Bad mood rant

Well, last night sucked. Today too.

 Last night we had an incident which I *shouldn't* talk about much, as there's an insurance issue involved now. We're OK, we're still floating, and by next week we'll be 100% again. Had a quick physics refresher, so thank you buckets Sir Isaac Newton for another 24-hour workday, and after we visit a shipyard to undo what was done, we'll be sound as a pound.
       
     Today I came alongside the QUEEN MARY II to deliver a couple of hundred tons of low-sulphur diesel for their generators. We had the diesel loaded already when we had our incident, so we have to get rid of it anyhow.

Mary, you're a bitch to get close to. 

I'm not sure why the designers had to make the QM2 damn near impossible to fuel in a safe manner. The architect who failed to design the vessel to accomodate at-sea transfers with bunker vessels should have a rubber band wrapped tightly around his privates for a few weeks to prevent the passing of his stupid, stupid genes. Cunard lines, too, is culpable. They're the ones who hired an architect who never thought about how they were going to makes the wheels spin.

 I say this, not to be malicious, but to note that punishment has already been meted out. Although the QM2 is relatively young, her hull along the waterline has more ripples and dimples than a fat grandma's ass, so I'm not the only person who has struggled to get moored to her. My psychic alter ego, Nostradumbass, foretells of much time and treasure spent on restorative steelwork on her shell plating at the waterline over the next 50 years.

 Also, the ship has two bunker stations- one forward, ahead of the parallel midbody (the flat of the hull, where there's no curve in the steel from the bow or bilge), where you can't possibly get moored alongside securely (thanks, genius!), and one aft, where you can get a line or two secured to panama chocks even though they're mounted waaaaayyy to close to the water to be truly safe from letting the lines slip off as the barge comes up when pumping off.

These, recessed into a ship hull, will keep a guy like me from poking a hole in your boat when trying to give you fuel. Spend $5000 more in construction, or replace half an acre of steel plate every 10 years... seems like a no-brainer.


 Anyways, we did OK. I'm admittedly not in a fine form just now, so bear with my grumpiness. The QM2 looks like a dream to visit, but to bunker her is an utter shit show.