madprof's blog

The glued part I mentioned yesterday didn’t quite work. The glue seems to be strong enough, but unfortunately I didn’t quite check how it all fits and works before gluing it. I glued it as it is when you insert it into the lock… but once it’s in the lock part of it gets pushed into another position by a spring. So tomorrow or something I’ll try with another broken part and see if I can glue that into the already sprung position instead.

Yesterday I was in a programme as well in the evening, it was a programme for the local churches, to thank them for all their help this port, and show them what kinds of things the ship does. So
stories from one of the nurses, about her work with the ship in India at a leprosy home, and so on. I was asked to be part of the “parade of departments”.

Basically go up the front with my work clothes on, with people from the other departments, and they had to guess where we worked on board, and what we did. I don’t think the programme organiser thought about which people she asked though too much… or maybe she did. I was the last person in the line, and when we introduced ourselves, it sounded something like this:

“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Ireland.”
“Hi, my name is Danielle, and I come from Malaysia.”
“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Cyprus.”

So all I had to do was say my name, pause slightly and look ironic, and the whole audience burst into laughter. Nice. I dressed up for the occasion. I wore my normal work clothes, but raided the workshop, so had about 3 screwdrivers in a pocket, a tape measure on my belt, pliers, a sounding rope and weight on a nice harness thingy, and perhaps 80+ keys on various jangly rings.

The glued part I mentioned yesterday didn’t quite work. The glue seems to be strong enough, but unfortunately I didn’t quite check how it all fits and works before gluing it. I glued it as it is when you insert it into the lock… but once it’s in the lock part of it gets pushed into another position by a spring. So tomorrow or something I’ll try with another broken part and see if I can glue that into the already sprung position instead.

Yesterday I was in a programme as well in the evening, it was a programme for the local churches, to thank them for all their help this port, and show them what kinds of things the ship does. So
stories from one of the nurses, about her work with the ship in India at a leprosy home, and so on. I was asked to be part of the “parade of departments”.

Basically go up the front with my work clothes on, with people from the other departments, and they had to guess where we worked on board, and what we did. I don’t think the programme organiser thought about which people she asked though too much… or maybe she did. I was the last person in the line, and when we introduced ourselves, it sounded something like this:

“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Ireland.”
“Hi, my name is Danielle, and I come from Malaysia.”
“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Cyprus.”

So all I had to do was say my name, pause slightly and look ironic, and the whole audience burst into laughter. Nice. I dressed up for the occasion. I wore my normal work clothes, but raided the workshop, so had about 3 screwdrivers in a pocket, a tape measure on my belt, pliers, a sounding rope and weight on a nice harness thingy, and perhaps 80+ keys on various jangly rings.

Waterman’s job… So far, I quite like it. It seems like a good job, many things to keep busy with, but not too much stress, and quite a flexible schedule (will be more so, once I’ve got everything mastered). Sort of quite senior. Quite “elite” and all that (being only 2 of us, and no-one else actually knows what we do, how to do it, or anything. Apparently people get “chosen” for it rather than choosing it. Bit weird… one of the other ex-deckies came to me and told me “yeah, all the watermen just get chosen, no one actually ever wants the job. It’s totally unromantic, unlike “fireman” or “team leader” or something. But everyone who becomes waterman seems to really enjoy it.” And loads of other people keep saying stuff like “you’re the new waterman? oh good! It’s JUST the right job for you!!”. I feel like I’m missing something…)).

Strange thing is, a lot of knowledge about the job seems to be passed on by word of mouth, apprentice style, but then it looks like a lot of it has kind of disappeared in the last year or so. So like the lock situation, for instance. As far as I can tell, about 2 years ago they replaced the entire lock set on the whole ship, then about a year ago bought a whole load of new / replacement locks & padlocks. But they have *never* ordered any spare parts for them. Which means that about now, we are very short.

