stemthetide
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2016
- Messages
- 7
Actually the pace of the capital improvements over the past few years has been pretty impressive.
Actually I did ... if you consider sea year berths and heads as part of "dorms and bathrooms".Does anyone seriously pick the college or SA they want to attend based on the dorms and bathroom facilities????
Probably not but a mother can ask what kind of conditions their daughter will face, can't they? Or should I not ask at all?Does anyone seriously pick the college or SA they want to attend based on the dorms and bathroom facilities????
I just asked the question, a mother would like to know. DD could care less. Not sure what a "coper" is but I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply. Geez.Not if she wants to be a military officer who serves in the field or serves at sea, either in a sea service or merchant marine. Not all baths are spa-level.
If DD is a coper who just lets minor inconveniences roll off her back, she will be fine. If not, whether it's a DD or DS, the life is not for them.
Last I visited USMMA, the heads were serviceable. No better, no worse than any other government institution building that has been around awhile.
coper as in someone who copes well with things being less than ideal.I just asked the question, a mother would like to know. DD could care less. Not sure what a "coper" is but I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply. Geez.
Actually I did ... if you consider sea year berths and heads as part of "dorms and bathrooms".
Its a KP thing ... getting the worst end of the stick becomes a point of pride.And as I posted above, some of my sea year and berths and heads were less than optimal. . . and some that I had AFTER graduation were even worse. . . Just gotta deal with it. . . . Would I NOT take a job based upon my living arrangements? No. Even more so now, because when I am in the field quite often my arrangements, either offshore, floating or onshore can still be lest than optimum. . . . and if I refuse, well to the unemployment line I go. There is even a running joke in our office of taking photos of what the "comfort facilities" are and sharing it with our cow orkers. . . . extra points for the worst. . .
Its a KP thing ... getting the worst end of the stick becomes a point of pride.
My plebe year we had a Halloween decorating contest of the company areas. My company and I took great pride not in winning, not even at losing but that we were disqualified.
I've worked on some s....y boats with crappy accommodations but the money is still green and the time counts the same for the USCG. Mfavorite sea year ship was the one with the worst accommodation partly because we were the red-headed step child of the Matson fleet and it made the crew tighter-knit and the Capt more willing to see past the rules a bit.
Lot's of terms us civilians are not familiar with.Hehehe, my favorite Sea Year ship was one of the best, and a break bulker, too. Shared head with the Deck Cadet cabin, but there was no Deck Cadet. Colorado Class ship with States Lines. The company went belly up during the voyage and we were seized in Manila. . . darn. . . Did get a release when the COLORADO came to port and the lien was swapped. . . Second favorite was a Lykes Lines Pacer break bulk. Shared room with the deck cadet, but he was a friend. . . My only Matson ship was the MAUNALEI. . . old WWII C-4. One man cabin in the forward house, long walk to work every day. . . and that smell of raw sugar and molasses. . . . didn't notice it after about the third day. . .
Lot's of terms us civilians are not familiar with.
Probably no need to know what a break bulk ship is, as they are few and far between these days. Just think of what an old freighter with sticks and booms looks like. . . During Sea Year, generally a Deck and Engine Cadet are assigned to a ship together, especially for their first assignment. Just what the KPers are called during their Sea Year while onboard. . . A Colorado Class ship was a type of Break Bulk ship built for States Lines. States Lines, like many US Flag shipping company is long gone. Like Lykes Lines, another company and their Pacer class break bulk ship. Matson is a west coast US Flag shipping company that is still in business. Their main run is between the US West Coast and Hawaii, and they may also have some service further out into the Pacific. Haven't lived on the West Coast for many years so I don't know. When we were seized in Manila, a shipping agency that was owed money by the shipping company had the local Sheriff in the company of a couple of soldiers come down and put a lien on the ship. We were there for about two weeks, sitting in the anchorage in early December of 78. . . another of the company's ships came into port, and the lien was moved to that ship so we could leave. Oh, and a WWII C-4 was a ship designed as a troop carrier during the war. Lots were converted for other use in subsequent years. Don't believe that there are any active ones left any longer, but I could be mistaken. . . . This one was converted into a container/bulk sugar carrier/car carrier with deep tanks for molasses. . . . would bring containers and cars from the mainland, discharge, fill some of the holds with raw sugar, then backload containers and cars for the mainland. . .
Think of a cadet as like an apprentice. You are theoretically there just to "observe" and learn.
