crew q & a

Yesterday, we had a q & a with the captain and his crew. I tried to take good notes so that I could pass along all the info. to my blog readership:

Who is our Captain?

• His name is Captain Jeremy Kingston and he is from England. He is licensed to captain any vessel, of any tonnage, in any ocean.

How do we get food & how much do we store in advance?

• We store up foods that can only (or best) be bought in America, for example peanut butter & taco supplies. We pick up fresh fruits and vegetables at port. Our cereal, at the moment, is Brazilian. Our last loading will be in Hong Kong and that will get us to the end of the voyage.

Is there any danger of pirates?

• There have been no recorded incidents of pirates (since when?, my notes weren’t good here …!). Captain Jeremy’s quote: “To be honest, I have no idea what a pirate looks like …” There is a small danger of pirates as we approach Singapore and our primary strategy will be to increase our speed overnight. We’ll use all four engines then.

What would we do if a pirate boarded?

• To quote Monty Python, Captain Jeremy says: “run away run away”. The goal is to keep pirates from boarding in the first place! We have lookouts and, if pirates approached, we would start by spraying them with fire-hoses. Like police in a riot. Or we’d fill their boats with water and try to sink them. But, really, the thing we do is increase our speed. A small boat would have a very hard time coming alongside our wake. Captain Jeremy says: “I’d actually like to see them try. I’d stand on the bridge and laugh at them.”

How much fuel do we consume?

• About 85-90 tons of fuel per day. As mentioned before, we have 4 engines. We are currently running on only one engine, which uses about 60 tons of fuel per day.

How many crew do we have?

• Currently, 205 crew of 20 different nationalities. Most of the crew are from the Philippines. The crew have different contract lengths depending on their nationality. 4, 5, 6, 9 months variously. The officers work four months on, four months off. The crew has space on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd decks where all of their cabins are. They have a crew gym, a crew bar, a crew mess, and there is also an officers’ dining room.

How much is the ship worth?:

• Smaller cruise ships like ours are not all that popular in the marketplace. And it all depends on the marketplace. The last time the sister ship sold, it went for $70-80 million. But, they probably cost about $200-250 million to build.

How much is a Captain paid?:

• At top of the industry, $150,000-$200,000 + quarter million dollar bonus after 5 years sailing troublefree. There are also incentives for such things as fuel efficiency. At the low end, a Captain may only make @ $40,000.

What are the difference between working for SAS and normal cruise-ships?.

• Cruise ship passengers are always complaining. About everything. We complain a lot too, said the hotel director, but we don’t ask for our money back. Cruise ships spend about $40/day/person for food. The hotel director wouldn’t tell us how much we spend, only to say “we don’t come anywhere near that”. [Other sources report that it’s $5/day/person.] The officers also claim to enjoy getting to know us over the course of the voyage. And they like spending long stretches at sea. On a cruise-ship, there is constant turnover of passengers and they mostly sail overnight to arrive in port the next day. And then overnight again for the next port.
  

What’s the food cycle?

• Every day is repeated 5 times on the ship (for a 20 day cycle), pending supply. Most ingredients for taco-day come from America and so were stocked up on in Fort Lauderdale. Barbecue (which also makes us very happy) is dependent upon the weather. Not only absence of rain but they need very calm seas. As we’ve learned, it can be completely sunny & completely rough. There should be another barbecue-day between Kobe & Honolulu.

Why do we need to conserve water for India?

• In every port, we stop taking on water as we near land. In most ports, we supplement our water with purchased water from the port. But, in India, we can’t get water supplied in port because it doesn’t meet health codes. It takes a lot of time & costs a lot of money to have water trucked in (it's literally like mineral bottled water), so we push to conserve while in India. Also, on water, the process is reverse osmosis with heavy chlorination.

Why is there no cold water from the tap?

• Water takes on the ambient temperature of the surroundings. At your home, in your pipes, the water comes in cold from the underground. The water here is held in a tank and we don’t chill it. It would be too expensive to chill.

Why isn’t the pasta labeled vegetarian?

• Well, the tomatoes & the lettuce aren’t marked vegetarian either … The hotel director expects that we’ll use some commonsense … [Actually, there was a rumor that the pasta was cooked in chicken broth, but the hotel director says this is not true.]

How much do we weigh?

• The ship weighs 12,400 metric tons empty and 40,833 metric tons fully loaded.

Why is it so cold on the ship?:

• The temperature is kept at 22 or 23 degrees celsius (72-73) in the public spaces. When you put a lot of people in a single place (like the union or the classrooms), the space heats up pretty quickly. It’s too expensive to lower and raise the temperature based on shipboard activity, so it is set at a stable (cold-to-some) temperature.

How often does the ship get painted?

• It is “dry-docked” every two years and “wet-docked” every year for painting. [The ship is conveniently orange & blue, by the way -- UVA colors).]
  

Where does the term “muster” come from (i.e. muster station, where we gather for our lifeboats):?

• They didn’t know. But since I’m a good librarian, the OED tells me:

1. Senses relating to the assembling or collecting together of persons, etc. The number of people or things assembled on a particular occasion; an assembly, a collection. First used in 1382: Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.): 1 Kings (Bodl. 959) v. 13 Kyng Salamon chees werkmen of al israel, & e mowstre [L. indictio] was retti thousendis of men.

2. An act of calling together soldiers, sailors, prisoners, etc.; an assembling of people for inspection, exercises, etc., or an act of counting or enlisting people into (esp. armed) service; a roll-call. Also (Austral.): a census (now hist.). First used in 1419: Ordin. War xiii, in T. Twiss Monumenta Juridica (1871) I. 463 That noman be so hardy to have other men at his mustrez, than tho that be with hym self withold for the same voiage.

What’s with all the crew safety drills?

• The crew is required by law to exercise safety drills every 7 days.

What’s the difference between M.V. and M.S. and S.S?:

• They are all titles for ships. M.V. is motor vessel; M.S. is motor ship. We are both of those and could be called either, but we go by M.V. generally (M.V. Explorer). S.S. is steam ship.

Is Captain Jeremy’s wife really a model?

• Yes. She is from the Philippines. [Kate describes her as a “beautiful … elegant … 12 year old".] Her name is Apple and she refers to Captain Jeremy as “Master” … no further comment …[although we all do kinda wonder what he calls her ...]