Looking for a Ship (3 page)
Read Looking for a Ship Online
Authors: John McPhee
In the afternoon, we went to a couple of ship chandlers'. We talked with a fisherman about the fish he was not catching from the battery. We sat on a park bench under the deep shade of live oaks and squinted into the glare of the harbor. Andy said that he had begun to develop second thoughts about the Cygnus. He was unaccustomed to having any kind of choice. His experience instructed him to take the first open ship and risk nothing. Unfortunately, though, the desirability of the jobs before him seemed to rise from one to the next. He needed sea time. Second mates become chief mates not only by passing examinations but also by accumulating sea time. The Cygnus job was significantly short on sea time. For that matter, the Sea-Land trip out of Jacksonville was not what you would call an odyssey. Also, his daily wage and overtime pay would be lower with Sea-Land, because he'd be sailing as third mate. Jacksonville was something of a long shot in any case. And if he went down there he risked losing out on anything that might come up in Charleston in his absence.
The Stella Lykes was the most appealing ship. Second mate. Interesting run. All the sea time he wanted and needed. But to wait for the Stella Lykes meant weeks, not days, multiplying the possibility that something could go wrong. “It's a bit of a gamble,” he said. “You never know
if someone's going to come walking into the hall that day and take it away from you.”
if someone's going to come walking into the hall that day and take it away from you.”
In less than a day, though, he made up his mind. He would break his own rules. He would pass up the Cygnus and Sea-Land. He would narrow the field and raise the risk. He would wait for the Stella Lykes. In the Merchant Marine, there is an expression that describes what he was doing. He was laying for a ship.
A
couple of “PORT RELIEF OFFICER JOBS” were posted on the board. Andy chose to night-mate the Sea-Land Performance from 1600 to 2400. On the same watch, Pizzarelli would night-mate the Cygnus. The two ships were ten miles apart. At midnight, Andy would drive the ten miles in nothing flat, and, further exercising the seniority of his shipping card, relieve Pizzarelli and work the Cygnus until eight in the morning. He would be paid twenty-three dollars an hour. He bought a pack of cigarettes. “If I have cigarettes and a cup of coffee, I'll feel so rancid I can't fall asleep,” he said. At home in Maine, he almost never smokes. Night-mating, he has worked sixteen-hour nights back to back and gone to the union hall during the day. There, with his head on a table, he sleeps. Just before the job call, he lifts his head. Night-mating in Charleston, he would make a thousand dollars in less than a week.
couple of “PORT RELIEF OFFICER JOBS” were posted on the board. Andy chose to night-mate the Sea-Land Performance from 1600 to 2400. On the same watch, Pizzarelli would night-mate the Cygnus. The two ships were ten miles apart. At midnight, Andy would drive the ten miles in nothing flat, and, further exercising the seniority of his shipping card, relieve Pizzarelli and work the Cygnus until eight in the morning. He would be paid twenty-three dollars an hour. He bought a pack of cigarettes. “If I have cigarettes and a cup of coffee, I'll feel so rancid I can't fall asleep,” he said. At home in Maine, he almost never smokes. Night-mating, he has worked sixteen-hour nights back to back and gone to the union hall during the day. There, with his head on a table, he sleeps. Just before the job call, he lifts his head. Night-mating in Charleston, he would make a thousand dollars in less than a week.
A police officer with coconut palms on the lenses of
her eyeglasses admitted us to the Columbus Street Terminal, Old Charleston. We walked across acres of paved open storage under heavy-lift sheer-leg cranes. The dock was three-quarters of a mile long. The dimensions of the Sea-Land Performance were Panamax (fitting by inches in the locks of the Panama Canal). As we approached the gangway, Andy remarked that his “basic ambition” was “someday to be the skipper of a ship like this.”
her eyeglasses admitted us to the Columbus Street Terminal, Old Charleston. We walked across acres of paved open storage under heavy-lift sheer-leg cranes. The dock was three-quarters of a mile long. The dimensions of the Sea-Land Performance were Panamax (fitting by inches in the locks of the Panama Canal). As we approached the gangway, Andy remarked that his “basic ambition” was “someday to be the skipper of a ship like this.”
While he put in his eight hours making roundsâchronicling the opening and closing of hatches, noting degrees of inshore list, checking the ullage and innage of ballastâI did what I could to stow the vocabulary (if your gas tank is all ullage you are going nowhere), and I talked to the captain, Kenneth Ronald Crook. He was behind a desk in a spacious office, reachable by elevator, near the top of the house. Across the room, I sat on a couch by a coffee table. Like everyone else in the Merchant Marine, he told sea stories. One or two were a touch macabre. He said he had been on a Calmar ship that made regular runs to Los Angeles from Baltimore with steel. One of the ordinaries could not keep his hands out of the food. That is, time after time he walked the cafeteria line, reached across the cutting board, and sank a hand into a tub of food. Finally, the chief cook could not contain his rage. One day, as the hand moved over the cutting board, a cleaver came down and cut off the hand. The chief mate used a blowtorch to cauterize the stump.
