Philadelphia to Antwerp - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 8

The engine we're looking at, and the ship that it powers, were built in 1995. That's relatively old in
container ship years. The German shipping company that owns this freighter will almost certainly sell it
soon—likely to a Greek shipping line.
There seems to be universal, casual disdain for the Greek shipping industry among the crew members
I've talked to. The term “rust buckets” has entered our conversations more than once. “A sheep like thees
last fifteen years,” says Witold. “And then the Greeks will use it for another fifteen!”
OUR tour through the ship's belly done, we climb about eight floors up. Here, at the top of the superstruc-
ture, is the navigation bridge. From its wraparound windows we can look down on the container stacks and
see to the horizon in every direction.
The man currently on watch is the chief officer, Rikus. He's a tall, broad-shouldered, Teutonic cement
block of a man. His smoothly shaven head is adorned with a pair of sleek, rimless eyeglasses.
Rikus begins his tour by pointing out the ship's steering wheel. I'd expected a wooden wagon wheel kind
of thing—with thick, lathed spokes and shiny brass fasteners—but it turns out the wheel is actually smaller
than the one on your average family sedan. It looks all out of proportion to the dimensions of the ship.
Also, it never gets used. There is a small dial, the size of a beverage coaster, embedded in a console in
front of the wheel, and it is this little dial that does almost all the steering. On the dial are numbers from
0 to 359, corresponding to each different bearing on a compass. Turn the dial to 0, and the ship's autopilot
steers a course due north. Spin the dial to 180, and the autopilot steers due south. In open ocean, with no
ships or other obstacles to avoid, the crew generally sets the dial to a heading and forgets it.
Navigation, like steering, has become almost totally automated. The ship has three global positioning
systems calculating its coordinates at all times, which nearly eliminates the need for the old-fashioned
charts, rulers, and protractors. Of course, the computers aren't infallible. Rikus tells us that the U.S. gov-
ernment, which controls the GPS grid, can turn it off at any time and can also purposefully introduce er-
rors—making you believe you're somewhere you're not. It's unlikely, barring some sort of global war or
massive catastrophe, that the GPS grid would ever be disabled over the Atlantic Ocean. But just in case, the
freighter's crew plots out their route every day in pencil, on paper charts. They even take daily sightings
with a sextant, to confirm their location.
These cute, antiquated traditions aside, the life of the modern container ship officer is pretty bland. They
work two lonely, four-hour watches on the bridge each day—Rikus does the 4:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m. and 4:00
p.m.-8:00 p.m. shifts—which are mostly spent monitoring the radar for other ships on possible collision
courses. Were there any, the officer would have a solid half hour or more to make a minor heading ad-
justment and steer clear of an encounter. When not on duty, the officers read books, watch DVDs, smoke
cigarettes, and work on their tans.
It's a classic hours of boredom/moments of terror kind of job. For the most part, the ship sails itself, but
if things get hairy you'd better know what you're doing and do it quick. The real challenge seems to be
maintaining a constant state of alertness. As he concludes our tour, Rikus wraps up his presentation with
what is clearly a well-worn crowd-pleaser: “And finally, this is our most important piece of equipment,” he
says, pointing at the electric coffeemaker in the corner.
Life on a freighter wasn't always so rote and professional. Merchant seamen were once a breed of rest-
less wildmen. As their ships sat tied up at docks in exotic ports of call for days on end—cargo slowly com-
ing on and off—they would blow their earnings at local bars and bordellos. They'd wander back, drunk or
worse, just in time to board the ship before it hoisted anchor.
Now, with containerization and automated loading, shore leave often lasts just a couple of hours, leaving
enough time to eat a quick meal on land, and maybe buy some new DVDs, before heading back to the ship.