It seems like an eternity since I logged on here and posted an update so firstly, apologies for the long gap. The reason for this is the longest single break in my internet connectivity since the invention of the World Wide Web.
After my last post, I made my way to Rochester in Kent and took a taxi out into the reclaimed wastelands of North Kent to Thamesport and joined my floating home for the next three weeks or so. After staggering up the long gangway with my suitcase of books, I was shown to my cabin (the Purser’s suite, no less) on F deck by one of the deckhands. When I boarded, there was a lot of activity taking place and the loading and unloading of containers by four enormous gantry cranes continued right through the night and up until less than an hour before we left on Tuesday afternoon. I was left to myself on Monday night after I boarded but met most of the officers and my only fellow passenger (Bruno from Switzerland) at breakfast in the Officers’ Mess the next morning.
Once we set off from Thamesport on Tuesday afternoon, things settled into their normal routine and I started to find my way around. Every day on board a ship is divided into six four hour watches. For November, the watches are allocated are as follows :
0000 - 0400 : 2nd Officer (or 2nd mate)
0400 - 0800 : Chief Officer (or 1st mate)
0800 - 1200 : 3rd Officer (or 3rd mate)
1200 - 1600 : 2nd Officer
1600 - 2000 : Chief Officer
2000 - 0000 : 3rd Officer
The Captain, or Master, does not have a set watch of his own but spends time on the bridge during almost every watch and normally takes over command of the vessel in situations where close manoeuvring is taking place, when there is a lot of other shipping close by, or where there is doubt about the intentions of other vessels. He also has a lot of paperwork to deal with, including monitoring weather reports, corresponding with the ship’s operating company in Germany, dealing with port authorities, filing regular safety and inspection reports, etc.
As someone with a keen interest in sailing and navigation, for me the opportunity to spend time on the bridge watching the navigation and running of such a large vessel was one of the most fascinating aspects of this trip. I found that passengers were welcome on the bridge at any time without prior appointment - I believe that not all masters are as happy to have passengers wandering around but the fact that there were only two passengers on this voyage probably helped. The officers were, without exception, very friendly and quite happy to answer all sorts of dumb questions. The bridge itself was extremely impressive, a large open space with excellent all around visibility and a big chart space for chart work and the hourly updating of the ship’s log book and the plotting of positions. The technology on board is quite amazing - the vast majority of our time at sea was naturally spent on autopilot, often with distances of many hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles between waypoints and course changes. While a physical watch is kept all the time, the radar is also monitored constantly to keep an eye on other ships, hazards, etc. When the ship is to be steered manually (for instance, when entering a port or navigating through the Suez Canal), this is done by the AB (Able Seaman) on watch, following precise instructions issued by the pilot, master or Officer of the watch.
As the Ital Contessa is operated by a German company, many of the officers (Master, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer) are German. At mealtimes in the Officers’ mess room, I was seated at the “international” table and dined with the Second Engineer (Polish), Chief Mechanic (Chilean), and Second Officer (Finnish). All of the deck crew, engine room crew and galley crew are from the Philippines - there is a very strong seagoing tradition there and the crew are all provided under contract by a Philippines crewing agency. They typically serve a seven month contract with no breaks (which means not even one day off) and then usually take a month or two off at home before starting another contract. The deck officers are fulltime employees of the operating company and typically serve sixteen weeks on (which on the Ital Contessa means two complete round trips from Hamburg to China and back again), followed by eight weeks off. The Master is on a different rota and does eight weeks on followed by eight weeks off. I am not sure if this is because of his position as Master or whether it is because he is employed under a different (i.e. older) contractual arrangement. As in many other walks of life, newer officers’ contracts are more demanding and involve more time at sea and less time between voyages.
My only fellow passenger, a retired Swiss post office regional manager, was en route to Hong Kong to visit his son and daughter in law for Christmas. His wife, who thinks he is mad for travelling by freighter, will be flying out to join him there. He is a seasoned passenger, this being his fifth voyage since retirement so he was a useful source of information about some of the protocols and procedures on board.
Meals were served in the Officers’ Mess at times that are designed to fit in with the watchkeeping system. This meant that breakfast was at 0730 hrs, lunch (the main meal of the day) at the far too early hours of between 1130 and 1230 and dinner at 1730 hrs. The food on board was surprisingly good but there are no choices. A weekly menu is posted on the notice board so we had lots of advance notice of what was coming up.
