21st till 27th of March 2022

Hello there my friends! It is 8 weeks since I am onboard and I should soon start receiving emails for me going home! maybe at the end of this week? or maybe at the end of next week, who knows! it will all depend on the harbours we will be sailing to of course! always the same story, right?

On the 21st, Captain H. drove home with Duschi the dog and the new captain was onboard. It is always strange to change crew members. Especially when it is a captain with whom you work well and things are smooth. The new captain was still a big mystery to me. Eventually, we slowly got to know each other. But the first days are always awkward: asking what he expects from me and how he likes to see things onboard is the first step. It seems strange to ask but usually, people come and say « oh just do like you normally do » but then everything seems wrong or modified etc…. I usually like to ask ahead now what they expect and how they see it rather than having to change things around after I have spent time making them. It is also a nice moment to ask how the new captain works and to have the first batch of information on how he wants it to be. Every captain is different and has different ideas, and ways of doing. And of course as chief Officer, I need to adapt to the captain. it usually doe not dork the other way around…. unfortunately.

I showed him how I did my voyage planning and asked if he wanted to see more information in it; I showed him how I entered things in the logbooks and the same asked if he had some particulars he wanted me to always right down. At least we could start first and see further later.

He seemed like a young fun person. A smoker. But that is not so much of a problem for me as long as doors are open and smokers do their thing on the lee side, right? but then later in the week, he said he was going to stop smoking… like what??? no, please! not on my watch!! haha. They say people who stop smoking at sea become irritable and in a bad mood! well, at least that started off well as a joke right?

We stayed in Terneuzen for a couple of days discharging the paper reels; in the afternoon or early evening, we sailed out to Zeebrugge where we would load wood pulp to Rauma, Finland again. But first, we had our new autopilot trials to do. This took a little more time than planned but it ended up all well.

Loading the wood pulp went extremely fast as they were loading 16 packages by 16 packages! 

There is a funny story to tell about the loading. For sensitive cargo such as wood pulp, there are two options. If the tanktop is painted then there is no need to display a layer of paper on the tanktop as a protective layer for the wood pulp. As our tanktop is not painted, we need to roll out the paper before the loading starts. In Sweden, the stevedores do it themselves and roll the paper out following the loading. In the Netherlands, the crew has to have it all prepared before they start loading. And of course, we prepare it when the hatches are closed and as soon as they start they do not want us to be in the hold anymore for safety reasons. The problem is that as soon as there are more hatches open the wind blows in and all the paper is torn apart and blowing away. It is quite annoying to know that we have spent time unrolling it and taping it the best we could and it is never enough. The funny part is that this time the paper was not on time. There had been a miscommunication and after a few phone calls, it was agreed that we would still display the paper in the hold. So they came with a huge roll of paper. Such a paper roll we had just transported. A 2-ton roll. I was a bit confused. Luckily the foreman told me it was not good paper and with the forklift, he rolled out the paper and made smaller rolls by hand….. way handier. because my crane was not capable of lifting it entirely in the hold of course. It was just a funny moment to see two persons rolling out a huge paper roll to cut smaller pieces as protection for the wood pulp.

They also had a crew to do the lashing and the airbags. I tried my best to be on top of things there, to show the captain I was at ease on deck. But of course, I did not know him yet and sometimes there are miscommunications when people do not know each other and need to adapt to new working colleagues. I probably overlashed the wood pulp to not have bad surprises arriving in Finland of course. When other people, not from the ship, do the lashing, you cannot always blame it on them because I am supposed to always double-check what and how they are lashing the cargo right? And in any situation, the captain is always ended up responsible, and I did not want him to start with such a bad idea of me either. first impressions are always important, right?

This could actually be another full subject: how we first meet people and what remains of these first impressions over time. I have the feeling that first impressions are often the ones that remain the longest. that it is difficult to change one’s opinion on various matters. but I am maybe wrong.

Leaving Belgium was nice. It is always nice to go back to sea after a few days in the harbour, especially when there is a lot of tide, and some work to check the mooring lines to make sure the vessel is not hanging in them at low tide… I must admit that this is something I like very much about the baltic sea… there is such a minimal tide that it is often not even applicable! I also like that most of the quays are at our height too and not made for huge vessels. You have no idea how difficult it can be to have a safe mean of coming off and onboard ( the mighty gangway of course) when the quay is not fitted for our type of vessel and when there is a huge tidal difference that you have to move the heavy gangway every couple of hours and adjust it again.

We were now sailing away to Finland: Rauma.

Do you know a nice story? When we left the Belgian port there was a tug boat; most probably checking the fire pumps of course, but the nice thing is that it seemed like they were making the water spray to greet us and wish us fair winds as we were departing… I know, I know, I probably still have a mindset on big events for tall ships, where the tugs were actually welcoming us and saying good-by with all fire pumps on during the sail-in and sail-out parade. haha.

It had been a while since I was not in Rauma. It was nice to know we had a couple of days sailing before arriving. I start to know by heart the schedule: depending on where we are in the Netherlands, it is around 12 or 24 hours to the Kiel channel then 8 hours on the Channel and 2,5-3 days to Finland. This would give me some time to prepare for my handover.

This time we are welcoming a new crew member as an officer onboard and it is important to spend some time preparing anything my reliever would need and to make sure to have time to do a good safety familiarization and go over the administration of the ship. It will be a huge handover so I have to be organized right?

So off I go to prepare all that!

xxx

Sophietje