7th term, week 5 🤩

20^th to 26^th of June 2022

Hello, my dear friends! There we are off again to Loch Aline in Scotland where we will load sand for Ellesmere port. We have fresh food onboard, and fresh water and all is well, except for the watches that are a bit messed up because of the departures and arrivals. As you know, the captain is manoeuvring for departures and arrivals, but also for the locks of course and for the main part in rivers and channels when the pilots are onboard. This makes it a little bit like a « 10 on and 2 off » schedule for him and the rest of the crew is just doubling up some of the hours for the mooring operations and disembarking of the pilots etc.

This is the ship’s life of course, so we do not complain, it is part of the deal, but I was wondering how we would manage if we had to do these voyages constantly. I think we would probably have to swap around a few watches and maybe do 6 on 6 off with a « flying captain » taking over whenever necessary…. as it is also according to the tides, we would schedule our watches according to the high waters in Liverpool bay and in Loch Aline right? that would be funny too…. But for sure I think the voyage between the two places would never be boring as the views in Scotland are amazing. If you have never been there or sailed there I would highly recommend it!

This time in Loch Aline, it went faster because we had a little less to load, but we still had to move around the vessel of course as their conveyor was a fixed one. As we were loading less and starting earlier, we had to make sure that when we would shift forward, there would still be enough water under the bow. Indeed, because it was earlier in the tide table when shifting, there would be less water, and maybe we would have to wait half an hour or so to not beach. Captain H. went to check the drafts and the local water height before shifting to make sure there would not be any problem; and of course, there were no issues there. It was not even 8 in the morning and we knew we would be out by lunchtime. Crazy when you imagine that it seemed that we had just arrived a few hours earlier! Imagine that some vessels have a fixed contract with chartering and sail only from one harbour to another or only three different harbours and that it is also some kind of 6 hours shifts. I think I would find it quite tiring. Nice to do a few times but not all year long I guess…. I do not know. Also, I have not really tried for so long so I would not be able to say. Maybe it would also make me happy because you get into a different routine, and I like routines! 😉

Anyways. Off we were to Ellesmere, and Captain H. stayed with me on the bridge till we had passed the Great race once again. This time we passed it at full speed at 18knots! We were literally flying! We had quite a nice sail to the UK and dropped anchor just at the entrance of the river to Liverpool and further up Ellesmere. We had to wait for a vessel that was still on our berth… and then depending on the tide, we would heave up anchor and head towards the pilot station that was not so far away and more alongside in Ellesmere. That did not take long: 12 hours later we were heaving up the anchor in the early morning and after lunch, the ship was ready for discharge.

Passing the Great Race full speed! The view is amazing!

Here again, it would not take long before we would sail out again.

These past weeks were the perfect example of the hop on hop off that some vessels can experience.

Ellesmere was a funny place. It was a quay in a narrow channel; three vessels could be alongside at the same time and it seemed that various cargoes would be discharged there: this was quite clear because various grabs for cranes were nicely organized, but also there would be traces of previous cargoes on the quay. I was wondering where; or more precisely in what they would discharge our sand. Well, for your information, when the garb came to the ship, he just discharges it there; there being just on the quay. There would probably be another grab or bobcat to fill in trucks later or to bring it somewhere else? It was sand so not a sensitive cargo for rain.

The vessel was totally discharged by the early night and we had to wait the next morning for the pilot to come on board and for the tide – of course- to sail out….. to Rayness Jetty.

Do you know where Rayness Jetty is? Well literally so close to the anchorage area… Okay, I guess you are right, it is still a couple of miles further. We dropped anchor once again southwest of the windmills and we were going to load directly in the evening that day. Luckily there were no more pilots involved; that was a good thing.

Pilots are nice, do not get me wrong, but sometimes it feels as if we are constantly waiting on them. This time we could proceed directly to the jetty and then to our next destination.