There is this stupid little brass bit right in the middle of *every* lock on the ship, which has the entire weight of the lock on it when it gets opened, and these snap quite frequently. So far, what the watermen have done is to swap the part for one in one of the unused locks, or swap out a lock from elsewhere, or something similar. We’re kind of short of spare locks now. So I’m trying to find solutions to this. They have been talking about ordering or even trying to order new parts for ages, but have never done it. So I keep reminding the other guy, and it looks like this week we should order them. But until they arrive (could be months away!!) we still need solutions.

So I first went to the engine room machinists, and asked if they could make replacement parts, with their lathes, etc. They said yes, but it could take a whole day just to make one! So that’s not really a solution. Then I thought about maybe glueing/ soldering a fix, (it’s far too small and delicate to weld). So I asked the electricians, and they gave me some very strong epoxy mixing glue stuff, which I tried out today on a part. (Today is my first day working alone…) So far it seems like it may work! Monday is our off-day, and then on Tuesday I will hopefully get some time to sand/buff off the excess epoxy cement stuff, and build a new lock to try it out with. I really hope it does work.

I really enjoy the working with locks, but SO much of it is trial and error. We only have maybe 3 booklets on basic lock picking, but no real books on lock maintainance, theory, or whatever. Some things I am just curious about. The way they “grease” the locks to keep them working smoothly is by adding graphite dust. Why? I don’t know! They don’t know either. It’s just the way they were taught. Sometimes the graphite dust gets too much and blocks up the lock, and it all needs taking apart. Why not use liquid wrench or something like that? Or some kind of oil?

Hopefully I will get a chance to go on the net sometime this week, and then I can look up this stuff. Also try and find spare parts. Part of the problem with the spare parts is we don’t even know what the correct technical term for the parts are! So some jobs I want to do is to (once I’ve got it all worked out), make proper drawings / blender diagrams of how all the locks work, how to build/ rebuild them, etc, and then to make a small manual. Like as far as the locks go, I know about as much as the other waterman now, because it was the OTHER waterman before him who always did the locks before, and he never really got a chance to learn it all (he only started the job himself about 4 months ago). Anyway, it’s all quite interesting.

The other waterman is a really nice guy, friendly, etc. It will be very fun working with him.

Fixing shoes is not particually interesting, but it’s a good way to make everyone love you. 🙂

We get our own “workshop”/office. Which is cool. And also access to the deck officers/workers computer, to which is quite nice. We have to fill in spreadsheets of all the water readings and so on every day.

About the Doulos intranet thing, apparently the other IT bloke who is coming back from furlough in a week or so wants to make it all with the microsoft groupware thingy so it all links in with our exchange system. So that means I don’t have to do any of it. Oh well.

So thats about all really.

Waterman’s job… So far, I quite like it. It seems like a good job, many things to keep busy with, but not too much stress, and quite a flexible schedule (will be more so, once I’ve got everything mastered). Sort of quite senior. Quite “elite” and all that (being only 2 of us, and no-one else actually knows what we do, how to do it, or anything. Apparently people get “chosen” for it rather than choosing it. Bit weird… one of the other ex-deckies came to me and told me “yeah, all the watermen just get chosen, no one actually ever wants the job. It’s totally unromantic, unlike “fireman” or “team leader” or something. But everyone who becomes waterman seems to really enjoy it.” And loads of other people keep saying stuff like “you’re the new waterman? oh good! It’s JUST the right job for you!!”. I feel like I’m missing something…)).

Strange thing is, a lot of knowledge about the job seems to be passed on by word of mouth, apprentice style, but then it looks like a lot of it has kind of disappeared in the last year or so. So like the lock situation, for instance. As far as I can tell, about 2 years ago they replaced the entire lock set on the whole ship, then about a year ago bought a whole load of new / replacement locks & padlocks. But they have *never* ordered any spare parts for them. Which means that about now, we are very short.

