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We are thrilled to announce a new endeavor from the editors of gCaptain and leadership gurus at Sea Fever Consulting…

A Maritime podcast; Messing About In Ships.

Starting today, gCaptain’s own Captain John Konrad and our friend Peter Mello of Sea-Fever.org will be producing a weekly podcast about all things related to ships. Many of you may be familiar with Kenneth Graham’s 1908 classic children’s book, The Wind in the Willows in which Ratty declares to Mole:

“There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats“

Well, we may have grown up a bit but we still agree with Ratty; only now we mess about in slightly larger and more complicated vessels.

Each week we’ll explore stories that appear in gCaptain’s great Discoverer news section of their website. We also will select a blog or podcast for a weekly feature we call New Media Port of Call. We have plans to interview maritime professionals, authors, educators, regulators and others about issues that affect the maritime industry today and into the future. Finally, each episode will close with a selection music from the Podsafe Music Network for your enjoyment.

What we are most excited about is you taking an active role in shaping this project. We have set up a Messing About In Ships blog where the show notes and links from each episode will appear and we encourage you to comment there. Also consider recording a short audio comment, attach it as an MP3 file to an email and send it to podcast@messingaboutinships.com and we will find a way to integrate it into the program.

Subscribe via iTunes

You can also add Messing About In Ships to:

• Your Website
• Google Homepage
• Yahoo Homepage
• Facebook

Visit MessingAroundInShips.com for show notes and more details.

 

 Messing About In Ships Episode 01: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In “Refrences to Joseph Keefe”>another excellent article, Maritime Executive’s managing editor Joseph Keefe is dead on with his assessment of salary (find the article HERE) and working condition improvements in this tight labor market. The following comment in response to a discussion with one Captain sums up the discord between shore side managers and shipboard personnel perfectly;

Gathering that he was earning well in excess of $100,000 per year with about six months vacation, I chided him for complaining about a job situation that a lot of people would kill to obtain. My comments were NOT well received.

Well had Keefe called any member of gCaptain’s staff we could have gently clued him in on the likely response. The reason? Well he lays out all the major points but let us add a few minor ones. Mariners currently in top positions aboard ship are loyal to their profession. We have seen tough times and stayed at sea to the protest of loved ones and in doing so have payed the price. From high points to low a mariners life is one of hard misses. Personally I’ve sacrificed being with my family on the day of my father’s death and missed the birth of his namesake, my first child, Jack. Mine is one of the least troubling stories but the hardships are not the primary reason for the discord; it’s the rewards, or lack there of. To show my point I offer some examples;

• Mariners in the first Gulf War bravely supplied the troops in countless runs to the war zone and in return received “all you can eat” overtime pay and handsome bonuses. For my wife’s 30 days in the war zone she received little more than a medal.
• Mariner’s salaries are just recently breaking above the levels (not adjusted for inflation) of those in the same position 30 years ago.
• Sailing 30 years ago was an enjoyable experience that did not entail constant communication with management. Email and “real” phone service didn’t exist.
• Port time is currently non-existent.
• The U.S. mariner has historically come at a premium to their foreign conterparts but the gap is closing fast.
• With the decline in the dollar we are suddenly being recruited be European companies that are offering considerable bonuses. U.S. companies are not following suit.
• Specialists in support roles, mostly from Europe, freely share their salaries which can be considerable higher than an American Captain’s.
• The majority of mariners live in areas (New England, Florida, California) of skyrocketing housing expenses.
• Mariners are now getting arrested for incidents that, as CAMM (The Council of American Master Mariners) put it, “were at one point considered mistakes”.
• Today civilians are more likely to ask you how you can work for an Oil Company than reply with a statement once heard often; “Wow, what an interesting job”.

In addition to these points the personnel shortage in our industry is not only a concern of company, it’s a concern for the shipboard management. The simple fact is positions are being filled by people who five years ago would not be considered ready for the job. In the past twenty years crew levels have been brought down to record low levels but overqualified crews “stuck” in positions they long ago mastered have kept the ships running smooth. Today an alarmingly high number of vessels list 100% of their officers as short-service employees (in the position for less than a year). This is not only a problem for officers but also for those on shore. Ships rely on a foundation of support from town that increasingly comes from managers lacking experience due to the same stratospheric rise in the number of promotions. These two factors equate to rising difficulties for Captains, Chief Mates and their counterparts in the engine room.

