A Fog Story

Marine Corporate Mentality ??

Greetings From New Orleans !
First of all , Fred thanks so much posting this thread ! It sounds to me that this is so typical of a marine corporate mentality !
We have both been working in the marine industry for over thirty five years now and it just sounds so very typical of a corporate mentality and even worst a marine corporate mentality ! I personally witnessed it when I was employed at the Delta Queen Steamboat company , Rose Barge Line , Helena Marine Service , Southern Harbor , and even Port Ship Service ! I personally believe that for some bizarre reason management tends to look down their long and biased nose at us that are actually out there in the marine environment and getting the job done !
Why is this ? Is it because those in management are in constant and close contact with the companies " bottom line " are is it something else and more sinister ?? Gee , could it be that many in management think of those that are actually on the boats as inferior and uneducated and unable to be gainfully employed some where else and simply do not have the mental ability to make both logical and safe decisions when it comes to navigating and maneuvering large pieces of marine equipment in a sometimes hostile environment ? Do they feel that because we are thrown monetary scrapes we do not have to adhere to the sometimes complicated and mandatory Coast Guard rules and regulations ? Do they feel that we should also abandon safety and risk lives so that their precious " bottom line " is propped up so that they can have bragging rights at the next industry golf tournament ? I am so tired of the little guy getting (who by the way is the actual person out there making it happen ) get caught in the " Cross Hairs " of the company he works for and the Coast Guard !
Food for thought folks !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson

Fred Carmichael;24470 wrote: Fog, more so than any other weather condition, is the condition which creates conflict between Office personal and Boat Capts.
The U.S.C.G. holds the Capt. as the final responsibility for safe operation of their vessel. The company needs vessels working to make money. The reason they got into this business.
If a Capt. operates his vessel in the fog and has an accident, the Coast Guard could care less what pressure the Capt. was placed under to do so. This could include the Capt. being fired Not for refusing to run in unsafe conditions but rather for some other company policy made up at the moment.
There are several people on this board this has happened to.
A story which relates to this type of situation involves a dispatcher trying to get a Ship Tug to run in the fog.
The dispatcher called the boat and gave them orders to run to a ship. Even in good weather the timing was close. The dispatcher relayed the companies concern that the tug had to go NOW, or risk losing the job.
The Capt told the dispatcher that he was tied off in shut out fog. The boat was about 20 mile away from the office.
The dispatcher again, very forcefully told the Capt. that he needed to get underway.
Again the Capt. told the dispatcher it was shut out due to fog where he was at.
The dispatcher again told the Capt. to get underway and if not he would have to call the company owner.
Tha Capt. told the dispatcher to do so, if he felt he needed to.
THe Capt. again informed the dispatcher he was in fog.
The dispatcher informed the Capt. that could not be the case as it was not foggy in the field beside the office.
After a long pause, the Capt. informed the dispatcher he was not running the damn Tug in the field beside the office!!
The Capt was later called to the office to "Talk over the matter".
It seems a if the office could care less about the U.S.C.G. regs. when it get to Capt. vs. dispatcher.

Ted: I've got little right to comment from personal experience on any boat but my own. But it seems to me that, early on, in the history or steamboats somebody noted that it was easier to teach folks to do one job on the boat really well instead of teaching them to do all things on the boat. That four-letter word "efficiency"! So, we ended up with engineers, pilots, maids, cooks, deckhands, mates etc etc and very few "double enders". The literature is full of the lack of understanding between pilots and engineers for example. Historically, the captain was often the owner and in those days trod the decks he commanded and smelt the fog and the sting of running aground. In said manner he had a fairly good handle on what went on and why. "Bean counters" of today are likely hired because they are CPAs rather than coming off the boats, and mebbe make more money than the captain. I doubt not that a lot of the animosity between front office and boat is due to the feeling of helplessness on the part of the bean counters because they do not understand the language let alone the real job of running a safe riverboat. When the safety people arrive to make their pronouncements, do they give them to the front office folks??...I think not, but when the bill comes to pay for any lay-up due to fog or whatever that the safety folks laid down as gospel, who is there to explain it all?? Some time ago on this board it was asked what would you do different on any new venture in steamboating. I said that the front office ought to be housed right there on the boat! To sit through all the CG inspections and the safety folks' seminars, be away from home for extended periods and smell the fog first hand. Having said that, what captain OR front office fellow would want that?? Done said my piece. Cap'n Walnut.

