On Ships and Bridges

From the trestle of the Baltimore Harbor Thruway (I-895), one can glimpse a glaring sight to the south. A highway ramp ascends, only to abruptly end in clear sky. This was not the sight of construction or planned deconstruction, but the result of an accident at sea. A couple weeks ago, the MV Dali collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge while leaving the Port of Baltimore. Chief Engineer Michael Buckley was one of the first to theorize on social media the exact sequence of electrical problems that the ship experienced before the catastrophic collision. The NTSB also independently focusing on electrical issues. Notably, the tugboats that normally assist ships out of harbor had turned back to the pier by the time of collision. Tugboats cost shipowners money, and in the absence of regulations and laws, they are cut loose at the first opportunity. The harbor pilot was still onboard, but was literally powerless to advise the ship's master in stopping the collision course. Anchor watches are not maintained on merchant ships, and steering gear handpumps take minutes to respond. The radios did work, and the state police saved lives by closing the bridge to road traffic. Although six road workers perished upon collison, two were successfully rescued from the water. Several strategic National Defense Reserve Fleet vessels are currently isolated from the sea. After longtime Senator Barbara Milkulski of Maryland retired, the hospital ship USNS Comfort and an aviation repair ship were relocated to Norfolk, Virginia to reduce sailing time to open ocean from 12 hours to 3 hours. The ones remaining in Baltimore are general cargo vessels. Fort Smallwood Park is located on a penninsula just south of the Key Bridge. Offering a good view of the harbor, I sought to observe salvage operations. However, the park was closed to the public, with a police officer standing guard to turn voyeurs around. Attention was thus directed away from the gnarly steel spectacle, and towards a memorial of photographs, flags, and six large crosses erected in honor of the lost road workers. Honestly, without electrical power, there is no ability to steer the ship. For this reason, tugboats are required for large ships such as oil tankers; I expect that this rule will be expanded to all large ships in the future. I have attached the opinions of a Chief Engineer who worked for the shipping company involved, and which I believe to be mostly spot-on.

Do You Draw Straws? Which Crew Must be in the Lifeboat

On a cargo vessel, there are twice as many lifeboat seats as the maximum crew and passenger capacity. If the lifeboats on one side of a ship are unusable due to damage or excessive angle of incline, there will be enough seats on the usable side. When I was on a ship with one temporarily- disabled lifeboat, part of crew travelled to the next port by airplane, so that this safety law would not be broken. The station bill lists lifeboat assignments and duties for crew and passengers. For simplicity, crewmembers assigned to the working lifeboats would continue to exercise those roles, such as launching or steering away from the ship. If it turns out that only one lifeboat out of four is launchable, and there are not enough seats, there are inflatable survival rafts located adjacent to the lifeboats on either side of the ship. Much better than their World War Two era predecessor that resembled a giant floating donut, these modern models offer the opportunity to stay fairly dry while under a canopy. Here’s an exercise for ethics and ship’s management: who should get the better chance for survival in the lifeboat, and who should be sent to the raft? The lifeboat needs two engineers in case engine or electrical adjustments are required. The shock of a maritime casualty has incapacitated many would-be survivors, so all survival tasks must have two people assigned, to ensure that the job gets done. Lifeboatmen, or “Persons Proficient in Survival Craft”, are officers and able seafarers who are trained in navigating and managing day-to-day life in a lifeboat. Part of this qualification used to require demonstrating competency as a coxswain while rowing a boat with your classmates or shipmates. You can never have too many lifeboatmen on your lifeboat, although each raft should have at least two qualified personnel. Contrary to popular belief, the captain should avoid going down with the ship. The captain is an established authority figure to the crew, but more importantly, someone with celestial navigation skills. (For about 20 years, the US Navy dropped this competency, relying instead on GPS navigation on the ship, or a quick rescue by a coalition vessel if the ship must be abandoned. This competency has been restored.) Always bring a successor as well- the second mate is often the most proficient at navigation, as part of their daily shipboard duties of charting course. A modern enclosed lifeboat, an orange jellybean of sorts, is self-righting, provided that occupants remain seated, and that the lifeboat is not overweight. They also have engines, while rafts require rowing or towing. Inflatable rafts lack this self-righting feature, so anyone who can’t pull the weight of the raft, or the oars should be in the lifeboat. Think exit row on an airplane- children, the ill, and the very elderly. The lifeboat will be much drier than a raft. The chief steward or cook is often delegated the responsibility of managing food and water rations. While a survival amount is pre-staged inside the lifeboat, bottled water and non-perishable carbs and protein will be brought onboard if time permits. The medical officer, if there is one, may bring a go-bag onto the lifeboat. Anyone with metal implants or artificial limbs must ride in the lifeboat, due to the risk of puncturing the raft with sharp objects. Anyone who is not in a survival suit- an orange or red wetsuit issued to all crew- should be in the lifeboat. Negligence should not be assumed- survival suits are mostly kept in staterooms, not workplaces, and crewmembers are discouraged from returning to their rooms for missing items. Most importantly, fill the darn seats. On the RMS Titanic, an Edwardian sense of propriety sent lifeboats away with empty seats. I did this tabletop exercise as Leadership and Teamwork Training as a Third Engineer, but didn’t realize it until now. The scenario was choosing eight people to travel from a disintegrating moon colony in an escape pod. They had to keep it abstract.

