306 Ship 08 22.5.2019

A good day, some wind but not clouds and nothing distracting me from work until noon. I went to the gym and weight 77,6kg and after running in the treadmill the scale said 78,1kg, which just say how hard it is on a rocking ship to measure. I just wanted to know, how much I had lost by sweating and was surprised about this result. Then I cycled for a while and “lost” 2,2kg in 20min. At noon, the chief engineer started talking to me when I was about to leave the mess. There are 3 tables, I am sitting alone on the middle table, and the “chiefs” on one side and the 2^nd , 3^rd and 4^th engineers/officers/electricians/etc would sit on the other side or maybe in the crew’s mess if the are Sri Lankans, because I only see2 or 3 people sitting there. The other chiefs had been gone and so he invited me to sit down there. Btw, on the list with all the crew’s names, duties, nationalities and birthdays, I saw that he is the only Bulgarian and he, by one year, is the only one on the ship older than me.
So, we talked for a while and he told me some things about cargo ships and that business. I had asked why the tap water is a bit yellow, if this is because of the water treatment procedure or just rust. And he told me that it is rust, but there is no use to repair this, because the ship will be thrown away in about 5 years and the repair would cost ~1mio. Such ships are used only for about 20 years by the company and after 10 years there is the break-even point.
He suggested that I should go to the bow of the ship in the later afternoon when thee sun is less strong, but better today, because the next bad weather is about to arrive. He loves that place, with less noise, best view and best air on the ship.
After that nice and interesting talk, I went to the bridge, because I wanted to know when we would come from the South side to the East of Australia (tmw around 1700). The captain told me about some things that must be taken into consideration. One is the swell. Now it is about 3-4m and comes from the front. But when we turn, it comes from the portside and the ship can start rocking, even getting amplified when the length of the swell fits to the dimensions of the ship. Then, for safety of the cargo, he would decide to go in zick-zack lines, which of course takes longer. Originally he was asked to reach Fremantle on 24^th around 1800, but for that he would have to go at high speed, around 25kn and consume 90tons of fuel (instead of 45tons at 15kn!) and when there are problems like the swell, he wouldn’t be there at time and would have burned tons of fuel for nothing. So, we get the next time slot on 25^th at noon. Fremantle is a smaller port with space for only 3 vessels and if another vessel would also be delayed or a crane has a problem and only 2 instead of 3 must charge clear, we can have good luck and can arrive before that vessel or would have to wait even longer until the space is free. So, there is always a triangle of information flow from company, port and vessel and often the different costs must be taken into consideration – is it more expensive to have a delay with some cargo, or preparing everything at port for landing and not be on time or going on higher speed + consuming much more fuel?