I was on the MOKU PAHU, a twin-hull ITB that only hauled raw sugar. I had a very small riding gang room but the you couldn't beat the run ... two-day port stays in Kauai, Maui and the Big Island and all kinds of fresh pineapple, papayas and mangoes. Being twin engine, we would shut down one at a time at sea and do all our maintenance so when we hit the dock the whole engine dept. would head for the beach en masse. The wiper would work his magic with some of the raw sugar and fresh fruit in a five gallon bucket which always seemed to follow us to the beach for refreshment.
You just took me on a trip down memory lane... .. I worked on 'stick' ships for both Delta Line and APL. I also worked for States Line, but it was on one of their RO-ROs; the ILLINOIS. My first merchant ship was the SS HAWAIIAN MONARCH [sister ship to the MAUNALEI ex-HAWAIIAN QUEEN] back in 1973. Great ship on the pineapple run! She was a 'feeder' too.. It doesn't get any better than that.. Hitting Hawaii every other week you don't tend to notice cramped conditions or other problems with your focsle; or the ship for that matter..
After sailing on hawser boats before that, I was used to it.
Hence the " " around observe. On the MOKU PAHU we only has a Chief, 1st and 2nd so I worked plenty. When we would maneuver in/or out late at night they would let me sleep and when I got up in the morning there would be a note on the board "You have it cadet" and I would turn the alarms off from the Chiefs cabin. It was a tight night crew so no one tried to put in OT for my work like other ships. I even got an envelope full of cash from the unlicensed (deck and engine) when I got off. I think the deck crew liked me for the times I publicly made the disliked 1st mate look foolish. Well deserved for the number of times he tried making the Chief and 1st look foolish. OK, so the crew was tight knit except for the 1st mate.As far as being a cadet/apprentice, well, I did a lot more than observe, as well as you, I am sure. . . those hungover mornings cleaning out the evaporator heat exchanger (you think that I would have learned. . . ), getting *****ed out by the unlicensed about doing their work and eating into their OT. . . . had on First pay me out of his own pocket to work OT on the weekends since they didn't have a Day Third on the ROROs (see below)
Had a 1st recount a story from his cadet days (Non-KP) about some guy who shows up looking like a full on HAZMAT team, white boiler suit, hard hat, rubber boots and gloves. He starts right in telling the Chief about how this is set wrong and that is set wrong and you need to get this and that fixed. He said everyone thought he was a surveyor or port state or something … turns out he was the new KP Cadet. I can’t imagine the rest of his time on that vessel was very pleasant.I am guessing that some of the reputation that KP cadets get is from those that only observe. . . .
As much as a b…h hawser boats are, there is something in their inherently old-school manliness that I kind of miss.
Tugs is where the real engineers work. Anybody can hide amongst three other licensed engineers. Best engineer I ever worked with was on a tug. That guy could do/fix/create just about anything. Even when he hadn't done something before he would shrug his shoulders and say I guess were about to figure out how good of engineers we are aren't we.
My personal favorite(s) ...
Third day on a new boat, first gig as Chief. I got woken up with the statement "Hey Chief, ABS surveyor is here". News to me, I didn't even know he was coming. We managed everything just fine until it was time to test the FO tank quick shut off valves. Needless to say they didn't shut off. I had never really seen one up close or played around with one to see how they actually worked. Took me a bit, but eventually I had stared out it long enough to figure out that the last guy had reset it wrong so while it looked loaded at a glance, it was actually locked open instead of loaded to close. By "it" I mean all of them and by "reset it wrong" I mean locked them open on purpose. Most were fairly easy to reset correctly, but a couple were through some very small openings, deep in the bilge and through some even smaller bilge openings.
Same boat ... had a cooling hose (CAT 3512) burst at 0100 while transiting north of Cape Hatteras. Not normally a big deal except I didn't have a replacement hose. Even worse, it was my last trip with the company and was due to switch over to a much better boat/paycheck/schedule upon arrival New York. I literally was getting off one boat and taking the subway to the other company for training before shipping out. If we got to NY late I would be missing my new ride (ATB with 2 EMD 20-645s). No way was I letting that happen. Having gone straight from the rack to the E/R, I ended up "rigging" a new cooling hose (cooling is funny because man, that "cooling" water is HOT!) while shirtless in only flip flops and shorts. Total down time for the affected engine, about 1 hour with another hour at low speed warm up the replaced water. I made the new boat which was probably my favorite brown water rig.