Wayfarer
Guru
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2014
- Messages
- 2,228
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Sylphide
- Vessel Make
- Kingston Aluminum Yacht 44' Custom
Sorry, this is going to be a long winded rant. Please note that this isn't directed at anyone on this site. You'll understand where I'm coming from a whole lot better than the average Jonny on the street, I think.
I'm sure you've all seen this video of this cruise ship crashing in Venice. In fact, thanks to the fact that everyone on earth has a camera in their pocket at all times, you can see this from at least four different angles.
I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. I could speculate, but I'm not really qualified. Apparently though, having a camera in your pocket, or having a keyboard and an internet connection, is all it takes to make a lot of people think they ARE qualified experts in the field of driving 100,000 ton ships.
As soon as people see an incident like this, they immediately start jumping to conclusions. The first conclusion is almost always that the captain is an idiot, a drunk, wildly incompetent, a criminal, a maniac, a murderer, a terrorist, a cannibal or some combination of the above, and should be summarily executed and then thrown in jail for a thousand years.
It kinda pisses me off. It upsets me partly because I'm a millennial snowflake, and I'm very sensitive (humor), but also because I'm a captain, and it's difficult for me not to take this sort of thing somewhat personally. I realize that's a failing of mine, but the reality is, this job is a HUGE part of who I am as a person. It's a significant part of my identity. I take it seriously, and when I mess up, I feel it. I failed, and it hurts deeply.
It's not just me. Many of my comrades feel the same way. We spend half the year away from our friends, families, and homes to do this. We all want to do a good job. We all want the days to go smoothly. None of us wants to hurt anyone, spill oil, or destroy property. I don't want to have to talk to the coast guard for ANY reason, EVER. None of us wants to make the news, EVER. We all wake up in the morning, or as often as not in the middle of the night, with every intention of doing our best. The problem is, things go wrong ALL. THE. TIME.
This is a complicated business. We've all got 27 plates spinning at any given time. There are schedules to keep, weather to manage, customers to coordinate with, crew issues, water levels, inventories of food and supplies to manage, drills, maintenance, acres upon acres of paperwork, 900 emails a day, and god forbid, thousands of passengers.
These are complicated machines we're running around. There are thousands of moving parts, all wearing out at different rates, needing constant inspection, maintenance, and repair. Sometimes towlines break, even when they look just fine. Sometimes that box of replacement fuel lines that you just got turns out to be defective, but those are the only spares you have, so you have to make do until replacements arrive. Sometimes the wind picks up when you don't expect it. Sometimes you look at the weather forecast for 10 seconds longer than you should, the pilot misses a turn, you don't catch it in time, and you end up aground. Bottom line, sometimes **** happens.
I think the average armchair captain must think driving one of these things around is easy. Hell, we've got tens of thousands of horsepower! 'A bow thruster?! You lazy cheater! I could do that with both eyes tied behind my back!'
Well guess what, this thing doesn't handle like your station wagon, pal. Imagine driving your car, except it's FIFTY THOUSAND TIMES bigger. You can't see all of it at any one time. You have blind spots that can be measured in tenths of miles. If you bump into something at two miles per hour, you utterly decimate it. There is zero traction. It's like driving on wet, polished ice with hard plastic wheels. The steering mechanism is at the back, so you're effectively driving in reverse all the time. Sometimes when the wind blows, you change direction suddenly. Sometimes the road swirls around under you and shoves you around. Sometimes an idiot in a kayak wants to take a selfie while sitting between you and that parallel parking space you're trying to skate into. You want to stop? Well, organize a team of twenty people to stand forty feet from each other, then have them lasso each other, dig in their heels, and hold on tight.
I'm not looking for a medal, or a pat on the back. I just wish people weren't so quick to judge.
We're only human beings, just like you. We have husbands and wives, kids, dogs, houses and cars. We have hopes, dreams, and fears. Some of us are afraid of spiders, and sometimes we make mistakes. I'm willing to bet that you've screwed something up at work once or twice in your career, too. You probably just didn't have 8,000 cameras pointed at you when you did, and you probably didn't wind up with an entire internet calling you a moron.