Tom , Point(s) Well Taken !

Greetings From New Orleans !
Tom , point(s) well taken ! Having said that I think what Capt. Fred Carmichael , myself and others are saying is that over our career on the river and in the marine industry we have witnessed the steady decline of the authority and status of the Master of the vessel , for that matter , any vessel and erode to the point where he has actually become subservant to a dispatcher or any office worker ! Do you think that the likes of a Capt. Wagner would have tolerated being shoved around by some one in the office telling him of all people to run in fog and jump through any manner of hoops ?
Captain Wagner and Captain Harry Louden learned that the hard way one foggy night on the Ohio River in an attempt to pass under the Madison , Ind. Hwy. bridge one foggy night ! Long story short , the DQ collided with the bridge and ran into the Madison yacht marina and sank a number of boats in the same marina and damaged the bow of the DQ ! Some leasons come learned harder than others and I am sure from that point on Captain Wagner certainly had no objection for his pilots to stop in shut out fog ! I do realize that hind sight is 20/20 , but was it really worth it to make the Madison bridge in order to be on time for a few shore excursion tickets ! I am sure that some one in the home office at the time thought that it was worth it but imagine the cost and expense for this major mistake ! Furthermore , no telling what explanations and sweat and tears had to be paid to explain these actions to a Coast Guard , investigating officier !
This epsidoe is just one example of the man on the boat literally being caught between the " Rock And The Hard Spot " ( Coast Guard and Office ) in the attempt to keep and maintain his job and position !
Food for thought folkes !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson

Tom Schiffer;24530 wrote: Ted: I've got little right to comment from personal experience on any boat but my own. But it seems to me that, early on, in the history or steamboats somebody noted that it was easier to teach folks to do one job on the boat really well instead of teaching them to do all things on the boat. That four-letter word "efficiency"! So, we ended up with engineers, pilots, maids, cooks, deckhands, mates etc etc and very few "double enders". The literature is full of the lack of understanding between pilots and engineers for example. Historically, the captain was often the owner and in those days trod the decks he commanded and smelt the fog and the sting of running aground. In said manner he had a fairly good handle on what went on and why. "Bean counters" of today are likely hired because they are CPAs rather than coming off the boats, and mebbe make more money than the captain. I doubt not that a lot of the animosity between front office and boat is due to the feeling of helplessness on the part of the bean counters because they do not understand the language let alone the real job of running a safe riverboat. When the safety people arrive to make their pronouncements, do they give them to the front office folks??...I think not, but when the bill comes to pay for any lay-up due to fog or whatever that the safety folks laid down as gospel, who is there to explain it all?? Some time ago on this board it was asked what would you do different on any new venture in steamboating. I said that the front office ought to be housed right there on the boat! To sit through all the CG inspections and the safety folks' seminars, be away from home for extended periods and smell the fog first hand. Having said that, what captain OR front office fellow would want that?? Done said my piece. Cap'n Walnut.

hi all
the next time you are in a shut out fog. invite that demanding dispatcher to spend a week or two on your boat so he get a little understanding of the conditions you operate under. or a week when you can expect fog or a week in the ice. or a 4 week hitch before you get home to the wife and kids.
fogged in, in a mountain valley.

Bad Stretch of Water

No good captain wants to be laid up for fog, but there's that moment when there is no other choice. Besides the fog, there is current and things that go bump in the fog, like the Madison Bridge, to also consider before heading to the bank.

The Madison Bridge affair was one of the few times I got a trip off, so I missed all the excitement. But, several times I had helped Cap'n Louden "radar down" that stretch of the Ohio River from Markland Lock to the Madison (IN) Bridge. That stretch of river, being on the upper extreme end of McAlpine Pool, is still the way the river was when the old locks and dams provided navigation water. Stone dikes and other obstacles that would be covered to a sufficient depth that they would not be a concern to the navigator had they been closer to McAlpine Dam, made the river between the bridge and Markland an extremely hazardous course. That stretch invites disaster, not only from the obstructions, but it is also prone to heavy fog that settles in after midnight when the air has cooled sufficiently to make a thick soup of the atmosphere. Captain Harry was a superb pilot, but also of the "old school", and to him, radar was something new and confusing, and, like many of his generation, a gadget that he knew little about; so he preferred having someone "read" the radar for him, which I did on many occasions, and what Captain Wagner was doing for him that night. Once the Madison Bridge is passed, safely, it is generally easy sailing all the way down to Louisville.

