Broken Tow Wire Re-cap

I've been home for the past 3 weeks and still have 2 more weeks before heading back up to Seattle for Session #6.  My last hitch was a Western Alaska run as the AB and I landed about 50 days of sea time, which equates to about 30 days of ATO, (Accumulated Time Off).  I unfortunately didn't write as much on this past trip as I'd like, but I posted a few things here and there. I recently picked up a new laptop to replace the one that was stolen from my car, so I promise to blog a bit more from here on out.

The final days of our trip included some interesting learning experiences.  The most memorable was a broken tow wire as we were entering Puget Sound near Port Townsend.  We had dropped back to put our reefer tech on the first barge (we were pulling a tandem), and upon retrieval of the tech, our rear barge's tow wire got caught up and snagged something on the bottom, instantly snapping the tow wire and sending our smaller 2nd barge adrift in the traffic lanes, which were luckily empty.

I was asleep when it happened, but the slowing of the engines and the commotion on deck woke me up.  I went out to see what was going on and saw our barge about 1/4 mile off the stern, pointing in an odd direction and not moving.  Meanwhile, the cook and other crew members were running around on deck pulling lines and such.  I jumped back into the house and threw on my work clothes and immediately assisted with the lines.
The plan was to come around and hip-up on the port stern of the smaller barge to regain control, while still towing our large reefer barge.  As we came about and tried to approach the smaller barge on the stern, the larger barge didn't make the turn (due to it's weight) and it grazed the side of the smaller barge, which then bumped into us and leaving a dent about 4-5' in diameter on the large barge.  It then continued on a course heading away from the tug as we were trying to jump off onto the smaller barge.  After getting the larger barge to flip around and behave, we hopped off and tied up to the smaller barge with double headlines, spring and stern lines.  In the process of getting a 2nd headline on the barge, the 1st line came up tight and snapped a few feet from where I was standing.  I heard it come tight and pretty much dove to the deck to get out of the way.  Luckily, it was a heavy cotton line and it didn't recoil with as much force as some of the newer synthetic lines.  It did however, sound like a shotgun going off, and it left a cloud of cotton fibers as if a duck had just been shot down from the sky.  It was an interesting experience to be a part of, and highly educational.

After finally getting 6 lines on the smaller barge and pointed in the right direction, we slowly brought her around the point at Port Townsend and headed south towards Seattle.  We put out a call asking for a no-wake courtesy from all passing ships and we steamed at about 3-4 knots throughout the night before arriving in Elliot Bay, Seattle around 06:30 where we handed both barges off to Western Towboat.  Because of our limited visibility around the starboard side of the smaller barge, we also posted a lookout on the bow of the barge as an extra safety precaution.

Once in Seattle, the smaller barge got put on a buoy and we were told to stay put and help a dive boat retrieve the tow bridle hanging down from the bow.  The diver showed up and helped us attach our working wire to one of the bridle links and we hauled it in, fired up the torch and cut off the broken end of the cable, attached a new swede wire/safety, hung the gear and went on our way.

The last few weeks home have been awesome.  Did some sailing on Lake Tahoe and have basically just been hanging out at home, fixing things and enjoying the time off.

I head back to PMI in 2 weeks to study Celestial Nav, Cargo Handling and Medical Care Provider, which will take about 4 weeks.  After that, It sounds like I may be on boat to Hawaii for a month.  My boss is supposed to confirm sometime soon.  I don't mind the Hawaii run, but it's fairly boring and we don't get to work Cargo, which means less pay, but no sweaty 20/hours days. I picked up a new GoPro, so maybe I'll make some vids and play around with some cool action shots.

I'll be blogging about celestial in a few weeks, so check back to see what that's all about.

I've thrown in a few pics of our broken tow wire for your viewing pleasure..

I'm also including a link to my Flickr album of a few past trips.  I'll be adding more trips to the album shortly.

Leaving Dutch and heading home

Sitting in the library at Dutch Harbor, realizing that I haven't been writing much. Here's the Clif notes.

