The Job of a Captain

[Erik Wood]

I really enjoyed Mr. Haisman's post a couple of things he wrote in specific that I I would like to comment on:

"Being a good scholar is highly commendable but experience is absolutely the ultimate.". I couldn't agree more. There have been several cases in which I have had to correct school taught physics and how they relate to ship driving.

"continue to steer between the anchors!" The last time that was said to me was by Captain Johan Ooddlesone formerly of the Norway. While attempting to back out of an anchorage I ran over a small (empty) tender from another nearby cruise ship. From then on it is the joke around anchorages that when you know that I am running the ship to move yours when I weigh anchor.

Mr. Haisman has some great experiences that I hope he will share with us at some point regarding his service on the Queens and other ships. Like I said before, some companies may do it differently but that is the way I have seen it handled. Nothing like Titanic. Titanic and E.J. Smith had a much less complicated system.

Of that, it was pointed out to me by a fellow Carnival Captain that I made an error in posting the ranks for the hotel staff. It should read:

Hotel Manager
Director of Food and Beverage

Sometimes the small things get us.

I am glad that I haven't offended Mr. Haisman and I hope that he will share with us his own expereinces. As he says (and I totally agree with) experience is ultimate.

Erik

 

[Yuri Singleton]

I've found this thread very informative. Thanks for starting it Erik.

We know that the captain is the person who is ultimately responsible for the operation of the ship. We expect the captain to know how to make his ship 'go'. But just because a captain has the license needed to drive a ship, does that mean he understands the ship he's driving?

For instance, in aviation, a pilot needs to meet three different qualifications to fly a plane:
1. Pilot's license
2. Medical certificate
3. Type rating

The first goes to his ability to understand the concept of flight, and standard operations of an aircraft, etc. (but not a specific type of aircraft)
The second assures that his health is adequate to withstand the pressures of flight.
The third identifies the specific type of aircraft that he is rated to operate. A pilot of a lear jet can only fly a Boeing 747 if he's rated to fly the 747. (That's not to say that in a pinch a lear pilot couldn't fly a 747.) But type ratings are an additional step to assure proficiency in the characteristics of that specific type of plane.

So can the same be said of ship captain? Can a skipper of a 500 foot container ship just climb aboard a 1000 foot, state of the art passenger ship and sail her on her maiden voyage? Or is there a system in place to assure that the captain of a ship really has an understanding for the particular ship he's operating?

This gets back to whether or not Capt. Smith, or his officers, really understood how to operate Titanic proficiently.

Yuri

 

[David Haisman]

Thank you Kyrila and Captain Wood,
On a lighter note, just a little snippet for you.
Whilst having a beer in the ' Pig and Whistle ' onboard the Queen Elizabeth, an Irish waiter joined our group and said that he only got the job after an intelligence test from the Chief Steward.
What did that entail I asked.
He replied, 'I had to give him a sentence with the word ''fascinate'' in it.
What was the sentence, we all asked.
The waiter replied, 'I told him that my saloon white jacket had ten gold buttons but I only 'fasten eight'
Where did that come from I said.
'Well' he said, 'It came from a very clever man outside of Dublin who was a publican. I popped into his pub and asked him which was the quickest way to the city centre. He then asked if I was going by car or walking. I replied, 'by car'.
He then said, 'to be sure that will be the quickest way then' !
Those ships had a crew of 1500 men and quite a few comedians.....to be sure ! !
Yours Sincerely,
David Haisman

 

[Erik Wood]

The follwoing only comes from my own expereience.

I have an unlimited license which means I can drive just about anything of any size. Now there are some obvious exceptions to that. My license says for steam and diesel powered vessels. So any nucs I can't drive. Also, before a company will send you on a ship they typcially have you run through a large simulator so that you get a basic feel for the ship and how it will respond, not to mention where all the gadgets are. This is also part of the qualification process. I may be licensed to run the ship but company you work for has it's own set of standards that you must meet before they give you command.

On the Great Lakes once you become a licensed officer you are also a 1st class pilot. That means you can take the ship into any Great Lakes port with out the aid of a pilot. In the salt you are required to pick up a pilot unless you have the endorsment for that port. I have an endorsement for Miami, San Fransico, and New York, and Port Everglades. But any other port I go into I will be required to carry a licensed pilot.

Thanks for the story Mr. Haisman. That reminds me of a story. I knew of a cabin steward who knew almost no english (which isn't unusual). He had been told over and over to ensure that when he leaves to make sure he does a final check and write down when he leaves the cabin and starts another. The head cabin steward had seen me walking down a passageway and asked me to come and look at this cabin. I walked in and it looked great, but on the bed I saw a piece of paper that said "Final Check leaving here at 1005". I didn't understand it until I had heard the story but it is a story I still tell to Head Cabin Stewards and Hotel Managers.

Erik

 

[Gene Smith]

Good day to you all. I believe I have finally found the place where I may get some answers to my questions after blundering about the web without much result.

I have followed this thread with great interest because my wife & I own a company which is providing interactive characters to the Houston Museum of Natural Science's upcoming Titanic exhibit. Among these characters is, of course, Captain Smith. I am sort of "relief captain" on this enterprise, being the backup interactor for Captain Smith, who will be played by another interactor for most of the exhibit's run.

My problem: while there is endless debate about details of the sinking, there is very little information about the day-to-day running of a ship like Titanic. Someone on another list was kind enough to post this excerpt from 1891:

I also looked in Ocean Steamships, 1891, and learned that the master of a transatlantic liner represented the paragon of all possible human virtues, being clear-headed, brainy, iron-willed, driving yet patient, and having risen "unlike many of their brothers in the government service . . . by energy, pluck, merit." But there is not a great deal on routine, other than in port having much work to do in his cabin (where, watch in hand, he receives the Chief Officer's report re. the fire drill). At sea, at 11 in the forenoon, he and the doctor make a tour of the ship: "At the borders of each province he is received by its governor, who conducts him through its highways and its byways, through its lanes and shaded groves. The purser and the chief steward are answerable for all concerning the passengers, and scrupulous and minute is the examination given to the saloons, storerooms, pantries. kitchens, bakeries, closets, bath-rooms, and to such cabins and state-rooms as may be visited. Then follow the steerages and the "glory hole," -- this last a den sacred to the discomfort of the perennially nimble . . . and sorely tried stewards. The chief officer is responsible for the boatswain's locker, the forecastles, the upper decks, the boats, the whalebacks. . . . The inspection is finished a little after seven bells, and one by one the officers straggle on deck with their sextants. . . . The observations are worked out independently by the chief and second officers, and the former submits his results to the captain.. . . The captain's duties permit him to go below rarely save at dinner-time . . . . In the beginning there was a struggle for seats at the captain's table, and heartburnings are not unknown to those who sit a little lower on the feast. . . Once in every voyage boat drill is held, and sadly insufficient for the people on board is this same boat equipment. But the drill is usually a passably fair one, and, given time, adequate perhaps for any demands made upon the ship by outside distress."

Would Captain Smith have made something like the above mentioned inspection tour on the Titanic, some 21 years later?

Gene Smith