Arriving to our anchoring place near Rayness jetty

All this seemed easy right. Well… the story does not end exactly this way. We got a call from our agent that the vessel ahead of us; the one currently loading had some Main engine trouble they had to fix before departure. This is life in shipping… you plan some times and some dates but you need to keep in mind that there are external factors that can pop around at the least expected time. It is not a problem for us. We are usually quite flexible and we replan accordingly. I mean we also do not always have a choice right?

There is always time for some safety checks and teaching crew about Hydrostatic Release Units!

The crew enjoying a sunny day: perfect weather for painting on deck!

So there we were another night at anchor and in the early morning headed towards the jetty. Rayness Jetty is an interesting place to load. Not for the type of cargo ( it is limestone) not for the scenery (it is just the coast and there is not much to see from the jetty really; although the coast does look very nice and I would really not mind going for a hike there!). What is interesting is the loading operation part: it is very shallow which means that you need to manage the entire loading operation before the tide drops again. And the second interesting fact is that they load the 3500t of stones in approximately 4 hours…. Yep. Over 800 tons an hour yes! When we are in ballast condition; it takes us approximately that time to deballast…. You can see we really need to be fast!

Once the loading was done we quickly left the quay to not have any trouble running aground. And finally, we were off to our next sailing days… it was a few days sailing towards our next port of call and we would pass through the channel and through the Kiel channel too. Hopefully, the times through the locks and tides will be kind to our watch system this time. Anyways! See you next week!

xxx

Sophietje

7th term, week 4 🤩

13^th to 19^th of June 2022.

Hello There! still at sea sailing from Spain (Vilagarcia) to the UK (Birkenhead, in front of Liverpool on the Mersey River). It is just over 3 days sailing from one port to the other, but luckily not a difficult trip as there are no reporting points, no coast and just vessels crossing up coming from the channel and probably heading to Africa or the strait of Gibraltar. We even crossed another Dutch vessel on which one of our previous maroffs is now a chief officer. They were sailing to Jeddah. Our Apprentice S. who was still in touch with him, and who still needs to practice calling on the VHF made contact as they were both on watch and it was good to get news from him.

We could only arrive at our next port of call with high tide and we had to calculate arriving at the pilot station 3 hours before high tide. That meant in the early morning on Tuesday we would be there and be ready for sailing up the river up to Birkenhead where we would pass through an old narrow lock. As I came on watch to the bridge slightly earlier, I got to see Liverpool from the waterside and I thought it looked like a nice place to be. I was really hoping that we would get a bit of time to go ashore in the evening; if the conditions would allow it.

we were told that it would take at least two days to discharge. So we hope that it meant two evenings two right? Two evenings where we could split the crew and take a turn to go to Liverpool for the evening and get a picture with the famous statues of the Beatles!

well… sounded good. Also because we moored on Tuesday afternoon and they started around the coffee break, and they would not be working late: only 20:00 ship’s time; so for sure, we thought it would take two days.

Passing the small locks in front of Liverpool

The view over Liverpool from the vessel: the closest I have ever been!

The first part of the crew went ashore: engineer, ABs and apprentice. I thought I’d let them go together, being guys, they would not probably want to see the same things as me…. To be honest I love sightseeing, so just walking in town, getting the atmosphere of the city in my head, walking the streets and taking pictures of the architecture: buildings, houses, streets, windows and doors, colours. It is probably some leftovers from my architecture years. I guess that will never leave me as I will forever be an architect even if I do not practice. My vision of tourism and cities are probably transformed since my studies. I do like to go for a drink too of course, but it is never really my main goal when I have the chance to go ashore.

As I was closing hatches that first evening, I thought to myself that they had been working quite fast already. I somehow had the feeling that they would complete the next day with this speed. But I did not want to worry or to tell myself I should have gone to town too. I was secretly keeping my fingers closed that we would still be there the following night.

Always ready to do a real Man Over Board drill when we can! Perfect conditions!

The next morning, hatches opened of course, and it all went so fast that by lunchtime I knew we were going to complete before the end of the day and that Pilots would come onboard at high tide to go outbound with the flow. I somehow just knew it! I knew that I had missed my chance there and I was actually quite sad and angry about it. Maybe because in the past I have always put the crew and the guests ahead of what I wanted, being so faithful to the ship and to work, that now I tend to try to grab any opportunity, also for myself and not always being the person saying yes all the time. So I was a bit upset with myself for being that person again giving the chance to others before myself.