3rd day in Dutch, awaiting for our 2nd barge to take back to Seattle. Weather good. Should be home around the 30th, and the transit should be about 12 days.

Been on this boat for over a month now and ready go home. Great crew, good boat, good food, no complaints whatsoever except anxious to see the family.

I'll write more on our transit back and upload once we arrive. Hoping the my car is back in full operational status and ready for the trip south.

 

Peace.

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Underway: Polar Viking

It's been a busy few months. After getting back from a Hawaii run in April and 4 weeks of classes to follow, I'm back out to sea and operating in the Western Alaska region. This time, I'm sailing a the AB and I have to admit, I am ecstatic about not having to cook. We have a Maine Maritime cadet onboard who is doing all the cooking, and doing a mighty fine job at that.

We left Seattle on June 13th, after a quick 2-day trip home to see the family and celebrate my daughter's 16th birthday. We headed straight up the inside passage, popped out into the Gulf at Cape Decision and were pier side in Anchorage on following Saturday. The crossing was pretty mild, with only a day or two of being in the trough and getting bounced around. We logged about 21 hours of cargo time and left Anchorage Sunday afternoon, headed southwest to Dutch Harbor. We arrived in Dutch Weds evening, the 25th, offloaded a bunch of cargo on Thursday, backloaded a bunch more cargo and headed north later that evening. Now we are about 240 miles south of Nome, which will be our next port of call. From Nome, well head back south to Dillingham, NakNek and then back to Dutch before making our way back across the gulf.

I'm really hoping to get off the barge in Nome and look around, maybe pick up some souvenirs or something fun for the kids. We are expected to be there a day or two, so it should be possible.

I've been doing a bunch of fun projects around the boat. The last two days have been spent chipping paint off the deck in the fidley with a needle gun. My plan is to get all the paint up, some primer down and a new color (replacing red with grey) onto the deck before we get back home.

After this trip, I should have a full month and then some, home with the family beforem school starts up in September. I am very much looking forward to some downtime.

Tonight's dinner is "B4D", (breakfast for dinner) a mariner's favorite. It's always a hit, mostly because our weird watch typically schedules limits breakfast access for 2/3 of the boat. On the menu, stuffed French toast, which is apparently French toast, stuffed with cream cheese and fresh fruit. Yumm.

That is all for now...

 

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Nome and No-More

We left Anchorage on the 22nd, pulled into Dutch on the 26th, then it was off to Nome. The weather was good, yet windy, so we ended up doing round turns outside of Nome for 3 days before finally landing on the 3rd of July. It was 2 days of cargo work to get everything off and reloaded before pulling lines and heading south towards Dillingham. I did manage to get into town in Nome and help with the grocery shopping and to have a look around. Not much to report except a bunch of bars and a ton of gold hungry folks. They were preparing the Main Street for the 4th of July parade and festivities. The sun goes down around 2am, so I doubt they were planning any fireworks. The gold dredges line the beach and it's a constant flow of dredge traffic pulling in and out of the tiny port in search of their riches.

It's now Sunday the 6th and we are preparing to pull into Dillingham tomorrow morning around 11am on the high tide.

I received a startling email this morning from my wife. She said that my car had apparently been stolen, vandalized and abandoned, and that it now sits in an impound yard somewhere in Washington. I had it parked in the company parking lot behind gates, with the alarm turned on, alongside 20+ other employee vehicles. The car was packed with all my Seattle school stuff, clothes, my custom bike, tools, riding clothes, laptop, books and many other wonderful things. I guess the door handle, the shifter assembly and the steering column were all torn apart and there was some graffiti or something on the car as well. So, I spent my day trying to remember what else I had in there for insurance purposes. Erin is having to juggle all this while I'm gone, and hopefully get it fixed so that I have a way home after this trip.

The past two years have been brutal. One nasty surprise after another...

I'm mostly bummed about my bike. It was hand built by a good friend of mine, and it's very much priceless with quite a bit of sentimental value. All my riding gear and the things that assist me recreationally now possibly lost. My running shoes, my daypack, etc... Ugh. The hassle and the feeling of loss is a bit overwhelming right now and I can't sleep, trying to figure out how everything will play out and what else I has tucked away in my car. Not a great day on the Bering Sea, even though it was sunny and calm...

