Tag: maritime

5th term, week 7 🌊❤️

8th – 14th of November 2021

We left last weekend Birdport for Gent with steel slabs in our cargo hold. Back in the English Channel with very nice sailing conditions. We were planning to enter the Belgium water in the middle of the night – on my watch- and proceed the next early morning through the channels to Gent. I finally enjoyed the French side of the channel between Dover and Calais. The most narrow part is where you can see both sides of the channel in good condition. It was funny to hear French-speaking all over the radio again. All the little fishermen and the French coast guard as well. People always ask me why I do not speak French to the coast guard. I do not know why. I always do it in English…. Probably because I am afraid to not know the terms in French as I have always been speaking English aboard vessels…. But I do sometimes wonder if they think I could be French because I can pronounce their calling name correctly… you know… those difficult French names such as « Ouessant » or « Jobourg »…. 😉 not blaming anyone here!

We had a delay in the pilot boarding time so when I came on watch at midnight I had to reduce and drift around for a few hours before picking the pilot up. We would have him onboard from Wandelaar till Flushing and then Captain H. would take over with his PEC ( Pilot Exemption certificate) in the Dutch waters. We ended up also waiting just in front of the locks in Terneuzen and finally made it around lunchtime to our Berth. We were told we were first going to discharge at 2200 at night, but it got also postponed till the next night.

Crew storing the pilot ladder away once this latter has disembarked

At this point you know, we just take it as it comes. There is nothing we can do about it so we just take a good rest at night and do a lot of maintenance jobs in the afternoon. We were going to be busy as we were expecting a big store delivery in the afternoon. It had been a while since we had not been in the Netherlands or Belgium so our stores were quite empty. Finally, It took us two hours to get everything in and not all sorted but at least in the freezers for the frozen department and fridge for the cool items. The rest would follow later. Fresh produce ohhh!! Fruits, vegetables, milk… it was all flowing lovely! I mean not that we had not had stores earlier but big ones like this one not in a while. In Liepaja captain B. Went shopping with a few ABs, it was good enough for a couple of weeks. A good top-up. We also had deck stores and all the little things we ordered to improve the working onboard.

For me two highlights: on for the ship: brand new side/ angle tarpaulins for the side of the bulkheads in the aft, to prevent cargo to fall behind: string double magnets, wider; hopefully it would help. And new winter working boots from Jallatte. Yes, of course, made in France! You know you know…. They are with wool inside so hopefully, my feet will be nice and warm in the ice-cold weather later this year. I will not wear them directly, wait till it is really cold because I do not want to damage them… even if they are working boots. You know me. Keep things tidy without stays and defects as long as possible.

Tuesday night we discharged the slabs from 22:00 till 06:00. It was also easy as we did not have to worry about the weather. Captain H. brought the ship back north through the channel and the locks in Terneuzen and we arrived in Vlissingen (Flushing) around noon, ready to load our next cargo: wood pulp. After the steel slabs, it was not necessary to wash down the hold. Only a good sweep was sufficient so that was a big gain of time otherwise we should have waited till the hold was dry, and with this weather, it could take 12 to 24 hours with the air dryer on.

Sailing into Vlissingen after Ghent!

In Vlissingen, they dropped us paper rolls that we had to display on the tank top. It was fun. Also making sure some parts were taped otherwise it would just blow away and it would be a lot of work done for nothing! This paper was a bit thick so it was better. Sometimes it is so thin that it rips apart just by breathing around it.

Loading woodpulp in Vlissingen, NL; 1st part of the harbour

Mid-afternoon we loaded the first part at the terminal where we were. Loaded 750 tons in 3 hours and shifted to another terminal where we would load the rest of the cargo. Another vessel was still busy there but depending on what time they would complete they would start with us the same night, or the next morning early.

The loading of such cargo goes very fast with such big cranes, 2nd part of the harbour

This wood pulp was coming partly from Uruguay and Brazil. I was wondering what the difference was with the woodpile from our Scandinavian countries and while Poland should import it from the other side of the world when they had it just on the other side of the Baltic Sea… sometimes I wonder how the world is turning. Then we complain about environmental impact. Crazy. Haha Anyways…

They loaded one hour and the next morning I was ready with my hatches open to load the rest. It was a big crane that would shift 16 wood pulp units at the time so that was also going quite fast.

Loading in progress… Ruyter alongside in Vlissingen, NL
Checking drafts and selfie moment of course!

The weather was with us too, co after completion we directly started with putting airbags and lashing the last tier and we were on our way out. I like it when it is fast and easy like that. It makes everything so easy and simple. Unfortunately, it is not always the case. So we learn how to enjoy the good loadings right?