A manager recently asked a good friend of mine if he was ready for the big promotion to Captain, his response angered the boss. I can only assume the anger derived from the fact his statement was both accurate and troubling. He replied, “Hell no, I have no business being Captain. Professionally I’m not close to being ready but if I’m not promoted in the next few rounds you’re making a big mistake because I can run circles around my competition!” Not a good sign for those who need to trust the next man in charge of a 500 million dollar asset.

What he did not tell the manager is also reveling, “Why take a promotion for a few extra dollars and have to sit at a desk filling out paperwork, answering phone calls from town and dealing with petty squables. The captain use to have a stateroom twice the size of a seaman’s and fly to work in first class, now he just gets paid more.”

While the article was impressively accurate the following comments are not entirely correct;

His pay had been augmented three or four times in the past 18 months and his employers had confirmed that pay scales had at least doubled during that period.

While it’s conceivable that the payroll has double I’ve witnessed between 10 and 40% increases in senior mariner pay.

Gathering that he was earning well in excess of $100,000 per year with about six months vacation

“But you get Six Months vacation” is the first thing mariners hear during salary negotiations but it’s a misnomer. I don’t personally know a mariner who took less than 4 weeks of training classes last year and know many Chief Mate candidates who took between 12 and 16 weeks of class… that brings us down to 5 months “Vacation”. Subtract travel days, visits to the Coast Guard and days spent at the union hall and your down to less than 4.5 months (139 days).

The average American takes 15 days vacation, 8 personal days and 10 holidays. Add this to the number of weekends and (if my math is correct) shore side personel have 137 days off or only 3 days less than the mariner. Ever leave the office early on Friday or take a long lunch to visit the dentist? Mariners work 12 hours a day, every day which equates to nearly double the number of hours a “40-hour per week” American works during the year. Now I can begin to understand why gCaptain’s email box gets flooded with shore-side job related questions.

The number one reason for the discord is rooted by Keefe’s statement;

It is tempting to dismiss this as seafarer whining, but maritime executives everywhere had better strap on their hearing aids and listen to what their employees have to say. To do otherwise will only exacerbate the current crisis.

On the return trip for a promising shore-side job a prominent divorce attorney joined the discussion on NPR’s Fresh Air and said he often sits at the arbitration table looking at two people in love who share a life others only dream about and asks himself why. The reason is not that argued by either party, the reason is that neither listens to what the other is saying.

Mariners are being marginalized and management isn’t listening. Captains no longer have the power to solve problems aboard ship without approval from managers who frequently ask “Who died and left him in charge?”. This response filters down to the crew who justly assume their boss can not communicate their problems to distant offices ashore. This problem is exacerbated by the increased regulatory pressures, technological requirements, and industry opposition not to mention burdensome levels of training, paperwork and hands-on management from shore.

So while the “24/7 satellite television, e-mail, voice comms, excellent (but SSDD) food and media room” are nice do something that compensates me for the extra work I’ve taken on lately or double salaries instead of payroll.

What are management’s concerns? Not sure, I’m knocking on the divorce attorney’s door and just not listening!

-JD

This post is in response to Maritime Executive’s article:

Long-Term Neglect of Mariners Continues to Haunt Maritime Employers

A ferry at the center of much debate (including a record number of comments on this blog) has sailed into a storm that will likely sink her dream. The problem came Tuesday after Maui Judge Joseph Cardoza ruled against Hawaii Superferry resuming service to Maui until an environmental assessment is performed.

While the Department of Transportation took quick action last week in selecting engineering firm Belt Collins to conduct the $1 million dollar plus assessment, it could still take several months to be completed exposing the Superferry to estimated losses of $650,000 per month in the duration. Superferry president and CEO John Garibaldi stated the loss of time and revenue would be too much for the company to survive. Yesterday Garibaldi announced “with a heavy heart” the company would immediately lay off 249 employees; 36 on Maui, 35 on Kauai and 178 on Oahu, keeping just 59 workers on the job to handle administrative and operational duties.