Do you know what happens in such situations? I have to work hard on my mind to tell my brains that we could have been at sea, and I would not have seen Liverpool either, we could have been in another harbour, it could have been covid times with no shore leave, it could have been a 24h working harbour and yes exactly, you get it. I am here for the ship, not on vacation. And I had a nice early evening onboard watching a movie with the captain and one or two beers, which is also rare as we are a dry ship. We only allow ourselves a beer when there is no more cargo operation and no activity during the night and alongside. And it never goes wild. I guess we are quite a reasonable crew right?

So there we were preparing for departure in the middle of the night. I will directly let you know. It is never handy to depart at such hours. Indeed the whole crew is awake then; and if not on deck it is the noise from the engine room and variations are the usage of the engine for the manoeuvres that wake you up. Besides, there is a long part that is done on the river with the pilots where the captain also needs to be present so there is a little bit of a change in schedules. On longer trips, it is not a problem because, over the following days, it is all settled up again; but for short days it is never really so nice as it totally breaks our routines.

This time, we were heading to Scotland, to Loch Aline to load some sand and we would be back to Runcorn just a couple of hours sailing further on the Mercey River, passing Liverpool.

It was very nice to sail up to Scotland. It reminded me of my time onboard the tall ships because we had quite some sailing in this area. Especially a cruise in company ( sailing time between two race ports) which gave us lots of time to hop in and out of the smallest little harbours all the way up to Lerwick! This time as we were sailing up North I knew from my Instagram feed that the tall ship Thalassa from the Netherlands was also sailing in the area! and I actually saw them on the AIS! but not in reel. My colleague early morning saw them as they were sailing by a great castle and apparently the view was really amazing! Lucky him!

Loch Aline was a very cute little lock. The pier, which was more of a jetty, was short. Our size vessel was probably just at the maximal tolerance for this kind of jetty; the belt could also barely reach our outboard side of the vessel. But it did not really matter as long as we could load properly. There was a big tide there and the difficulty of this jetty is that you can only load when the tide is running in so that as you load, the vessel’s draft gets deeper, but more water would come under the keel which would compensate. If you did not pay enough attention or continued too late after High water, you had a big big chance of running aground then!

The loading rate was also very fast: around 600 tons an hour, so you could expect to complete within 5-6 hours of cargo operations if all went well. Well…. we had a bit of a nervous half an hour there as we had to suspend the loading due to a problem with the belt, but it was fixed fast enough and we could finish in time safely. Very often the problems in loading come from shore: the belts, the trucks, and the crane…. I mean it can happen and it is most of the time not a problem; but sometimes, if you have sensitive cargo, or tidal constraints well, you better pay attention to take the right measures if necessary and fast!

The sand we were loading was really white like beach sand in the tropics! It was beautiful. It was quartz sand, so I googled it to check what it was used for. I thought maybe glass, and I was right!

After loading you proceeded during the night towards the next port of call which was Runcorm, as I mentioned, just a little further from Liverpool. The wind was picking up a bit and we passed through a beautiful area called the great race then the sound of Jura. In the Great Race, the currents pushed us all the way up to 17 knots! it was crazy! The captain stayed a little longer on the bridge with me to pass that area. I guess he wanted to make sure that we would not hit the rocks right? Once passed, the sound of Jura was a blessing: calm, quiet, and beautiful. Just a pity it was by night. I could imagine green mountains with nothing around them as there were almost no lights surrounding us. Just nature.

In less than 24 hours we were back in Liverpool Bay, waiting for the pilot to board the vessel 3 hours prior to high water.

We arrived at Runcorn on Sunday morning very early and discharged the sand we had.

Not all harbours only work during weekdays. even in the UK. I guess it depends on the cargo we have too. For sand, it seems that it is 7 days out of 7. Oh well. and as it is not rain sensitive either, it is very easy: just open all hatches and let them discharge according to your plan.

