44 Replies to “And How Was Your Day?”

  1. Don’t text and drive?
    Or
    Antifa driving school – maritime law is racist.

  3. Two ships playing chicken?

    It reminds me of the Vancouver harbour. Even though the support pylons for the bridges crossing Burrard Inlet are in plain sight, inevitably a ship manages to run into them every year or so. One would think that with all the traffic on the water, that they’d be using radar all the time.

  4. They have “pilots” on each boat don’t they, at least they did when I sailed the Welland. OK, it was almost 50 years ago. Blackie seems to be outta his lane a bit and crabbing Red guy. Red guy doesn’t have anywhere to bail.

    1. PO’ed, Yes, by international Maritime law, they must have Pilots, and Pilots have full directional and speed command of the vessel, above even the Captain. In my younger days I was a merchant seaman, and eventually got promoted to “Mud Helmsman”. (Human on the helm when near any land mass) However, pilots are human too, there are good and bad ones, and I’ve seem some hilariously poor ones as well, and they do screw up sometimes. Maritime rules are that ships must pass one another on the Port side, and any ship approaching or crossing past another from the Port side, has the right of way.
      Pilots have destroyed docks, ships, boats, people, bridges, and anything a ship can get near! The best one for me, I recall, was in 1968, a Pilot from Honduras. With his abundant girth, and sweating profusely, Zapata type moustache, and had a scruffy uniform that was British Army Khaki, had reams of grubby gold braid, tassels, and scrambled egg on the cap and shoulders, medals and a sash. I don’t recall if he had a sidearm but he probably did, as they are “di rigueur” in central American countries. We picked him up about a mile off shore from the pilot boat. Then after haphazardly getting us almost, starboard along side of the dock, about fifty feet out, after four hours of shenanigans, and the captain literally banging his head against the port side bridge portal, this guy ordered me to run the helm hard to Port, which was a really asinine move, but as helmsman I am not allowed to query or question a command, he then pushed the engine signal full speed astern! I think he was trying to rotate the ship 180 degrees to bring us alongside on our ship’s port side, and was attempting to demonstrate his “flair”. I have seen this move executed really well, but not at full speed astern, and we were way to close!
      The result was, a totally destroyed dock, and the dock constructed of wood, that was rotting. There was only minimal damage to the ship, just denting, with most of the crew were sprawled over the decks, including me, and every loose item thrown all over the place, including our now late supper, cooking in the galley. The Captain leaped from the Port end of the Bridge to the center located engine controls in seconds, but…. unfortunately there is a certain lag time for the engine control crew to repeat and confirm the manual command, with the joint engine control signal from the bridge, and enact that second belated command. This caused the ship to rotate Starboard, picking up speed, then slamming it’s Starboard bow into the dock at full speed, destroying the dock! As we backed away, the anchor, that had flung onto and hooked into, the dock, ripped out a giant section from said dock at full speed astern, dragging it across the harbor and dumping it into the water, with everyone scrambling to regain control of the ship. Nobody was harmed except for ego’s. The Captain and the Pilot almost came to blows, only prevented by the Chief Mate stepping between them. They then had to offload cargo from the ship at anchor in the bay, onto barges, and we then took on teak logs for Taiwan, also from barges. They only had the one dock, and it would have taken months to rebuild. Ahh, youth, and the joy of surviving other peoples screw ups! A great life for a single guy.

      1. Well, even as Home Trade we had pilots, even up the St Lawrence. Didn’t go foreign, all “Home Trade”. T-Bay and all docks in between T-Bay and Newfy Land. My first ship was steam, built in 1929 in Scotland. A “canal boat” tanker built for the Welland canal….200 ft x 50 ft x 24 ft. A collector’s item when I shipped aboard. The paint held it together by then. Just a deckhand. Forecastle crew. I carried a wooden marlin spike and a small sledge when painting below the water line, that’s “inside” just in case anyone is wondering. That way if I whacked off a rivet head chipping paint, I could jam the spike in the hole to stop the stream of water and pound it home with the hammer. They would insert a bolt and washers while in dry dock. There was a fortune of brass on that boat, I know because I polished it all. Triple expansion steam engine that would fit in my living room today. All of 900 BHP and top speed of 12 knots. A 2000 BBL load. Coming up stream past Quebec City took hours…downstream current was 9 knots past the Chateau. When we blew the whistle the boiler steam pressure would drop 10-20 lbs.
        My second tanker was built in 1964 in Collingwood. All diesel, 4000 BHP, 15 knots, T-2 ice hull. Loaded….50,000BBLs. Sailed Montreal to east coast with “finished” product, gasoline, diesel, heating oil, jet fuel. Our loading points were Montreal, Levis Que., Halifax. Bow thruster negated any tugs, we docked ourselves. Spin it like a top. In rough weather, we never saw the main deck, just white water, the bow and catwalk. I have old 8 mm film of east coast “weather”. And ice, miles and miles of ice. Stood the 12-4 deck watch one year and was 2nd cook for another. Cash flow paid for 3 years of Uni.
        There was no life like it.