The last part of the loading is the fastening of the top layer with air-bags and straps.
When sailing out of Vlissingen you sail along the coast where there are long beaches. It is apparently quite a hype place!

We were heading to Szczecin with the wood pulp. A good 3 days sailing via the Kiel Channel that of course happened by night, but for once almost matched perfectly with our watches. Except for the captain that had to wake up for the locks. He would have to do the same upon arrival in Poland in the middle of the night. The pilot would board at 23:00 and the channel is also approximately 4 hours. We will see how that will go. For now, we enjoy a nice Sunday at sea; tonight will be busy again; therefore Cookie’s chocolate cake is well deserved!

Coastal night sailing in the bridge on the Elbe river
Crew selfie when in locks!

Take care my friends and see you next week in Poland for the next sailing adventures!

5th term, week 6 🌊❤️

1st – 7th of November 2021

Portbury. We sailed on Sunday night: picked up the pilot at the pilot boarding station and sailed in later in the night. I was sleeping when all this happened because I needed to wake up early early to open the hatches, so I missed the fun of entering the Royal Docks of Portbury: small locks but a large dock behind with quite a few big vessels alongside. Luckily the weather was very good and quite warm and sunny for the first of November! 

Ruyter alongside in Portbury, UK
Alongside in Portbury, UK, ready to discharge the sugar beet pellets

The discharging of the sugar beet pulp pellets went fast and smoothly. As a precaution, I did only open a few hatches by a few hatches. Indeed: although the sun was constantly above our head, not so far away the front was passing above Bristol and I did not want to take the risk of having wet and damaged cargo. They had rain for sure. When I looked at those dark clouds… it could only confirm that it was wise to keep an eye on the surroundings.

At the end of the day, the bobcat was in and the last cargo was coming out at 20h. It was fun, I usually like to make a small game with the crew to estimate either the number of grabs left in the hold or the time it will take us to complete the discharging. I started doing this when I was a trainee. I would challenge captain H. on this. He likes to be challenged like that. And I like to win. But he would change his mind in the middle and change his answer so that he could win. That was not how it should be played…. 😉 Now with the ABs and whoever is there in the hold at the time of the game, I give a start time and ask how long each and one of us think it will be finished and the one closest to the completion time ( usually when the bobcat is out) wins. I won already a couple of times, A. Our engineer won too. The ABs still need to work on their skills. Captain H. Is not allowed to play till further notice haha. No rule changing in the middle of the game and he knows that. I will probably let him play again. Next time he is in the hold with us. It was not the case this time so no worries… I am not an excluder….. all are welcome to play. 😉

Making some magnetic compass checks, the view is always amazing from the monkey deck!

We had a lot of cargo stuck behind our bulkheads. I knew that from the loading in Liepaja. I had prepared my afternoon watch the tarpaulin for on top of the bulkhead to avoid the problem, but during my sleep, I got woken up by sounds against the wall of my cabin and knew directly what was going on. When I came on my night watch at that time I saw the tarpaulins that were taken off « because of the wind ». I remember at that time it made me really upset because there were small lines that were on the tarpaulins for making it fast and avoid having them fall in the hold. And when you know how long it takes for the whole crew to move the two bulkheads and sweep the leftover cargo from behind; well you make sure the tarpaulins are in place. We would all agree that even though it is not nice at the moment, it avoids so much more work to wake up one or two crew members to fix a tarpaulin if we cannot do it alone…. But that was not how it happened.

After completion, we moved the bulkheads and swept the remaining cargo out. Because we were not sailing out before the next day, we postponed the cleaning of the hold to the next morning. We had a chance still to have a good night’s sleep. The cleaning of the hold would be done the next morning thoroughly. We were going to Bird port, close to Newport, only a couple of hours out sailing. We would be loading steel slabs so the hold also needed to be washed with fresh water because there would be a salinity test too during the hold inspection.

We sailed out of the locks of Portbury later in the afternoon on a beautiful sunny day for a change. We were not going into our next port for a few days. They still had a few vessels ahead of us in the planning. The bad weather from the previous week made a little bit of congestion in the harbours. I did not mind. It was also the way it was and we could not change it. This time the anchorage was very easy and smooth: almost no wind and nice weather so we focused on outdoor jobs. A bit of maintenance here and there and some painting on deck.

After a few weeks with so much wind… finally, time to enjoy some stillness at sea!

I am glad that happened. As we are going into the winter period, areas with a bit of open paint and cracks will get even worse during the winter. And when it is cold outside, it is not ideal for the paint to dry either. I mean these are normal maintenance things that every officer knows onboard right? The good preparation of the surface to be painted. If you quickly just paint on top then you are sure you can do it all over again in the spring.