Going grocery shopping with the cook in Runcorn, UK

The cook and I went for groceries that afternoon; so I must say I almost did not see the cargo coming out of the hold!

The grocery shopping in itself did not take long… probably just less than 2 hours. yes yes, it ends up with three full carts! but we had to somehow wait for the taxi for over 1 hour after that! The very nice thing actually was that he did not have any receipt to give me for the accounts of the ship, he made it free for us adding that it was not normal we had to wait so long for a cab. I am glad that there are still some nice people in town right?

This is how we spent our week in British and Scottish waters. Our next cargo was not ready yet in Rayness Jetty so we would head back to Loch Aline that night again for another round of Sand, but this time to Ellesmere Port, a bit closer to Liverpool.

And off we were on the run again!

See you next week!

Sophie xxx

7th term, week 3 🤩

6^th to 12^th of June 2022

After a nice weekend in Ferrol where I got to go for a walk in town and wine with Captain H. on Saturday evening and on Sunday a long hike to check the view of the bay from the top of the hills. It was actually a very nice hike: it probably took us 4 hours altogether with a couple of short breaks. But not because of us, but because of Dushi the dog that is getting older and was obviously really too hot. She spend Sunday evening very tired in her bed and seemed to throw up a bit. I think she had a heat stroke. I had never really seen that. usually, she just follows along easily but maybe this time, with her age, and the heat it was the limit. we will know the next time that we will not bring her on board with us but just leave her as the guardian of the bridge onboard!

So we started discharging on Monday morning, at a normal time. It seems that Spanish work « easy » hours here: almost normal morning, a long break in the afternoon and stop working at the end of the day at a decent time!

It took them a full day to discharge the vessel from all the timber we were carrying. Fun fact they were just pulling out the packages in such a way that was not so gentle… and some of the wrappings were damaged because of that. To not get me wrong, the loading was made good, it was just the way they were hoisting the cargo out. And probably they would not have been able to do otherwise. And it was nobody’s fault or nothing to claim about. They made a pile with the wrappings that were broken, probably to add another one after that.

I was surprised that it did not take them longer to complete. But actually, despite the long break at lunchtime, they barely took a break after that and it was not so hot weather either. Yep, like I said, I was looking forward to some nice hot sunny weather but not. For once in Spain, no chances of heatwaves, but grey skies and even rain are planned for the week. oh well.

Captain H. had to fly back to the Netherlands for a manager’s ISM course organized by the office so we had Captain D. fly in for 5 days. the deal was that this captain exchange would last the least possible as one wanted to be onboard asap and the other wanted to be back home on leave asap too! so we were keeping our fingers crossed that somehow we would be delayed one day extra in Spain and that they would be able to have a captain handover again before the weekend.

The dog was left onboard and she was probably the saddest of us all that her master was not there. She does not really let herself cuddle or pet. so she stayed a bit alone on the bridge and we took care of her of course with water and food, and I gave her extra cookies, but she was really really sad the first two days. It was a bit better of course, but you know. I cannot imagine being a dig and thinking that my dad abandoned me there with strangers right?

Our next cargo was a short day sail away more South. Still in Spain: Vilagarcia de arousa. We would load chipboards or hardboard. There are various names for this cargo but it is just MDF board: glues pieces of wood, very resistant, but also very sensitive to rain and to chocs in corners. The loading would be a little like loading plasterboards: a few hatches open in the middle and one or two forklifts driving around in the centre of the hold bringing the boards forward or aft. It takes 2 to 3 days to load this type of cargo.

And… we were going to have rain. It was planned all Wednesday. This was the captain’s chance to hopefully fly in and out of Spain.

I was on deck the whole morning, and actually, t was not so easy because it was very fine drizzle just floating in the air but it was very wet and the surfaces would get damp very fast so I ended up telling the Spanish stevedores that we had to close the hatches till further notice. After lunch, I went grocery shopping for the vessel.