In between meals, passengers on board a freighter are free to do whatever they want. One of the most welcome differences between this trip and a voyage on a cruise ship was the lack of organised “fun”. My normal morning routine consisted of trying to learn some Indonesian from the lessons I have downloaded to my iPod, a walk of at least two laps of the ship (approximately 1.5kms), which usually involved a few stops for chats with crew members carrying out maintenance jobs, and some reading, with coffee available at 1000 hrs. In the afternoon I usually spent a couple of hours on the bridge with the Second Officer. Officers usually keep watch alone during daylight hours while we are making passage but have the assistance of an AB between dusk and dawn. Evenings after dinner are usually very quiet - sometimes I join Bruno for a beer in the Officers’ Recreation Room (which we always seemed to have to ourselves) or watched a borrowed DVD in my cabin. I usually spent an hour on the bridge with the Philippino 3rd mate before bed. The AB on watch between 2000 hrs and midnight spent some time telling me about his former parish priest, an Irish Columban father, who seems to have been a great influence on him.
One of the most interesting parts of the voyage was the passage through the Suez Canal. We arrived at Port Said at the northern end of the canal at approximately 1300 hrs on the day our convoy was to depart. Our slot had been pre-booked (months in advance) and all during that afternoon, other ships assembled at the anchorage and anchored in their preallocated locations. At about 2230hrs, we heaved anchor and made our way slowly towards the canal entrance where we were boarded by a Suez electrician, a Suez mooring crew (in case we had to moor to the bank on our way through for any reason), a canal pilot, the ship’s local agent, and a Suez inspector. The agent and inspector left again after a short visit as we made our way very slowly through the centre of the city of Port Said, in second place in the convoy. After passing through the city, we continued very slowly (which for us means 9 knots) until we reached the Great Bitter Lake at about 0400hrs. Here we anchored to allow the northbound convoy to pass us. As the canal is not wide enough to allow two ships to pass each other, there is a carefully worked out system of convoys in place. There are two south bound convoys each day, the first one (i.e. ours) starts south at about midnight and anchors in the Great Bitter Lake (a little more than halfway south) to allow the one northbound convoy each day to pass without stopping. Each southbound convoy consists of up to thirty ships. The second south bound convoy moors in a bypass section of the canal to allow the northbound convoy to continue without stopping. The most interesting part of the canal passage was the section south from the anchorage, which we left about 1300hrs. It feels very strange to be proceeding along such a narrow waterway so slowly with nothing but desert and the occasional settlement or military outpost very close on both sides and to have similarly enormous ships just in front of and behind us. We left the canal at about 1700 hrs and started picking up speed again as we entered the Gulf of Suez and then the Red Sea.
Above, the convoy leaves the Great Bitter Lake for the second leg southbound
One of the many military guardhouses on the east bank of the Suez Canal
At left, the convoy leaves the canal and enters the Red Sea at the city of Suez
The next issue we had to deal with was the Somali pirates. While this issue receives a lot of publicity, I am told that the risk (for us at least) was relatively low. According to news reports, the pirates have captured approximately thirty ships in the last twelve months. This is in the context of about one hundred and twenty ships per day passing through the area in question. Modern container ships (like the Ital Contessa) are at lower risk as they travel much faster than tankers (approximately 24 knots as opposed to 15 knots) and have a much higher freeboard (distance from the water to the deck) and are therefore much harder to board at sea.
Nevertheless, the risk was still taken seriously and we were all briefed about additional security precautions as we left the Red Sea : all outside doors were to be kept locked, extra watch keepers were on duty on the bridge at all times and we altered course to travel closer to Yemen than Somalia (in other words, a more northerly course than our rhumb line course would have dictated). This route took us along the so-called “Coalition Maritime Safety Corridor”, a 500 mile long, ten mile wide area which was apparently patrolled by an international force of airforce and naval vessels (none of which were visible from our bridge !).
This was a bit of an anticlimax as we saw and heard almost nothing at all for the entire passage through the corridor. However, we did receive some reports of continuing hijack attempts, some of them successful so the pirates are very much still in action. The current French provided security arrangements are due to end on 5th December as an EU force takes over.
AIS screen showing an empty sea with the Yemen and Somali coasts at the Horn of Africa
After leaving this area, the remainder of the trip was pretty uneventful as we had one complete week of long distance ocean sailing to my final destination in Malaysia with very few course changes and practically no land to be seen anywhere. Our course took us past the bottom of India and south of Sri Lanka and then on to a slightly more northerly course towards the northern end of Sumatra before turning south east down the Straits of Malacca towards the southern end of Malaysia. The Straits of Malacca (with Sumatra and Java on the western side and Malaysia on the east) are one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, used by all ships travelling between Europe and the east coast of North America and Malaysia, Singapore and the Far East. On arrival in Malaysia, the shipping company’s port agent arranged a transfer for me to Singapore where I checked into my hotel and found free wireless access ! Now I just have to wade through 218 unread emails…
By the way, I am experiencing telephone problems which mean that, while I can receive text messages, I am unable to send any or make calls so apologies to those of you who have been sending me messages - I haven't been ignoring you !