Texas Says Yes to Maritime Education

Texas A&M has educated offshore and deep-sea mariners at its Galveston campus since 1963. Unlike the founding of other maritime academies, there was no external impetus, such as war (Maine, 1941; USMMA, 1943; MEBA Union, 1965), a generous new subsidy (California, 1929; Great Lakes, 1969), or lack of skilled mariners (New York, 1874; Massachusetts, 1891; AMO Union, 2010). College was not required to serve on the first generation of oil rig vessels, debunking yet another theory. Instead, it appears that Texas, then one of the poorest states in the nation, wanted to make good for its citizens. They could sail as ships’ officers from New Orleans or another coastal port, and bring home good paychecks. A recent change- tuition cuts for maritime programs- continues this tradition. Like medicine, maritime education has been costly for several decades, but if you stick with the program, then the rewards in salary will easily cover the cost. There is a negative feedback loop, specifically that lower-paying jobs, like primary care medicine, or working onboard research vessels and training ships, are understaffed with high turnover. In several newsworthy cases, some medical schools have drastically cut tuition, in hopes that earning potential decreases as a factor in career decisions. While Texas has cut the cost of maritime education by $300 per credit hour, it only applies to In-State and In-Region students. However, this could have a big impact on the composition of future seafarers. Currently, the Carolinas and Gulf Coast are underrepresented among the merchant marine officer ranks. Geographic distance from a maritime academy, coupled with cultural differences from the Northeast (New York is closest), contribute to this issue. While USMMA remains the sole tuition-free option, Texas is accessible to non-traditional students, including those who started as deckhands, and does not have an age limit to entry.

Boeing's Loveable 757

It’s the early 1980s. While the duopoly against Airbus was not yet established, Boeing had strong competition in the commercial jet aircraft sector from McDonnell- Douglas, and for a while, Lockheed’s L-1011 Tristar. Innovation was key to staying ahead of the competition; and the key advantage with Boeing’s 757, the direct successor to the 727, was dropping the engine count from three to two. Production stopped in 2004, but the 757’s new purchase market had already declined to niche markets after September 2001, which pushed multiple US air carriers into bankruptcy. The 757 was known as the “racecar” of the skies, as it was overpowered due to the lack of a suitable sized engine on the 1980’s market. When oil prices steadily increased in the 2002-2008 period, airline executives could not justify purchasing more high-performance, overpowered, fuel-guzzling aircraft that pilots loved to fly. Some traits: It was the largest aircraft that can service Washington Reagan and New York Laguardia airports, both in the top-25 busiest airports in the US. Other aircraft of similar size require more runway length for takeoff than these airports have. The aircraft had performance for high-altitude takeoff in South America and Central Asia. Higher cruising altitude over 40,000 feet, which was only surpassed by the supersonic Concorde. This allowed for avoiding all types of weather turbulence. Year-round non-stop flights between the Eastern US and Western Europe, with 160-180 seats serving “long, thin routes”. I flew one from New York to Edinburgh, Scotland in 2007; and Iceland Air makes good use of the aircraft model today, Transcontinental flights to the West Coast, allowing improved legroom options over the 737. For example, United regularly used the aircraft on its Washington, DC to San Francisco route. Oh, and the “turn left for first class” routine, as the forward boarding door was located some distance aft of the cockpit. Around 2017, Boeing appeared ready to proceed with designing a new 757, under Project Yellowstone, sometimes dubbed the “797” or the “New Mid Market Aircraft”. The airline, however, diverted its efforts to fixing production of the revolutionary, and larger, 787 aircraft, which itself was a fresh slate 15 years in the making; and releasing the 737 Max, the fourth iteration and transcontinental version of what was once a regional jet. I’ve made big business predictions before on the blog, one of which was a major corporation moving into vacant office space immediately south of the Pentagon. Both Amazon and Boeing did so. This one might have been a napkin sketch rather than a blog post, but I felt that Norfolk International Airport was ready for a regional airline hub. Breeze Airways entered the picture seven years after Vision Airlines failed in their attempt from nearby Newport News. What if Boeing shrank the 787, a two-engine aircraft, to fit the aging 757’s market, using a common type rating for both the flagship and miniature models? With competition from Airbus in this size range, only a quarter of orders for the 787 have been for the 787-800 variety, with 230 seats. Boeing still needs to work through its backlog of orders for this jet. But shrinking the plane will cover the mid-market gap that the 737 Max can’t fill.