I usually do not really like doing that because I never know the quantities we need. Even though the cook writes on paper what he needs, or would like to have, I never know if I will have enough cash money for it all. And I hate going around with three to four carts, then people look at you strangely right? You get all the comments such as «Oh you have a big family » and you have to explain again and again that no the is for a ship, and for a few weeks of course!

Sunsets in harbour are also always one of a kind!

But yes, we went to the big supermarket it was still raining and once we were out with the cook, and waiting for the taxi, I noticed that it was all dry and sunny again! I was hoping that they had not caught up on the loading so that the plan we had in mind would still work well!

When we came back to the ship, they had indeed continued loading, which was good in a way, as we were there for that right? As they stopped around just after dinner, we let the guys go ashore for the evening. The stevedores had been complaining about the ship rolling during the loading and blaming my ballast as not good.

So I wanted to make sure that all my double bottoms that I had emptied in preparation the night before were very empty and stripped. It is not good to empty the double bottoms during this time of loading because the forklifts inside the hold create a lot of movement on the ship and it can be very dangerous for them with cargo that can fall from a stack if we have too much list. and of course, this is without talking about the stability of the ship itself. Double bottoms are large and wide ballast tanks that are underneath the cargo hold. because they are wide, they should be either full and overflowed or empty and stripped so that no water remains in the tank and when heeling or rolling it does not affect the stability of the ship with the extra movement of water and extra added weight creating an extra unwanted list. This is called the free surface moment.

To not be under stress or pressure, I always like to empty double bottoms as soon as I can to not have trouble, doubts or pressure during loading. And I double-checked it was all very empty. It is always good to double-check: indeed, you never know if a valve did not close well, or if they were stripped correctly for some reason. Even if I know I did it well, I never take such a risk with these ballast tanks, and always take time to check again. Luckily; I was right and my tanks were good, it was their forklift of over 15t driving around and of course if it is on one side, it will give some list to the vessel.

The next day, I actually had a small argument with the foreman because he started telling me that he knew our type of vessels and that he was doing this for over 30 years and that basically, he said it was not the forklifts, but my ballasting that was not good, and that I should not tell him how to do his job…. Like what? and he is allowed to tell me how to do my job? I sometimes get quite furious when men think they can just put me down like that and be very macho. I am not at their service, and I can definitely act tough as well when they get in trouble.

But ok.

I ended up creating a compensating list until their forklift was out of the hold… really. I think I checked three times that all my tanks were either full or stripped during these 3 days in the harbour. but oh well. what can we do right?

On Thursday we knew we would still be there at least Friday morning which was perfect for the captain change. It would be a long day for them as when flights are early or late, arriving at the airport is even earlier right? And departing directly in the evening and starting your watch then is not always so restful. But both were happy people on the bridge on that Friday afternoon: cuddling his darling dog and the other relaxing and planning a trip to Santiago de Compostela before flying the next day. You see, as a seafarer, there are sometimes bonuses when disembarking in a foreign country right?

So there we were, leaving Spain o a Friday night after a full long day of loading. Ready to go back at sea after these days in the harbour, but also sad to leave this country we do not often sail to! I would not have minded a full extra weekend here. Off we were crossing the Biscay again to the Uk and….. celebrating Captain H’s birthday onboard Saturday! 🙂 yeah!!! I bet that is also one of the reasons why he wanted to be back on board: for his birthday! No, I think everyone would rather be with their family for these kinds of days, right? Well, this is exactly the reason why I always try to make something nice of it. I realize that this was the third time I was setting up a deco on the bridge for this special moment. This year I blew up twenty blue ( his favourite colour) balloons and taped them to the wall on the bridge and hung up a party decor over the bridge table. It is always nice to sing and make it a happy day. Cookie had baked a cheesecake and a carrot cake for him too!

Trust me, we could not move the whole weekend after that! good that it was Sunday the next day!

see you next week!

xxx

Sophietje

S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R.

Just another view of the world through Sophie’s eyes while working and traveling at sea

Category: Chief’s weekly log

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S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R.

Just another view of the world through Sophie’s eyes while working and traveling at sea

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