So this is what we did for a few days at anchor: drills, painting, greasing, general maintenance… the usual. 

Guy Fawks day on the river!

We heaved up anchor and entered the river to Newport in the late afternoon of the 5th. It was nice because as it was getting darker outside, we could see a lot of fireworks and bomb fires along the coast. It was Guy Fawkes day. I joked saying to the captain that they were making a part for us for finally entering the harbour after so many days!

There were a lot of tides and thus current at that time on the river and Birdport was a small harbour situated behind Newport. It was quite tricky because it only gave us a few minutes to make the turn and enter the small kind of lock where the loading would happen. And…. Surprise surprise, there was still a vessel loading at our berth! The problem was that if he did not make it in time to sail out then we had to cancel coming in and had to sail all the way back to the anchorage to wait for the next tide to sail in…. At the moment, I must admit I thought we were not so lucky with all our trips so far. But 20 minutes before our deadlines we were waiting drifting in a safe area on the river Usk, we hear on the radio that the vessel at our berth was ready and proceeding for departure. Great! We would make it on time.

In Birdport, we entered a tidal lock: short walls at low tide so that we would not run aground

It was a funny place, like a single lock with halfway doors that would close so that the tide did not take away all the water and always 6-7m remained at the berth. The inspectors came in the evening, directly upon arrival to inspect the salinity and cleanliness of the hold and to make the ultrasound test. It was all fine, the next morning we would be able to load directly the steel slabs.

In Birdport, the loading of the steel slabs has just begun
The timber is there to protect the vessel from the steel and to be able to pass the chain slings in between piles

The nice thing about this cargo is that it was not weather-dependent like the steel coils. These were just on the quayside outside. They just needed to be protected from salt water. This meant that I could easily open up all hatches in the morning and let them load patting attention to the trim while deballasting. Each slab was approximately 20t and we were going to make 4 piles of 7 slabs per high, 5 high; which meant 140 slabs to load. It was – normally- going to be pretty fast loading. 

Symmetrical pictures in the hold always make my day! I’d almost say that the cargo is beautiful right?

Except that….. wait for it ;-)…. The next morning, I was ready with all the hatches open but by the time the stevedore came and the shore workers…. Well the tide was higher and they couldn’t load the timber in the ship with their crane….. haha They did not want to change the hook either so they had to wait for the tide to lower to start working…. 3 hours later…. Really?! I thought this was ridiculous. They had 1. Started on time and 2. Changed the hook, they could have started slowly. But well in the end we managed and way on time so it was the same for us.

The loading of the steel slabs is here almost over, stevedores just need to lash and make fast the top layer
Chief officer and captain supervise the loading from the hatches.

In the evening at high tide, we sailed out with the pilot on board and proceeded towards the English Channel for a couple of Days. We were headed to our next port of call in Gent, Belgium, to discharge the slabs. We had 3 days sailing ahead of us. Luckily the weather had changed and we had nice and smooth sailing.

Let’s see next week what Gent would bring us this time! New adventures to be followed! Have a nice Sunday at sea my friends!

Xxx

Sopietje

5th term, week 5 🌊❤️

25th – 31st of October 2021

Loading Sugar beet pallets!
It is really taking long as we are opening and closing hatches due to the weather: one single drop of rain means hatches have to be closed!

So there we are At sea for a couple of hours heading towards the Kiel Channel where we will be changing captain in the locks and proceeding toward Portbury in England. Although I am the one making the voyage planning, I am always forgetting the amount of time it takes to sail to the Kiel Channel…. It is always 1,5 to 2 days. Almost always. Or at least the range from Kiel to the Eastern European countries such as Latvia and Lithuania. Somehow I seem to think that it take more than 2 days, but it is not that far. When we go to Germany or Poland it is even faster. But of course, as soon as we go to Finland then it takes a day extra.

Maintenance on some Fire Fighting valves in between loading breaks.

This time we only needed 2 small days to arrive at the Locks in Holtenau. We were going to bunker fuel just after the locks at the waiting berth/bunker berth. Nothing very important happened during these two days. It was the usual sailing with strong headwinds. Before captain B. Left I told him he should probably be called Captain Headwinds from now… because we had so many strong winds with him which made us always slow down or divert course… haha. We laughed of course. The significance of a headwinds captain onboard a Tall Ship would be different. It would not be the lucky captain because it probably meant the not-so-nice sailing because probably motor sailing against the winds or no sails at all… Of course here, it does not really matter because you do not divert your course, maybe a few degrees to make it more comfortable… but it does slow you down, and sometimes it makes it difficult to reach the double-digit… and well we lose a few hours maybe but that is the way it is. It is no use having the vessel hot every single wave and stop almost at all of them. In the baltic, the waves can pick up very fast and they are short and nasty compared to the Atlantic Ocean.