Does Small Business Still Matter to the Left? (Flashback to '04)

I remember the presidential campaign of 2004, a clash of values and vision. Howard Dean’s community aesthetics tied into Howard Schultz building out Starbucks as a third place for apartment dwellers. Small business would fill out all the little shops on the walkable block. This contrasted to the Bush-Cheney vision of “cowboy capitalism”, or the “ownership society”, with praise for newbuilt subdivisions and big-box retail as the American Dream fueled by cheap oil. What happened? Howard Schultz, once an icon of responsible capitalism, is now a “union buster” and “corporate shill”. (“They closed the Starbucks at UNION Station in DC? How fitting”). Those downtown small businesses, struggling due to workers not being in the office towers upstairs? “Let them fail”. Today, it is the Right that pines for physical third places, specifically churches, temples, and indoor shopping malls; and against deforestation in their communities (see the controversy over data centers overlooking Manassas National Battlefield). The Left, at least the ones who can afford the privilege, will buy that larger house with the big kitchen and extra bedrooms (for home offices), and order necessities and luxuries on their Amazon Prime account. Enter the digital age. Online confessionals by small business owners and managers explain just “how the sausage gets ground” when keeping their shop open- for example, the floated checks or delayed code-mandated repairs. Young people, being less attached to work, have less tolerance for the owner’s eccentricities- which contrast to the lawyer-reviewed handbooks that the big corporations issue. Career advancement, once a hallmark of fast-growing small and medium sized businesses, is less important when you just want to do your job and get a paycheck. The home or apartment is the first, second, and third place – live, work, and play- when you have a virtual job and a virtual community on social media. Then there is the question of feasibility for a college-educated professional or regular working mariner to pursue small business ownership- retail rents are still high, despite the so-called retail apocalypse; and student loan and home mortgage costs cutting into investable capital. In other words, more people are failing the Quick Test of liquidity, through issues beyond their immediate control. Big business has moved to the Left, and I am talking in economic terms. For the past 15 years, at least until last year’s interest rate bump, big business has been able to borrow money at 0 to 2% rate, effectively operating under Keynesian economics; while small business owners are constrained to a restrictive money policy, with credit card advances and home equity loans always at 7% or higher. Big business, therefore, was able to implement liberal priorities such as health insurance for all employees, and a higher base wage; while smaller businesses had less financial flexibility to do so, relying on legislative carveouts on health coverage, paid time off, and certain reasonable accommodation laws to stay afloat. What does it mean when the Left is no longer enamored for small business? Cash may be king for socially disadvantaged customers, but it’s icky for a business owner to move money in a non-digital format. Democrats have led the effort to reduce the cash reporting threshold from $10,000 to $600, and hire more tax auditors at the IRS. “Schedule C” filers, who make up the majority of small business owners and independent contractors, always feel that they are at risk of audit, due to the vagueness of the deductible expense categories – for example, all “Repair and Maintenance” costs are reported on a single line. So, while the expansion of the IRS workforce may be targeted at millionaires, small business owners fear that they will feel the pinch. But the current differences between the Left and small business can be overcome. After all, there is a push to support Black-Owned Businesses as a method of economic empowerment. It is more of a lack of understanding by the technocratic class, who may not personally know a small business owner. For those who work at sea, it is common to hear about dreams of owning a business, but less common for shipmates to talk about the challenges of doing so.

