Do ocean view cabin windows open?

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

You surprise me with the "call of the ocean". Isn't that what attracts people to working at ships in the first place? 

 

The steering house on a cruise ship is at the front of the ship, and on "normal" ships it's aft. Can't a tanker have its steering house, berths and living areas at the front just like a cruise ship? Far away from the engines?

No, it is the pay, primarily, and the time off that attract people to working on ships.  You'll find very, very few mariners who feel the "romance of the seas".

 

Sure, you could put the accommodation block on the front of the ship, and add a few million dollars to the cost to build.  Plus, you take away any potential cargo volume under the accommodation block, in addition to the lost space over the engine room, so the ship carries less cargo and costs more.  And, I have worked on ships with forward houses, like RO/RO ships, and the motion is far greater, and more uncomfortable up there.

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, d9704011 said:

For a lot of people, it would be a long walk to work in the dark, pouring rain, freezing wind, scorching heat, etc....

Yeah, so in addition to lost cargo volume over the engine room, lost cargo volume under the accommodation block, the cost of a superstructure for the engine exhausts, a second superstructure for living quarters, you now have to build an all weather passage between the accommodation forward and the engine room aft.  I'm sure the shipowners will go for all this.

[Karaboudjan]

14 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

No, it is the pay, primarily, and the time off that attract people to working on ships.  You'll find very, very few mariners who feel the "romance of the seas".

 

Sure, you could put the accommodation block on the front of the ship, and add a few million dollars to the cost to build.  Plus, you take away any potential cargo volume under the accommodation block, in addition to the lost space over the engine room, so the ship carries less cargo and costs more.  And, I have worked on ships with forward houses, like RO/RO ships, and the motion is far greater, and more uncomfortable up there.

 

For anyone who is interested in this subject I recommend the book Supership.  It focuses on officers who I'm sure have things a lot better than the average sailor, but it is still pretty clear that working on a ship is nothing like getting paid to take a cruise.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Karaboudjan
Fix a word

[AmazedByCruising]

15 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

No, it is the pay, primarily, and the time off that attract people to working on ships.  You'll find very, very few mariners who feel the "romance of the seas".

 

Sure, you could put the accommodation block on the front of the ship, and add a few million dollars to the cost to build.  Plus, you take away any potential cargo volume under the accommodation block, in addition to the lost space over the engine room, so the ship carries less cargo and costs more.  And, I have worked on ships with forward houses, like RO/RO ships, and the motion is far greater, and more uncomfortable up there.

 

Did you study to be a Chief Engineer because of salary and time off? Most people I know studied physics or engineering or whatever just because they liked the subject and only had a vague idea of jobs. However, two old friends who eventually became Captain (both ended their careers at sea quite quickly), were "Sea scouts" as a kid. They certainly were attracted by the romance.

 

I don't understand the extra cost of building the accommodation block at the front, or why it would lead to less cargo volume. More movement forward is a good reason of course. 

 

 

51 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

a second superstructure for living quarters, you now have to build an all weather passage between the accommodation forward and the engine room aft.  I'm sure the shipowners will go for all this

 

What's the other superstructure for? 

 

Anyway, I think shipowners can calculate themselves. What does it cost to make a ship look less like a prison to attract new crew. They did install pools in cargo ships. Either to pay less, or to have employees in the first place. 

[AmazedByCruising]

1 hour ago, Karaboudjan said:

For anyone who is interested in this subject I recommend the book Supership.

 

Amazon suggests  "Superships of the Great Lakes" but that's probably not the book you mean? 

[chengkp75]

7 hours ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

Did you study to be a Chief Engineer because of salary and time off? Most people I know studied physics or engineering or whatever just because they liked the subject and only had a vague idea of jobs. However, two old friends who eventually became Captain (both ended their careers at sea quite quickly), were "Sea scouts" as a kid. They certainly were attracted by the romance.

 

I don't understand the extra cost of building the accommodation block at the front, or why it would lead to less cargo volume. More movement forward is a good reason of course. 

 

 

 

What's the other superstructure for? 

 

Anyway, I think shipowners can calculate themselves. What does it cost to make a ship look less like a prison to attract new crew. They did install pools in cargo ships. Either to pay less, or to have employees in the first place. 

In part, yes, because at the time I started out, pay was very, very good for mariners.  It has stagnated for US mariners for the last 45 years.  But, really, I like machinery, and marine engineering allows for working on some of the largest engines in the world, and also being the "Maytag repairman" (US advertising joke, you probably don't know what it is), where you have to be able to repair anything and everything on the ship, since you can't call someone to come fix it.