The maritime world was quick to show it’s disappointment in the ruling with Maritime Executive editor Joseph Keefe contributing the most intelligent comments on the topic in an article titled “Profiles in Stupidity: Hawaii Superferry Idled by Courts“. In the paragraph that’s at the heart of the commentary Keefe states;

The situation in Hawaii is not unique, however. It plays itself out all over the fruited plain, every day. There hasn’t been a refinery built in this country for more than three decades despite a clear and present need for more refining capacity. We continue to be held hostage to a trade deficit that hinges largely on energy imports because we don’t have the intestinal fortitude to drill for the domestic oil and gas that we know is available, here and now. The same Congress that considers drilling (in the Arctic or the Gulf of Mexico) a sacrilege, at the same time extends MFN (Most Favored Nation) status to countries that deliver toxic products to our shores. And just across the Rio Grande, our NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) partners spill their bile from factories that would never pass environmental muster in the most lax state in the union.

So what exactly do the anti-ferry activists considerer the problem? In a set of comments posted to our previous supperferry post savekahuluiharbor.com blogger Karen Chun sums up the opposition’s feeling;

I think what you are seeing is a tremendous culture clash between what has been described as “the American Dream” (e.g. work hard and make a lot of money) and the Hawaiian culture which is embodied in our state motto: “Ua mau ka ea o ka ‘aina i ka pono”.

As with all Hawaiian sayings this has meaning on many levels but best translated to: “The life of the land continues (is preserved) by doing the right thing (harmony with correct behavior)”

So we have people who see the land as something that they use (up) to create their dream of monetary prosperity coming to a place where the land is seen as something to be preserved in its natural state and where the measure of success is not monetary but how you live your life in harmony with the virtues of ha’aha’a (humbleness), lokahi (unity) and aloha (a VERY misused word that I won’t even attempt to explain.

(read her full comment HERE)

While I do believe her statement is genuine I suspect the true problem lays with theory stated by Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat. Friedman believes that exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This means the loss of jobs for many Americans but also the potential for wealth and geographical freedom for a smaller set of entrepreneurs. Combined with more effective means of transportation, which the ferry hoped to provide, these factors are enabling an increasing number of the second set to relocate west.

I have thought about this topic for some time. Working aboard ships worldwide and blogging online bring me the financial and geographical freedom to move to Hawaii so when a friend visited Maui a few months back her question seemed obvious. She asked “Maui is the most beautiful place I have ever visited. If you can live anywhere and afford the prices why not move?” My answer was simple; “It just takes too much time traveling home to see relatives.” The ferry helps solve this problem and therefore helps more families like ours make the decision to relocate to an island considered by locals as over crowded. If my assessment is right I understand the concern. The weather, natural beauty and opposition to development were the key factors in my family’s decision to move from Manhattan to Morro Bay California.

In addition to Keefe’s article there is one more factor that supports his opinion; history. To make a proper assessment of the situation we need to ask locals who have been though the fight. The following is a reply to Chun’s comment from Canary Islands resident Ricard Sala;

Hello everyone!!

Well I have never written in this blog I would like to add my 5 cents worth…I am not in any way in the merchant marine nor do I live in Hawaii. I am a pilot, live in Switzerland but I spent most of my youth in the Canary Islands and that is were my oipinion comes in.
The canary islands might be the closets geographical thing to the hawaiian islands there are in the world, 7 islands isolated from the mainland and underinvested for many years. We started in late 80’s with our own regional airline and years later the sole ferry company(which undeserved the market) was joined by FRed Olsen and their fast ferries. That alone opened up a whole world of possibilities for many people to travel, and we are talking here about people with no or very little money as well as large groups, students, schools on day trips, the daily crossings from Gran Canaria to Tenerife became part of he local scenery, it not only represented a boost to the local economies (from the opening of restaurants, to the hiring of the catering crew) but eventually it meant investment on the roads as well.
Now, I do not know local politics and as i sais I do not know the in and out, but, it seems to me a case on “not in my backyard” and manipulated people by local interests (probably airlines)…
If you were today to ask any canarian their opinion about the ferry I think it would be hard to find a single anti-ferry person.

Well that is it, just my opinion folks…

Cheers everyone!!

My assessment… Keefe is spot on. Your thoughts?

John Konrad is a USCG licensed Master Mariner of Unlimited Tonnage currently working as Chief Mate aboard a 835′ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Since graduating from SUNY Maritime College he has sailed in 4 of the world’s oceans and reports from his ship via satellite.