That Mariner Reference Number

Social Security Numbers used to have a rhyme and reason, which turned out to be a downside. With somebody’s hometown and date of birth, a hacker had a reasonable chance of guessing a social security number. Since 2011, new numbers issued to infants and immigrants have been randomized. The US Coast Guard likewise uses Mariner Reference Numbers, which for the longest time were issued in sequential order. So, you could take a look at the ship’s license rack, outside the Captain’s office, and determine who the real old salts were. For Maritime Academy students, Mariner Reference Numbers are usually issued before interning on a commercial or government ship, either freshman or sophomore year, depending on the school. Thus, a class year would have Mariner Reference Numbers grouped in close proximity. There are exceptions, for example, students who got their start as commercial fishermen or deep-sea deckhands. Those experienced mariners near retirement today have numbers in the vicinity of 2500000. Members of the Class of 2020 have numbers around 4500000. It’s certainly doubtful that the US Coast Guard has issued credentials to 2.5 million citizens and lawful residents, but there was a certain order to the numbering. After that, all bets are off. I’ve seen Mariner Reference Numbers in the 8000000’s, for example. It's certainly the end of a longstanding era. Before the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, the US Coast Guard issued entry-level credentials to many people who never had an intent of working at sea. It was a good way to get a no-cost photo ID during a time when not all states required driver’s licenses, and car ownership was far from universal. The “Z-Cards” of the World War Two era bore a six-digit number. Many were issued to the crews of thousands of Liberty and Victory ships, and were replaced free-of-charge if lost in a maritime casualty (this provision still stands, though fortunately few credentials are lost in shipwreck today). Mariner Reference Numbers crept upward at varying paces, depending on the tides of war and economic fortune. Now, they bounce by leaps and bounds.

Is Money Enough?

One of the great appeals of merchant shipping is lifestyle design, where people with wanderlust could take extended trips unthinkable to those working a 50-week-a year grind. The other appeal is paying off student loans in 5 years or less. Use Mom and Dad as a mailing address, and sleep and eat on the employer’s dime. Port visits are open again, but seeing the recent difficulties for recruiting and retention in the maritime field, something else is going on. We are a decade past “peak college”; enrollment is declining in both absolute numbers and percentage. Where maritime academies burst at their seams ten years ago with students hopeful for solid employment, today, there is more space in the dorms and hallways. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I’ve seen posters from the 1920’s proclaiming the need for more education. Slacking students in the 1980’s (see “A Nation at Risk”) were a threat to national security and economic prosperity. In the post-NAFTA era, education would be the lifeline for workers displaced from uncompetitive industries and outdated factories. Populists like Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump countered this assertion with a more authoritative model: the government could pay for infrastructure programs and subsidize the construction of new factories for the titans of industry. The construction of new oceangoing training ships under recent Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, the first of which launched last year as the “T/S Empire State VII”, is an icon of this model. Yet, more recently under President Biden and his state-level allies have accomplished the same populist improvement through a different model, by raising the minimum wage and tipping the scales of arbitration towards labor. With the floor as high as $20 per hour in California, or $15 per hour elsewhere ($30,000 per year), entry-level workers without college degrees are earning similarly to college graduates five years ago, who would accept subsistence wages to get a foot in the door. Likewise, entry level shipboard jobs can pay close to what newly-graduated officers earn. Traditionally, many seafarers hailed from high cost-of-living areas such as New York and Boston; today, recruiting focuses on the lower-cost Coastal South, and not requiring municipal services much of the year, many experienced mariners establish residence in states without an income tax, predominately in Florida and Texas. There is less pressure to become an officer for the higher pay, or to dedicate a career to a field where Sundays are often spent at work, rather than at church. For now, higher education has lost its end-all, final-word status as an economic proposal. But as I have stated before, the growth of understanding is still essential to the modern mariner.