 

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Clouds and the Arctic Circle

The last 5 days have been spent in class on the topic of meteorology. A subject that, if not applied correctly, can get you killed and at the very least, leave you wet and miserable.

We learned all about atmospheric pressure, what causes it, how clouds are formed, what they mean, where they go, how pressure systems move and why, how global systems change, what type of rain to expect based on wind temps and direction. We studied 24, 48 and 96 hour surface and forecast reports, plus 500mB charts as well. I now understand cold fronts, warm fronts, occluded fronts, troughs and ridges, monsoons, hurricanes, tradewinds, radiation and advection fog, dew points and more! A simple look around outside can now provide me with some basic understanding of what the next few hours are going to bring. Feeling wind in my face, while looking East in the northern hemisphere, has new meaning, as does a layer of high cirrus cloud cover and a rising barometer readings.

Being able to understand that winds twist around low pressure systems in a counter clockwise fashion, and clockwise in a high pressure system, provides information on where you might expect those winds to be later on in the day. A simple course change based on current winds can either make or break your next 24-48 hours.

Weather is extremely complex, yet extremely interesting and even more applicable to our lives and careers. There aren't many topics out there that can be applied to everyday life and your careers to the same intensity and applicability. Weather plays a part on our recreational lives, our daily commutes and whether or not we make it back into port on time, and alive.

The most interesting part to me, is that by being able to forecast and see where storm fronts are going to be in 3-4 days from now, you can keep your crew happy, your boat moving forward, and get to your destination on time or better yet, ahead of schedule. One little flaw In your predictions can easily put your lives at stake and cost your company a ton of money, or worse, the loss of lives.

It was a tough class, with an overwhelming amount of information, but all said and done, I learned a great deal and am thankful for the info. Meteorology and GMDSS within a one-month timeframe is a lot to swallow, but worth the effort, thanks to numerous hours spent at the library in the quiet room under the influence of copious amounts of caffeine. :-)

I'll remain in Seattle for the weekend and then do some simulator training on Monday before heading home for a few days to celebrate my beautiful daughter's 16th birthday. Next Friday, I depart for a Western Alaska trip that will take about 5-6 weeks. We will be hitting a handful of small communities in the North Bering sea after a stop in Dutch Harbor. I'll be sailing as the AB, and we'll have a few cadets onboard from Maine Maritime, one of which is cooking. I'm looking forward to not being "the cook" for the first time.

We are scheduled to hit Naknek, Dillingham, Bethel, Nome, Kotsebue and Dutch. Kotsebue is above the Arctic circle, so that'll be a first for this sailor and I'm looking forward to some Northern exposure! Might have to get a special tattoo after this trip... (Hi mom!). :-)

I'll write more during the trip, but I doubt I'll have much signal to upload blog posts very often. See ya'll soon!

 

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GMDSS Implosion

Well, today I wrapped up week two of GMDSS with a nasty bang, indicating the implosion of my mind. I tested yesterday for my final assessments, missing a few steps and forcing a retake on a few things today. I studied all night, and again early this morning, feeling really good about the re-take. But when it came down to test time, my fatigue and fried memory from 11+ days of studying got the best of me and I dropped the ball on a few similar things, failing the test and the entire class.

It was probably the biggest academic disappointment of my entire life. I can retake the class, and there's no problem there, but the disappointment comes from having put SO much effort into something, only to fail in the end, something I'm not used to.

I'm not a "slow" learner and I typically pick things up fairly quick. I've spent a good portion of my life in classes from grade school up through radar school in the Navy, a Bachelors degree and through half of the Masters program at the CSU level. I've even spent a few extra years at the JC level for business development classes. During my undergrad time, I was on the deans list with 3.9 GPA and I'd like to believe that I have a pretty good handle on how to study with fairly productive study techniques. I will admit that yes, I'm older now and I have to assume that my mind isn't as sharp as it was 15 years ago, but I didn't see such a struggle on the horizon and was a caught a bit off guard.