 

The extra cost for a second superstructure is because there will still need to be a superstructure aft for the upper engine room and the exhaust uptakes, and the accommodation block generally fits around this.  So, now, instead of one free-standing superstructure, you have two.  You also have to run electrical power from the engine room aft to the accommodation forward.  Since engine rooms today are almost exclusively "unmanned" (there is no one down there from 1800 at night to 0600 in the morning, you have to have an all-weather means of getting the duty engineer from the accommodation forward back to the engine room, when he responds to an alarm in the middle of the night.

 

Why less cargo volume?  You cannot put a cargo tank, for a tanker, over the engine room, so that is where the accommodation block is placed.  That space is acknowledged as lost to cargo when designing.  However, if I put a house forward, by SOLAS I cannot have a cargo tank under the house, so I lose that volume (or make the ship bigger, costing more money).  For a container ship, how would you get containers out of a hold that was under the accommodation?  Again, lost cargo  space.

 

Yes, the shipowners can do a "cost/reward" analysis, and they find that the cost to make the accommodation block "attractive" far outweighs any benefit of crew recruitment and retention.  Not many ships have pools, mostly northern European ships that will also have saunas, as that ritual requires the pool.

[Karaboudjan]

7 hours ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

Amazon suggests  "Superships of the Great Lakes" but that's probably not the book you mean? 

Supership by Noel Mostert.

[Sue Do-Over]

On 7/22/2021 at 3:55 PM, ChiefMateJRK said:

Thanks.  That makes a whole lot more sense.

There are a number of sources that point out the potential fire risks of open balcony doors.  While smoking is generally prohibited in cabins now, smokers often simply step out on the balcony.  One careless lit butt blown into another cabin could result in a fire.  While sleeping, people aren't always able to detect smoke until it reaches a dangerous level.

So, for your own *safety* please consider keeping your balcony door closed while you sleep, and use a fan or other device to mimic the sound or breeze you desire.

[RumRunner2021]

1 hour ago, Sue Do-Over said:

There are a number of sources that point out the potential fire risks of open balcony doors.

I think we're just making stuff up now.

[MorganClark]

33 minutes ago, RumRunner2021 said:

I think we're just making stuff up now.

 

Come on, give Sue a "do-over"...

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, Sue Do-Over said:

There are a number of sources that point out the potential fire risks of open balcony doors.  While smoking is generally prohibited in cabins now, smokers often simply step out on the balcony.  One careless lit butt blown into another cabin could result in a fire.  While sleeping, people aren't always able to detect smoke until it reaches a dangerous level.

So, for your own *safety* please consider keeping your balcony door closed while you sleep, and use a fan or other device to mimic the sound or breeze you desire.

 

2 hours ago, RumRunner2021 said:

I think we're just making stuff up now.

As someone who has fought shipboard fires, and drilled on shipboard emergencies for decades, and also was the on-scene commander for a cruise ship, I can say that the chance of a cigarette blowing into another cabin and starting a fire is pretty remote.  Even the investigators of the Star Princess fire, where they assumed a cigarette was the cause (because they could find no definitive cause), tried, in laboratory conditions to ignite a Princess line towel with a cigarette, and were unable to do so.  Cigarettes need pretty specific conditions of atmosphere and combustible material to actually start a fire, particularly in a fire retardant place like a ship's cabin.

 

As for sleeping passengers, that is why there is a smoke detector in each cabin.  Not only will the alarm wake the occupants, but it also rings at a central console on the bridge, and security will be dispatched to check it out.

 

The only fire hazard from an open balcony door is the loss of overpressure in your cabin, which can lead to smoke ingress from the passageway if there is a fire.

[AmazedByCruising]

13 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

In part, yes, because at the time I started out, pay was very, very good for mariners.  It has stagnated for US mariners for the last 45 years.  But, really, I like machinery, and marine engineering allows for working on some of the largest engines in the world, and also being the "Maytag repairman" (US advertising joke, you probably don't know what it is), where you have to be able to repair anything and everything on the ship, since you can't call someone to come fix it.

 

The extra cost for a second superstructure is because there will still need to be a superstructure aft for the upper engine room and the exhaust uptakes, and the accommodation block generally fits around this.  So, now, instead of one free-standing superstructure, you have two.  You also have to run electrical power from the engine room aft to the accommodation forward.  Since engine rooms today are almost exclusively "unmanned" (there is no one down there from 1800 at night to 0600 in the morning, you have to have an all-weather means of getting the duty engineer from the accommodation forward back to the engine room, when he responds to an alarm in the middle of the night.

 

Why less cargo volume?  You cannot put a cargo tank, for a tanker, over the engine room, so that is where the accommodation block is placed.  That space is acknowledged as lost to cargo when designing.  However, if I put a house forward, by SOLAS I cannot have a cargo tank under the house, so I lose that volume (or make the ship bigger, costing more money).  For a container ship, how would you get containers out of a hold that was under the accommodation?  Again, lost cargo  space.

 

Yes, the shipowners can do a "cost/reward" analysis, and they find that the cost to make the accommodation block "attractive" far outweighs any benefit of crew recruitment and retention.  Not many ships have pools, mostly northern European ships that will also have saunas, as that ritual requires the pool.

 

Thank you once again for your elaborate explanation!

 

Do you know why the mariners earned a lot previously but it has stagnated? For cabin stewards I know there are queues in low income countries, but is there are similar trend for high level positions like yours?

 

Regarding attractiveness, do mariners on cruise ships settle for lower salaries? 

 

I googled the Maytag repairman 🙂 Strange that MTBF isn't advertised with anymore. "We" seem to have accepted the fact that anything you buy will be superseded by a better product and it's not worth the effort to repair it but you should buy the new version. But those are not massive engines on ships, of course. I guess that they need being cared for on a daily basis. 

 

[AmazedByCruising]

13 hours ago, Karaboudjan said:

Supership by Noel Mostert.

 

Txs 🙂

[chengkp75]

Worldwide, mariner's wages have not stagnated, but they have in the US.  In the old days, the US government paid a subsidy to shipowners that covered the difference between operating a US flag ship or a foreign flag ship.  When that subsidy ended in the 80's, salaries suffered.  So, the dollar salary has remained the same, but of course the purchasing power of those dollars is much less.

 

The pool of mariners, including officers, is dwindling, especially among developed nations, and this is leading to less qualified officers and crew.  For European officers, they do typically take a lesser salary than on cargo vessels.

 

Even things that are considered to be not worth repairing on land, will be repaired on a ship, as the owner doesn't want to stock spare equipment (if it is on the shelf for about 6 months, you are losing money), but labor cost is already a fixed quantity.

[Outerdog]

8 hours ago, Sue Do-Over said:

There are a number of sources that point out the potential fire risks of open balcony doors. 

 

Can you cite one?

[Sue Do-Over]

17 hours ago, Outerdog said:

 

Can you cite one?

I'll concede that the conditions for a cigarette to catch a cabin on fire are specific, but am certain that the prohibitions against smoking on balconies include, but are not limited to, risk of fire.  While the safety briefings and passenger contracts avoid saying 'because it bothers other passengers, and we don't want to hear complaints', they can use even a small risk of fire to justify the rules.

 

Will also admit that I didn't spend time gathering or citing specific unassailable sources. 

 

If that's required, I'll be more careful to avoid your censure.  Happy sailing!

[ShelleyQT]

One annoying thing about people leaving their balcony doors open is that when I am sitting out on my balcony, I can hear their TV, or hear them yelling to each other from inside their cabin out to their own balcony, or to someone in the shower.  Not very relaxing.

[F27TW]

.. Ummm .. No. 

[Outerdog]

5 hours ago, Sue Do-Over said:

Will also admit that I didn't spend time gathering or citing specific unassailable sources. 

 

If that's required, I'll be more careful to avoid your censure.  Happy sailing!

 

So you just make stuff up and imply authority on the topic then accuse others of censure when called to account?

 

Got it.

 

[MorganClark]

13 hours ago, Outerdog said:

 

So you just make stuff up and imply authority on the topic then accuse others of censure when called to account?

 

Got it.

 

 

No do-over there.

[ChiefMateJRK]

18 hours ago, ShelleyQT said:

One annoying thing about people leaving their balcony doors open is that when I am sitting out on my balcony, I can hear their TV, or hear them yelling to each other from inside their cabin out to their own balcony, or to someone in the shower.  Not very relaxing.

That's why I book insides.  I never have this problem, don't have to worry about flying cigarette butts and I can take my afternoon nap without that pesky sunlight keeping me awake.  Apparently life is easier in an inside! 😎

[psac]

I wasn’t the one who posted about it, but the risk of fires with balcony doors open is really only attached to the risk of smoking on balconies. Theoretically if nobody is smoking, there is no risk there.  But I think we’ve all smelled smoke from others out on our balconies unfortunately. But don’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole of that topic. 😁