  6. #insurancescam?

    Both boats are probably owned by current MPs, former MPs, or some combination of a shady pension fund and Quebec nursing home owners.

  7. I used to ride bike routes alongside most of that canal. Somebody probably got some unexpected drama.

  8. No problems if the skippers are public servants. No-one can then, by definition, be held responsible.

  9. The red boat was carrying wind turbine tower sections.
    I might’ve rammed it too…..Heh….

    1. @ J West:
      Now that’s racist!! (I may as well beat the leftist loonies to it)

    2. A friend told me about one of the Chinese super container ships coming into the port of Seattle too fast in 2012. He made the hard turn to Starboard, losing 20+ containers over the side, then proceeded to the port forcing all oncoming ships to move into the other shipping lane. He had also failed to pickup his pilot. Didn’t get fired, didn’t loose mooring rights, only a fine.

    1. Well that’s what I always understood, in this neck of the woods at least.

  15. Maybe the red ship pilot was confused about whether he was going upstream or downstream and what global maritime region he was in: “Is it red or green to the right on return?”. Maybe he was on the cell phone.

    But, the world over, it is ships pass to port..

  16. Guessing here, one of the captains insisted that the other one gets out of the way if it kills him.

  17. And the perfect headline from the Buffalo News is, “Cargo ships collide while passing in the Welland Canal”

  18. Reminds me of the News segment of an old British comedy series ‘The Two Ronnies’:

    “Two ships collided today in the Channel. One was carrying red paint, the other was carrying blue paint. All the sailors have been marooned.”

  19. Dumb question… was anyone at the helm on either vessel? IIRC, at least one of those ships should have been doing whistle blasts (5 short ones) to warn of an impending collision.

  20. Too bad they weren’t Oil tankers. The canal filled with oil might give someone the idea that a pipeline might be better.

  21. The black ship is a lake freighter. It is loaded.

    The red ship is a ‘salty’ (ocean going). It’s running empty. Not sure what might have happened if they were both carrying cargo.

    Maybe that Italian captain who ran the cruise ship aground while having sex and drinking is back at work.

  22. The red (Liberal) ship was carrying Cabinet refugees to a ME2WE retreat/camp. The black ship was piloted by Huawei personnel. The Liberal ship was plainly at fault, since it couldn’t move to the right.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident.

  23. The Florence Spirit is owned by McKiel Marine, Canadian flagged. Couldn’t make out the name of the other ship.

    It looks like the Florence Spirit got too close to the bank on her starboard side. Her stern is being sucked toward the bank causing her bow to got to port. This is not the first time a collision, due to bank suction, has happened in the Welland Canal.

    Nor will it be the last.

    1. Were they not both going a little too fast for such a narrow passage? Just a prairie boy here who just barely knows what Panamax and Suezmax means.

  24. If an elephant is sleeping on the highway, normally, you drive around it!!

  25. Further down the twitter thread someone reported that one ship lost power which is why it veered into the path of the other ship.

  26. Cant wait for the CNN take:

    Freighter in Republican colours rams defenseless minority ship.

  27. Gleaned this from a Google search.
    “Ships that pass in the night.” — Often said of people who meet for a brief but intense moment and then part, never to see each other again. These people are like two ships that greet each other with flashing lights and then sail off into the night. From a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

    Well it is sort of what happened on the canal. It was intense. Except it was in broad daylight.

  29. To Former Sailors –  GerryK and PO’ed Ab
    Your tales of old were most captivating, thank you.

    To the #SDA commentators– some great jokes today! Thanks too!

    Little moi has a story too, I can’t sing worth a damn. A couple of teachers took pity on me in high school and reluctantly accepted my presence in their presentation of the operetta the “HMS PINAFORE.” I was a sailor too, you see, in the chorus. I still remember all the songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta to this day. People won’t allow me to sing, but I try, anyway.

    So without further ado, I dedicate this song to you.
    Watch “HMS Pinafore – We Sail the Ocean Blue” on YouTube
    https://youtu.be/pCHy0XXHknw

  30. Aaarrrgh, Miss Nancy, have you even been bye the sea? I prolly seen youse from afar, dearie. Tanks fer that.

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