the Fire Department of New York and was soon accepted into the department’s elite company Rescue 3.
These were the “War Years” and the bronx was burning. He didn’t talk much about the fires so when he did I hung on every word. One day he was discussing the severity of the situation in the bronx with an out of state firefighter and said “How many massive, fully engulfed fires with multiple casualties have you seen in your career? There are days we see 5 or 6 in one night!”.
What does this have to do with Marine Firefighting? Read the rest of this entry »
“Ship of the Week” brings us the fifth in the Maersk E-Class Container Ships and Sister Ship to the Emma Maersk:
The Ebba Maersk (IMO: 9321524, Port of Registry: Copenhagen, Denmark) is already the fifth in line of Maersk’s PS-class. Together with her sisters (amongst which are the ‘Emma Maersk‘ and ‘Evelyn Maersk‘) she is the largest containership ever with a total teu capacity 11,000 teu (of which 1,000 forty foot reefer containers) according to the A.P. Moller - Maersk Group. Rumours are that a total capacity of 13,500 teu is also possible. This capacity is possible by stacking the containers in 22 rows wide. The vessel is 397 meters long, 56 meters wide, has a depth of 30 meters and a deadweight of 156,907 tons. Amazingly, all this size and capacity requires a crew of only 13.
Read the complete Eba Maersk profile HERE and check back with Ship of the Day… well… daily.
Sistership Emma Maersk links;
The Emma Maersk is a true Modern Marvel. The world largest container ship, longest ship currently in service and is propelled by the largest diesel engine ever manufactured. By mid-year 2006 the construction project was going well when on June 9th the accommodation block was devastated by fire.
Shipping Gazette
The Emma Mærsk was about six–seven weeks delayed. The delay caused by a devastating fire in the accommodation quarters in the early days of June. A welding job on the main deck, close to the end of working hours, led to a fire that totally destroyed the almost finished accommodation quarters and all the equipment in the wheelhouse.
The fire was large and devastating. Here are the photos and video taken by the local fire brigade: Read the rest of this entry »
Emma Maersk Shipyard Fire - Largest Containership in the world [1:27m]:
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