Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Marine Review (Cleveland, OH), May 1934, p. 33

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

ner and personal requirements are attended to; and from 1 to 5 p.m. the same conditions prevail, The mate supervises the loading of cargo, If the ship is sailing at 5 p.m., or as near thereafter as cargo is loaded, he makes certain that the hatches are closed, cargo’ gear stowed, ete. Finally he is busy get- ting papers, cargo plans, special car- go sheets, etc. from pier clerks. The second mate is required to be on the after deck and in holds, checking any special cargo there may be. The third mate is required to be on forward deck and in the holds. These conditions prevail from voy- age to voyage, with the variation that sometimes the ship gets in on Thursday which will give both the second and third mate each a night off, otherwise they alternate, one taking one trip and the next the other trip. Should there be some reason for one of them, including the first mate, wishing to be ashore in the day time (which is not sup- posed to be done), he has to first ask the mate, then the mate asks the captain and he is allowed to neglect his work for his own personal pleas- ure, The conscientious mate has the feeling that if he wants to get a day off for some legitimate business the only way he can do it is to quit the ship. To be sure he does get time off but the feeling prevails that he had just a little rather not meet the marine superintendent when he is going up the pier. Under the above conditions the mates are tired, disgruntled with conditions; have no time to them- selves when other men do, and feel that entirely too much is expected of them, for remember that the chief mate must be on the bridge until 8 p.m, the third mate until 12 mid- night and the second mate must get up at 12 midnight. The chief mate is required to put in 23 hours; the second mate, 20 hours; and the third mate, 27 hours, out of a possible 48 hours total time. As a consequence they leave the deck to get a smoke, a cup of coffee or across the street to get ‘‘sea stores.’’ All of which shows up in their work, One need only compare the calibre of the men in the lines which maintain these conditions as against the lines which have a more liberal attitude toward their men to show the unsoundness of this meth- od. A More Effective Way Now, let us take this same ship’s schedule and put it on a more rea- sonable basis. Various schedules can be worked out which would not only require two mates (which is de- sired) to be on duty when cargo is being worked, but would allow them time to take care of personal mat- ters. Also it eases a man’s mind to know that he is not required to be there and, therefore, it would tend to make him give closer attention to the job when he is working, know- ing that, though it is hard at pres- ent and that he must cover the work thoroughly, he will have time off without subterfuge. One master de- scribed a mate’s duties as follows: “In other words a mate who is in charge of the deck at such times should be as near as possible every- where at the same time, seeing every- thing before it happens, and taking measures to prevent it before it be- comes an actuality.” And this is just about what is expected of him. However, if he feels that the man- agement recognizes his needs and the conditions existing, he is far more likely to endeavor to live up to what is expected of him. Allowing that the line has reason- ably responsible stevedores and long- shoremen, two mates on the avy- erage cargo steamer, with not more than five hatches working, and an adequate backing up with the sail- ors to take care of gear so that the mate does not have to be rigging new cargo runners or attending to the gangway falls ete., under the proposed schedule, are quite able to look after the stowage. The chief mate can answer any serious ques- tions about stowage and keep his cargo reports etc.; the other mate to be on the deck and in the holds at all times. A five-minute visit to each hold every half hour to see to the separation of cargo, proper use of dunnage and the adequate filling of cargo space is sufficient, But he must be on the job to accomplish this, following the cargo as it comes in, knowing when every parcel of cargo is started in a partciular hold and knowing about the time that that parcel is to be finished, and when another parcel or car lot is started. Improvement In Personnel Should conditions such as _ han- dling heavy lifts or special cargo arise, it would be necessary for one ate to spend his entire time at that hatch. Generally this could be done by the chief mate. During the beginning of work and at the end, the first few hours after arriving and the last few before sailing, all mates should be on board. Another point to be remembered is, that by arranging such work schedules it would be possible for a company to obtain and hold a higher calibre of men—men in whom the captain and the chief mate could have faith, and who could be en- trusted to see to it that good stow- age was obtained. BHspecially should they know that they had the back- ing of the mate or captain should any disputes arise with the steve- dore. Lack of backing is one of the MARINE REVIEW—May, 1934 main reasons for the lack of initia- tive in the junior mates. As to night work; schedules should be worked that would keep the chief mate on duty until -such work is actually started, when he can leave after giving the junior mate who is to be on watch, any defi- nite instructions he desires, and the authority to settle all problems that might ‘arise during the time he is away from the ship while cargo is be- ing worked. Such schedules should be in a printed form, along with other defi- nite instructions, This is true re- gardless of how small the line may be. Printed instructions let a man know just what is expected of him. Heavy Cruise Bookings The Colombian line, which inau- gurated its new ecruise service a little more than a year ago with the new palatial liners Conompra and HatriI, and popular cruise ship PAs- TORES, has done remarkably well throughout the year. The company provides weekly sailings from New York and the vessels have the dis- tinction of not only being among the finest cruise ships afloat but they are also the fastest liners regularly em- ployed in the New York-Port au Prince, Kingston, Puerto Colombia run, Capacity Passenger List Booked to capacity with a record list of 420 first class passengers the Ward line’s turbo-electric liner Morro CASTLE sailed from Pier 13 East river at 5 p.m. March 30 on a special Easter cruise to Havana, Miami and Nassau in command of Capt. R. W. Willmott. This passenger list is the biggest ever booked on the Morro CASTLE ac- cording to M. Seckendorf, passenger traffic manager of the Ward line. Every berth on the large palatial American flag liner was sold out many days before sailing and the company was forced to press the popular Srponrty into service to take care of the overflow. Westinghouse Orders Up Orders booked by Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co, for the first quarter of 1934 totaled approximate- ly $20,100,000. This compared with $12,850,000 for the first quarter of 1933, an increase of almost 57 per cent, The outlook for the months immediately ahead is encouraging and the business trend seems to be again definitely upward. Manufac- turing activities for March are higher than for any month since De- cember 1931. 33

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy