C V help

[floating dutchman]

Yea, an Ipad or similar is on the cards, as soon as the money stars coming in again. Being able to skype will be a big plus.

Car should make it.

Anyways, I'm off to work today and I'll post back in a week and tell ya all how it went.

Jeroen

[kimbottles]

good luck and know you have friends behind you all the way.....

[BeauV]

Beau, today you can do that with an iPhone and a $100 Apple TV box.

Yup, and my son and his sweetie do it with a pair of iPads. Purdy amazing this tech-knowlo-geee !

[floating dutchman]

Well, I survived my first week at work, well enjoyed it is more like it!
Being away from from the wife and kids was a bit hard at times but now I have a week at home to make up for it.

Full report tomorrow, kind of shattered right now.

Jeroen

[Jamie]

That's really great to hear!

[JoeP]

Excellent!

[floating dutchman]

Well, where to start?

The Chief Engineer that was on the ship was the same one that was on when I had previously worked on the ship for a couple of days, He has worked for Strait shipping for the last 20 or so years and is well respected in the company , within 15 minuets of me being there he said "I'm glad you got this job".
Talk about a vote of confidence!
Funny thing too, A number of the crew knew that I owned my own boat, this was well before I had a chance to get to know people and talk to them. The only way they could have known that is from my C.V. Gotta love grape vines!
I would never had put that on my C.V. without help from fellow Scantlingers, So this is a big THANK-YOU to those who pointed out that should go on my C.V.
The way my swing (shift if you like) works is that I join the ship on Wednesday at 5pm (two hours drive from home) I work 7 twelve hour days, sleep on the ship and never get off the ship until Wednesday 5 pm the following week, Then I get 7 days off.
When I got on the ship I was asked what hours I wanted to work, I just did what previous sparkys had done, 7 till 7. Well two days of that and that just didn't work, Passengers start getting on the ship at about 7:20 and I have decided that my first job of the day is to get all of the public area lights going, there are hundreds of lights and I average 3 or 4 a day to fix in the public area, I need to start work earlier.
Also when I went to bed the ship is just tieing up in Wellington and they shut down the main engines. Sailing across the cook strait I can sleep but tied up to the wharf, nope!
Moved my day to 6 till 6 and fixed both problems, Explained it to the Chief Engineer (my direct boss) and he was just happy that I was being proactive about my job.
Some or the crew I work with are not Kiwi's, A couple from Tonga and a Filipino, English is their 2nd language and communication can be difficult, But they are nice guys, skilled and motivated in their work, when I get to know them better communication will get better.
My predecessor seems to have the habit of when something does not work properly to just E-mail the manufacture with the fault and ask them how to fix it. I am less than impressed, good thing for me is that there is a good E-mail trail of long standing issues. All of the information that manufactures have sent him was on the ship anyway, the ship is very well equipped with drawings and manuals, I've been on the ship for one week and I've found them! One of the E-mails he got from manufactures had in big font and different colour information that they had already sent him.
The ship is only 9 years old and is very sophisticated but It has lots of dual redundancy, with systems like this your going to have gremlins rearing their ugly head, my job is to bang my big stick (and I have one) until they are all gone, more will pop up but I will keep my stick at hand.
I don't get how sending endless E-mails to manufactures keeps the gremlins at bay.
Lee (my better looking 1/2) coped reasonably well without me being at home, she missed me but she understands why I want to do this job.
I married well.
One day while talking to Lee on the phone Fiona (2) was climbing all over Lee, she had worked out the Dad was on the phone and wanted to talk to me so we "talked", Fiona cried and cried when the phone was taken from her. I found that real hard.
Page (8) seems to be coping with the change well, and I'm loving taking him to school and back, seeing his teacher and friends.

IMG_0075.JPG

Out of my new office window

IMG_0077.JPG

I need to find out who cleans the windows.

IMG_0080.JPG

Small but home, to my left shoulder is my own toilet/shower. It's well aft and I only sleep here so I'm happy with it .

IMG_0084.JPG

IMG_0083.JPG

Leaving Tory Channel

Thanks for the help people

Jeroen

[floating dutchman]

One more thing, and this is just funny.
A few weeks ago I was just a baggy assed sparky, Well on the the ship I'm the Electrical Officer, on the white board it had "Chief Electrical Officer" by my name, I had to remove the "Chief" bit much to the amusement of my colleagues.

And the bit that had me and a mate in stitches:

My uniform has two stripes.

So, It seems that I'm a two stripe officer!

Well. bugger me!

jeroen

[Jamie]

Well, where to start?

The Chief Engineer that was on the ship was the same one that was on when I had previously worked on the ship for a couple of days, He has worked for Strait shipping for the last 20 or so years and is well respected in the company , within 15 minuets of me being there he said "I'm glad you got this job".
Talk about a vote of confidence!
Funny thing too, A number of the crew knew that I owned my own boat, this was well before I had a chance to get to know people and talk to them. The only way they could have known that is from my C.V. Gotta love grape vines!
I would never had put that on my C.V. without help from fellow Scantlingers, So this is a big THANK-YOU to those who pointed out that should go on my C.V.
The way my swing (shift if you like) works is that I join the ship on Wednesday at 5pm (two hours drive from home) I work 7 twelve hour days, sleep on the ship and never get off the ship until Wednesday 5 pm the following week, Then I get 7 days off.
When I got on the ship I was asked what hours I wanted to work, I just did what previous sparkys had done, 7 till 7. Well two days of that and that just didn't work, Passengers start getting on the ship at about 7:20 and I have decided that my first job of the day is to get all of the public area lights going, there are hundreds of lights and I average 3 or 4 a day to fix in the public area, I need to start work earlier.
Also when I went to bed the ship is just tieing up in Wellington and they shut down the main engines. Sailing across the cook strait I can sleep but tied up to the wharf, nope!
Moved my day to 6 till 6 and fixed both problems, Explained it to the Chief Engineer (my direct boss) and he was just happy that I was being proactive about my job.
Some or the crew I work with are not Kiwi's, A couple from Tonga and a Filipino, English is their 2nd language and communication can be difficult, But they are nice guys, skilled and motivated in their work, when I get to know them better communication will get better.
My predecessor seems to have the habit of when something does not work properly to just E-mail the manufacture with the fault and ask them how to fix it. I am less than impressed, good thing for me is that there is a good E-mail trail of long standing issues. All of the information that manufactures have sent him was on the ship anyway, the ship is very well equipped with drawings and manuals, I've been on the ship for one week and I've found them! One of the E-mails he got from manufactures had in big font and different colour information that they had already sent him.
The ship is only 9 years old and is very sophisticated but It has lots of dual redundancy, with systems like this your going to have gremlins rearing their ugly head, my job is to bang my big stick (and I have one) until they are all gone, more will pop up but I will keep my stick at hand.
I don't get how sending endless E-mails to manufactures keeps the gremlins at bay.
Lee (my better looking 1/2) coped reasonably well without me being at home, she missed me but she understands why I want to do this job.
I married well.
One day while talking to Lee on the phone Fiona (2) was climbing all over Lee, she had worked out the Dad was on the phone and wanted to talk to me so we "talked", Fiona cried and cried when the phone was taken from her. I found that real hard.
Page (8) seems to be coping with the change well, and I'm loving taking him to school and back, seeing his teacher and friends.

IMG_0075.JPG

Out of my new office window

IMG_0077.JPG

I need to find out who cleans the windows.

IMG_0080.JPG

Small but home, to my left shoulder is my own toilet/shower. It's well aft and I only sleep here so I'm happy with it .

IMG_0084.JPG

IMG_0083.JPG

Leaving Tory Channel

Thanks for the help people

Jeroen

Cripes...wanna trade jobs?

[BeauV]

Glad to see you've landed what sounds like a job you'll do well and enjoy. Love the bit about the big stick. It sounds like they made a wise choice and chose the right sparky.

But, we all knew that all along now. Didn't we Skantlingers?

Smooth seas.

[LarryHoward]

Sounds like a great fit for you. The 7 on/7 off routine will become just that in a month or so. You and the family will begin to see it as "normal" and you'll naturally schedule "special events" for the weeks off. At some point, when you eventually go back to a "normal job", I predict the transition to that routine will be harder as the 50% of your time off with good pay and a job you enjoy is going to be a treasure to you and, particularly, your kids.

Great landing!

[kimbottles]

Great news that the job is working out well!

Where is the ferry run? South Island to Wellington across the Cook Straights?? (Maybe you answered that before but I must have missed it.)

[floating dutchman]

Great news that the job is working out well!

Where is the ferry run? South Island to Wellington across the Cook Straights?? (Maybe you answered that before but I must have missed it.)

Yes, that is the run.

I looked out the window at lunch today, Lovely lighthouse on an island with a couple of houses, postcard beautiful! Dam shame I spend most of my time in an Engine Control Room.
I've got 7 days of school starting tomorrow (Monday), have to do my Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping.
School? can't remember last time I did that.

Jeroen

[kimbottles]

We took that ferry a couple years ago in a full gale, interesting experience.

[floating dutchman]

We took that ferry a couple years ago in a full gale, interesting experience.

Do you remember the name of the ship?

My ship only goes out up till 4-5 meter, the other ship goes out in up to 6 meter, one of the (competition) ships goes in almost anything.
Funny, Yesterday I thought it was a tad bouncy,looked at the Stabilizer screen, Stabilizers not used. Today seemed calm and I looked at the stabilizer screen, umm, must be at least a bit bouncy out there, we loose 1/2 a knot with the stabilizers and the rock dodgers have them out.
It's kind of weird sometimes, I spend very little time outside, I'm on a 120 Meter ship and sometimes I have no idea what it's like outside, Hot, cold, windy or what.
I woke up the other night, I sleep on level 9, The props were in reverse! this is at 2:30 am? At no time in our schedule should we be in reverse at 2:30 am! WTF?
Then I remembered, Lay day, we refuel on Saturday morning and move to our normal wharf at about this time, back to sleep for a couple of hours.
Slowly getting in tune with the new routine.

Jeroen

[kimbottles]

Don't remember the ferry's name, but it was out of Picton.