We arrived in the middle of the night in the locks. I had said goodbye to captain B. in advance because I would probably be called for the second part of the channel and needed to sleep. So just in case, I wanted to make sure I had thanked him for the past month together. And indeed, I didn’t hear the ship sailing in the locks but somehow woke up for another noise a little later, as we were almost finished bunkering. I checked through my porthole and saw that we were still alongside so I climbed to the bridge to say hello and welcome the new captain on board. It was nice to see a happy friendly familiar face again. It had been probably 4-5 months I had not sailed with him so I was, of course, looking forward to some cold swimming craziness and nuclear noodles. We had a nice chat and went to bed again as I had to wake up a few hours later again. And on the channel, you never know if you will have a pilot that will steer all the way or if you will have one that will expect you to steer all the way. In the second case, It takes a little more concentration so you better be fit and fully awake! 😉 We are always hoping for the pilot to steer of course… but if he doesn’t want to then it is also not a problem and we have to do it.

Once out of the Kiel Channel, we sailed out in the German bight where we would still have few strong winds but less than on the Baltic side. Somehow it felt way easier. It was funny to be on this side of Europe. I had the feeling that it had been a while, and indeed…. For the past month, we had had only short baltic sails. This was the first longer sail in a while. And also via the channel! It had been months I had not sailed there. I think my previous term we went to Northern Ireland via the north of the UK and the Sound; so no English Channel. It is nice to change course and voyage once in a while. Also, I had never been in the area of Bristol yet. I like new sights and new harbours, it always gives something to look forward to and to be curious about.

Even in the Kiel Channel the weather was not nice.

Well all the way, the strong winds did not stop. We had westerly winds; so yes, as you guessed… in the nose and at one point I was not going so fast in my watch with wind and current against. Probably only 6 knots…. The worst thing about not going so fast in heavy weather is that you end up staying longer in it instead of moving on! Well, finally we made it to the Falmouth area and managed to top round the corner and finally were sailing downwind. Better for the ship, better for the rolling and better for the sleep. We would embark the pilot later in the morning and it would be perfect timing with a few hours before arriving in Portbury, close to Bristol.

You guessed, right? It did not happen this way. It would have been too easy. Like if this whole voyage was cursed from the moment we departed Klaipeda in ballast….. everything took way too long and the weather god had not been with us once. At the pilot station we had to drift for a few hours extra because of the heavy weather; but then there was a problem with the pilot boat and we had to drop anchor for a few nights. Luckily we found a good spot and the anchor was holding too. 

The crew is always happy; here it is AB B. cleaning windows outside from all the salty spray!

Finally, we made it to Portbury at the end of the week. On Sunday evening of course. It gave us time to catch up on some sleep and do some inside jobs. For my part, making sure the administration was in order, preparing for the next voyages and also the end of the month administration: preparing the resting hours sheets of the crew and getting them signed by both the captain and the crew member. But then we would finally be able to discharge on Monday morning and move on to a better, hopefully, luckier voyage as well. Haha

It was a good week despite the weather. It was also holiday time for landlubbers. Indeed Halloween time. When you are at sea you forget about all the things happening ashore. You follow the news of course, what you read on the net, but you do not get the vibe of the moment. It is the way it is of course, but I always try to find an excuse to decorate the ship or bake a cake for a birthday, Christmas or this time for Halloween. Last year, we were in Delfzijl and I managed to get in a shop one or two packs of decoration. I had nicely placed them during my night watch in the crew mess and I had baked a carrot cake and designed a ghost on the frosting with some nuts.

It is Halloween and I have decorated the bridge a little…. had some visits from a Skeleton here!

This year I decided to decorate the bridge with the rats, bats, spider web and skeleton I had kept. I like it. I think it is fun. Unlike last year, I did not bake anything and I did not have any orange and black – theme of the moment- candy to share. Nevertheless it gave the feeling we were also participating from far the shore festivities. So we had Oscar the skeleton on the bridge for a few days…. In France, skeletons are called Oscar. Do not ask me why. Probably because a bone is an « os », and Oscar starts with -os. Who knows.

And also visits from rats and bats while at sea!

I am looking forward to a little more action next week. Hopefully, the weather will be with us from now. It would be nice for a change! Till then sweet dreams and see you next week! 

Xxx

Sopietje