The current was running hard, too, that night, and not having been in the pilothouse, I cannot second-guess two of the finest boatmen I ever steamboated with, so anymore said would be conjecture. Neither, I believe, were under any undue pressure from the home office to run in the fog. It was the usual routine to do so to get through the bridge where the rest of the river to Louisville was clear running. Besides, there is nowhere to tie off in that bad stretch, and getting down through it is really the only sensible course to take. That must have been some night!

Perhaps I shouldn't comment on the Madison Bridge incident because I was not on the boat that night, but I was the next day when they got to Jeffboat. The story I remember was the river was full of drift as they approached the bridge and Capt. Wagner did not want to back the boat because he was concerned that in backing there was a fair chance that drift could get caught in the eccentrics thus damaging them. He took all responsibility for running the bridge in fog. In fact that is the first thing he told the Coast Guard, "I told the pilot to run the bridge, all responsibility falls on me."

Capt. Wagner !

Greetings From New Orleans !
Thats the Captain Wagner I remember ! I am so proud to have come up under his guidance !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson

Jim Reising;24546 wrote: Perhaps I shouldn't comment on the Madison Bridge incident because I was not on the boat that night, but I was the next day when they got to Jeffboat. The story I remember was the river was full of drift as they approached the bridge and Capt. Wagner did not want to back the boat because he was concerned that in backing there was a fair chance that drift could get caught in the eccentrics thus damaging them. He took all responsibility for running the bridge in fog. In fact that is the first thing he told the Coast Guard, "I told the pilot to run the bridge, all responsibility falls on me."

Jim Reising;24546 wrote: Perhaps I shouldn't comment on the Madison Bridge incident because I was not on the boat that night, but I was the next day when they got to Jeffboat. The story I remember was the river was full of drift as they approached the bridge and Capt. Wagner did not want to back the boat because he was concerned that in backing there was a fair chance that drift could get caught in the eccentrics thus damaging them. He took all responsibility for running the bridge in fog. In fact that is the first thing he told the Coast Guard, "I told the pilot to run the bridge, all responsibility falls on me."

I remember sitting in the DQ's pilothouse long after Capt. Wagner passed away, and Harry Louden was pilotin'. Harry told the same story. Harry recounted that he wanted to go into the bank before the bridge, but Capt. Wagner wanted to keep running. Capt. Wagner gave the order to keep running, and he stood by his actions and took all blame during the Coast Guard inquirery. Truly he was a prince of a man.

When Boats Were Made Of Wood !

Greetings From New Orleans !
Frank , this event and these Men that you speak of is how the phrase , When Boats Were Made Of Wood And Men Were Made of Steel " , comes from !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson

Frank X. Prudent;24550 wrote: I remember sitting in the DQ's pilothouse long after Capt. Wagner passed away, and Harry Louden was pilotin'. Harry told the same story. Harry recounted that he wanted to go into the bank before the bridge, but Capt. Wagner wanted to keep running. Capt. Wagner gave the order to keep running, and he stood by his actions and took all blame during the Coast Guard inquirery. Truly he was a prince of a man.

I must say that in my own experience, today, there is far less pressure than there used to be as far as running in fog or any other adverse condition when we feel it is unsafe. In 20 years at Magnolia Marine, we have of course been in situations many times where we were layed up due to weather, high water, etc. In that time, I have been asked TWICE when I thought we might be able to get back underway. Neither time did I feel any pressure to do so, only the question of when I thought things might improve.

These companies must of course move to make money, but when we are hired, we are hired for our experience, skills and expertise. My thinking is that if that's what they hire us for, they should let us do our jobs. Fortunately I work for a company that respects my judgement and stands behind my decisions.