I'm sure you've all seen this video of this cruise ship crashing in Venice. In fact, thanks to the fact that everyone on earth has a camera in their pocket at all times, you can see this from at least four different angles.
I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. I could speculate, but I'm not really qualified. Apparently though, having a camera in your pocket, or having a keyboard and an internet connection, is all it takes to make a lot of people think they ARE qualified experts in the field of driving 100,000 ton ships.
As soon as people see an incident like this, they immediately start jumping to conclusions. The first conclusion is almost always that the captain is an idiot, a drunk, wildly incompetent, a criminal, a maniac, a murderer, a terrorist, a cannibal or some combination of the above, and should be summarily executed and then thrown in jail for a thousand years.
It kinda pisses me off. It upsets me partly because I'm a millennial snowflake, and I'm very sensitive (humor), but also because I'm a captain, and it's difficult for me not to take this sort of thing somewhat personally. I realize that's a failing of mine, but the reality is, this job is a HUGE part of who I am as a person. It's a significant part of my identity. I take it seriously, and when I mess up, I feel it. I failed, and it hurts deeply.
It's not just me. Many of my comrades feel the same way. We spend half the year away from our friends, families, and homes to do this. We all want to do a good job. We all want the days to go smoothly. None of us wants to hurt anyone, spill oil, or destroy property. I don't want to have to talk to the coast guard for ANY reason, EVER. None of us wants to make the news, EVER. We all wake up in the morning, or as often as not in the middle of the night, with every intention of doing our best. The problem is, things go wrong ALL. THE. TIME.
This is a complicated business. We've all got 27 plates spinning at any given time. There are schedules to keep, weather to manage, customers to coordinate with, crew issues, water levels, inventories of food and supplies to manage, drills, maintenance, acres upon acres of paperwork, 900 emails a day, and god forbid, thousands of passengers.
These are complicated machines we're running around. There are thousands of moving parts, all wearing out at different rates, needing constant inspection, maintenance, and repair. Sometimes towlines break, even when they look just fine. Sometimes that box of replacement fuel lines that you just got turns out to be defective, but those are the only spares you have, so you have to make do until replacements arrive. Sometimes the wind picks up when you don't expect it. Sometimes you look at the weather forecast for 10 seconds longer than you should, the pilot misses a turn, you don't catch it in time, and you end up aground. Bottom line, sometimes **** happens.
I think the average armchair captain must think driving one of these things around is easy. Hell, we've got tens of thousands of horsepower! 'A bow thruster?! You lazy cheater! I could do that with both eyes tied behind my back!'
Well guess what, this thing doesn't handle like your station wagon, pal. Imagine driving your car, except it's FIFTY THOUSAND TIMES bigger. You can't see all of it at any one time. You have blind spots that can be measured in tenths of miles. If you bump into something at two miles per hour, you utterly decimate it. There is zero traction. It's like driving on wet, polished ice with hard plastic wheels. The steering mechanism is at the back, so you're effectively driving in reverse all the time. Sometimes when the wind blows, you change direction suddenly. Sometimes the road swirls around under you and shoves you around. Sometimes an idiot in a kayak wants to take a selfie while sitting between you and that parallel parking space you're trying to skate into. You want to stop? Well, organize a team of twenty people to stand forty feet from each other, then have them lasso each other, dig in their heels, and hold on tight.
I'm not looking for a medal, or a pat on the back. I just wish people weren't so quick to judge.
We're only human beings, just like you. We have husbands and wives, kids, dogs, houses and cars. We have hopes, dreams, and fears. Some of us are afraid of spiders, and sometimes we make mistakes. I'm willing to bet that you've screwed something up at work once or twice in your career, too. You probably just didn't have 8,000 cameras pointed at you when you did, and you probably didn't wind up with an entire internet calling you a moron.