There is this stupid little brass bit right in the middle of *every* lock on the ship, which has the entire weight of the lock on it when it gets opened, and these snap quite frequently. So far, what the watermen have done is to swap the part for one in one of the unused locks, or swap out a lock from elsewhere, or something similar. We’re kind of short of spare locks now. So I’m trying to find solutions to this. They have been talking about ordering or even trying to order new parts for ages, but have never done it. So I keep reminding the other guy, and it looks like this week we should order them. But until they arrive (could be months away!!) we still need solutions.

So I first went to the engine room machinists, and asked if they could make replacement parts, with their lathes, etc. They said yes, but it could take a whole day just to make one! So that’s not really a solution. Then I thought about maybe glueing/ soldering a fix, (it’s far too small and delicate to weld). So I asked the electricians, and they gave me some very strong epoxy mixing glue stuff, which I tried out today on a part. (Today is my first day working alone…) So far it seems like it may work! Monday is our off-day, and then on Tuesday I will hopefully get some time to sand/buff off the excess epoxy cement stuff, and build a new lock to try it out with. I really hope it does work.

I really enjoy the working with locks, but SO much of it is trial and error. We only have maybe 3 booklets on basic lock picking, but no real books on lock maintainance, theory, or whatever. Some things I am just curious about. The way they “grease” the locks to keep them working smoothly is by adding graphite dust. Why? I don’t know! They don’t know either. It’s just the way they were taught. Sometimes the graphite dust gets too much and blocks up the lock, and it all needs taking apart. Why not use liquid wrench or something like that? Or some kind of oil?

Hopefully I will get a chance to go on the net sometime this week, and then I can look up this stuff. Also try and find spare parts. Part of the problem with the spare parts is we don’t even know what the correct technical term for the parts are! So some jobs I want to do is to (once I’ve got it all worked out), make proper drawings / blender diagrams of how all the locks work, how to build/ rebuild them, etc, and then to make a small manual. Like as far as the locks go, I know about as much as the other waterman now, because it was the OTHER waterman before him who always did the locks before, and he never really got a chance to learn it all (he only started the job himself about 4 months ago). Anyway, it’s all quite interesting.

The other waterman is a really nice guy, friendly, etc. It will be very fun working with him.

Fixing shoes is not particually interesting, but it’s a good way to make everyone love you. 🙂

We get our own “workshop”/office. Which is cool. And also access to the deck officers/workers computer, to which is quite nice. We have to fill in spreadsheets of all the water readings and so on every day.

About the Doulos intranet thing, apparently the other IT bloke who is coming back from furlough in a week or so wants to make it all with the microsoft groupware thingy so it all links in with our exchange system. So that means I don’t have to do any of it. Oh well.

So thats about all really.

We’re in Port Klang, Malaysia now. Sabbath week has started, so no deck work – 8 hours watch tomorrow only, and that’s it! Probably that’s my last ever gangway watch. They still have me scheduled for watch with my team, but my new teamleader is trying hard to get me off that week of watch and straight into the job as waterman.

Sabbath week means we have seminars etc in the mornings, then afternoons are free. Monday is sports/general madness afternoon.

The speaker this morning gave away free books to everyone! He told us about the most important emphases in his life, then recommended about four books about each one . He had a table up the front where at the end each person could take any three they wanted. But there were quite a lot left over, so he said take as many more as we wanted. So I got 7!

I have the go-ahead to make the Doulos intranet website. We’re getting new computers soon, and one of the old ones will be converted to a Linux server.

I’m spending a lot of this week on watch using my swiss knife and some twine to whip and finish lots of the book-exhibition ropes. They are all in horrible condition, although some have been finished off with back-splices, but not beautifully. Since the ropes have to be pushed through small holes in the stanchions to make lines for the people to walk, having them all thicker at the ends doesn’t make it any easier… they look so much better whipped off. Some of the ropes have
frayed though some of the strands, so I’m having to re-lay them, and then perhaps tonight I’ll splice the frayed ends togeather. It’s something to do…