This class didn't fall into any nice little box that prior experience would benefit me from. The material was interesting and applicable, but so damn language and acronym intensive, that I spent half of my time just trying to remember terminology, let alone general concepts. That, combined with too little time and an instructor who moves quickly from topic to topic, and I was left spinning around grasping for air.

I managed to pass the written test in week 1 with a minimal passing grade, but lab week was even more overwhelming and I couldn't commit to memory, the important steps and details of what was needed.

Over the 11 day period, I spent over 150 hours on the topic, studying after class, all-day on Saturday/Sunday, and it still didn't stick well enough to land me a passing grade. I even had numerous dreams about frequencies, vhf radio conversations and other class related topics. My point is, that I applied myself 200%, and that wasn't enough.

My other 4 lab classmates passed with similar effort, and my hat is off to them. 2 of our classmates from week 1 failed out during the first week, so I'm fortunate to have made it to lab week, but it still really sucks to end on such a bad note. I did manage to pass the Element 1 written test after I was done today, therefore qualifying me for my FCC license. At least I'll be getting something out of the class in addition to a headache and a few more gray hairs.

Frustration and disappointment is really an understatement, but that's life and we move on.

So, here I sit in an airport bar, enjoying an ice cold amber or 4, and waiting for my flight to take me home where family and sunshine will hopefully put the last 11 days behind me. I'll be back for more GMDSS, but not anytime soon. I have one year to take the class again, so I'm thinking somewhere out there around the 11.5 months-from-now timeframe should do the trick. I'm in no hurry to put myself into the hurt locker again that is called GMDSS.

Images from the class:

Typical Furuno GMDSS console

Small, yet stressful classroom

Standard Furuno VHF radios

 

Inmarsat-C terminal

 

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GMDSS Recap: Week 1

Well, the past five days have been spent with my nose in the book, eyes in the notes, 5+ hours each night after class trying to grasp all the frequencies, acronyms, nomenclature and concepts of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, or "GMDSS". It's not a terribly hard system grasp the basics on, yet there are numerous subsystems, requirements and processes involved that further complicate the learning. Essentially it's a worldwide network consisting of various systems that help the maritime industry with distress alerting and communications. Only larger ships (over 300 gross tons) are required to be compliant with GMDSS, and each of those ships is required to have 2 certified GMDSS operators onboard at all times underway, hence the class.

We had to learn all the various satellites that ships use for different purposes, and where these satellites orbit, what frequencies they monitor, their longitude and how to effectively use each one. There are satellites that circle the globe north to south listening for signals from EPIRBS and SARTS and others that stay in geo-stationary orbit to provide constant data access to ships for emergency alerting, weather and ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore communications.

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A typical GMDSS console

The other half of this week involved all the radio communications for ships and emergency alerting. If you want to contact another ship, land station, phone number, email, fax, etc, you need to understand how each frequency works and which one to use depending on where you are, what the conditions are (daytime, nightime), or what the other station might be monitoring. You also need to understand the process for sending distress messages in each system, and where/when to send it depending on where you are and what the distress is.

In between all of that information, you have various systems that overlap and use both systems (radio and satellite) for various purposes like weather broadcasts, SAR broadcasts, navigational warnings, etc.

To pass the first week of the class, we needed to get a 75% or better on the first exam consisting of 100 questions, to be completed in 90 minutes. Once passed, we will be issued an FCC license and our GMDSS certification. The second week involves 5 days of lab, punching buttons and actually getting to use the equipment in a real-time environment.

Quite a few folks didn't pass the first exam, but are retaking it on Monday and should have no problem. This class is no joke, and if you are reading this as you enter the Workboat Program, or are preparing to take GMDSS at PMI, I will say this... Read the pre-study material and learn AS much as possible about the topics before class starts, otherwise you will not survive. Hardest class I've had to-date and I'll be one of many ( many) that has to unfortunately retake the exam on Monday.

So, my weekend will take me back to books and notes in hope of an easy Monday. For now, it's a cold beer, tasty food and a good night's sleep.

 

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