They Hate Us 'Cus You're an Anus

 So there's another bunker barge like mine in our local fleet, which I generally refer to as "The Retard Circus" because, well, it is. 

         I hear these guys on the VHF radio at times, and no matter what is being asked, they're going to complain. "Why do we have to do that?" "Well that's a lot of work, man" both being things I've heard more than once. 

 We all get a shit sandwich plated up for us now and again. The Retard Circus is entertaining because they take it personally, and it's been going on for years. It's not like they have it bad. They carry one product only, and just fill up to the top and pump it off as they go in little burps as needed while being pushed around by a tugboat.  Meanwhile the HQ carries 3 products generally that all require isolation from each other, and a fair bit of gaming out when it comes to load planning to do so safely and completely- which is actually pretty normal for bunker work. 

 So after a busy few days, we got to tie up at a lay berth at a container terminal in Newark NJ to wait for a berth to open up for us at an oil terminal so we could load 2 parcels of oil for two different ships, some of which has to be mixed together, some of which has to be segregated... and shortly after we arrive, the Retard Circus is pushed alongside of us to also wait for his next job. 

 Thing about the Circus is, the lead tankerman, the barge captain, along with being lazy and a whiner is really unpleasant too.  He comes alongside, complains immediately that we weren't standing by to help him catch lines, and he had to actually throw out one of his 6 lines without help, his barge being 3 whole feet from mine, and thus much too far to throw mooring lines that are meant to be thrown 10-15 feet. We're both in the 300' range. If you can't moor yourself in calm air and no current on a sunny day 3 feet from the mooring bitts which are at eye height to you, you're no seaman at all at all. 

            So the tugboat pushing the Circus is one of our chartered 3rd party tugs. We charter a couple of tugboats from other companies even though we have lots of our own because sometimes everyone's busy and ships can't be left waiting, being too damn expensive to operate to sit around, whereas a tug only costs a couple thousand bucks an hour to operate. 

           The tugboat in question is a good boat. I mean, the tug itself is a good workboat, and the poeple are pleasant and very competent too. I enjoy working with them when we have the chance. They've always got extra hands on deck, because they're always training new deckhands for their company's fleet. 

       Apparently for the ringmaster on the Circus, tying up one of his own lines without one of us to standby and admire him in the process was just too much and made him grumpy.  When the deckhand trainee didn't know what 'two parting' a mooring line was, instead of explaining, the trashbag in question yells at the kid.  "How do you not know what a two part is? They should teach you that on day one!"

 Two parting a line is just doubling it, BTB. It doesn't make a line stronger, it just increases the elastic modulus, the resistance to deformation when a line is put under tension. Most of the brown-water dummies don't know that, of course, and I've gotten tired of explaining that and getting the blank look that a baby gets when he's shitting in the diaper in response. 

 At any rate, the ringmaster there on the Circus is berating a kid who has been on a tugboat for 4-5 whole days in his entire life, for not knowing jargon.  I sure did want to throw a fid at the ringmaster's head, but whatever. Sadly, all I did was undermine his authority when he left. "Hey kid, Fuck that guy. You'll be fine. This is a good gig, but there's a few assholes here and there. "   I got a crooked grin out of him. 

     I dunno. He seemed like a good kid. A bit nerdy, all gawky with glasses, underweight with oversized hands and NBA sized shoes, so he's prolly gonna be a gorilla in 2-3 years. I know that when I was that green, a kind word went far. 

          There are times when I am working with tugs where the operators are strangers, and start on a de-facto assumption that we're all either assholes or incompetent.  The Ringmaster on the Retard Circus is a good example of why I can't always blame tugboaters for not liking tankermen.