On the same ship on a beautiful day with long low swells in the Pacific, a seaman was standing in the rigging
on a ladder that was not tied down. As the roll of the ship reached its maximum angle, both the ladder and the sailor went over the side. A life ring was thrown to him. He got himself into it. A lifeboat was lowered. When the man was taken from the sea, only half of his body was there.
on a ladder that was not tied down. As the roll of the ship reached its maximum angle, both the ladder and the sailor went over the side. A life ring was thrown to him. He got himself into it. A lifeboat was lowered. When the man was taken from the sea, only half of his body was there.
At least he was employed. Without a modulation of tone, Captain Crook went into the horrors of the search for work. “In those daysâas third mate, second mateâI was shipping off the board. There were too many mates and not enough ships. I drove from York, Pennsylvania, where I lived then, to Baltimore every day, looking for a ship. There were job calls every two hours, so I was in the hall all day. Weeks would go by with no job called. Then a job would come along and I'd get beat out by someone else's card.” After he got a ship or two with Moore-McCormack Lines and became a permanent chief mate, he discovered that working for shipping companies was not unlike working for magazines. Established structures (Moore-McCormack, the
Saturday Evening Post
, United States Lines,
Life
, Seatrain,
Look
) tended to collapse beneath you. After the Moore-McCormack ocean fleet was absorbed by United States Lines, in 1982, Crook “sat on the beach for seven months basically without a job.” The union forced United States Lines to hire him. In 1986, United States Lines went bankrupt. “Thirty-some ships came to a screeching halt. That put an awful lot of people on the beach. A lot of the older skippers retired. Sea-Land purchased about twenty ships, including this one. I sat on the beach from the middle of February until November 17th. I was in the dentist chair
in Montana. The union called from New York. I was to be captain of an old stick ship called S.S. Galveston Bay, taking food to the natives in Africa. Right down my alley. That job led to this one. From zero income to a six-figure income makes a difference.” The difference was the ranch he had his eye on in Montana, with its hundreds of acres and its trout streams.
Saturday Evening Post
, United States Lines,
Life
, Seatrain,
Look
) tended to collapse beneath you. After the Moore-McCormack ocean fleet was absorbed by United States Lines, in 1982, Crook “sat on the beach for seven months basically without a job.” The union forced United States Lines to hire him. In 1986, United States Lines went bankrupt. “Thirty-some ships came to a screeching halt. That put an awful lot of people on the beach. A lot of the older skippers retired. Sea-Land purchased about twenty ships, including this one. I sat on the beach from the middle of February until November 17th. I was in the dentist chair
in Montana. The union called from New York. I was to be captain of an old stick ship called S.S. Galveston Bay, taking food to the natives in Africa. Right down my alley. That job led to this one. From zero income to a six-figure income makes a difference.” The difference was the ranch he had his eye on in Montana, with its hundreds of acres and its trout streams.
By midnight, Andy and I were on the bridge of the Cygnus, at Wando Terminal, on the Wando River. The air-conditioning on the ship had failed. The temperature was above a hundred. Through thick dust weighted with fumes, Army tanks rolled onto the ship. One end was open like the mouth of a sucker. The Cygnus inside resembled a tunnel. Taped to the satellite-navigation receiver on the bridge were recent advisories from the Maritime Administration on the subject of pirates. On the west coast of South America, the S.S. Mallory Lykes had been “boarded by one or more pirates with machetes.” In the Strait of Malacca, the master of a South Korean vessel had been “beaten and forced to open the ship's safe by pirates who boarded the ship in the vicinity of Batam Island.” Lying near the SatNav was a Maritime Administration brochure called “Piracy Countermeasures.” It said, “Countermeasures should be designed to keep boarders off the ship. Repelling armed pirates already on deck can be dangerous ⦠. Have water hoses under pressure with nozzles ready ⦠. Use rat guards on all mooring lines and illuminate the lines ⦠. Under way, keep good radar and visual lookout.”
A ship in port can be filthy, hot, and dismal, in contrast
to the same ship at sea. Andy, staring forward from the bridge, seemed to be out there somewhere on the deep ocean, a very great distance from the Wando River. “You develop affection for your ship,” he said quietly. “A rusty grimy disagreeable bucket soon becomes an object of affection.” There on the Cygnus bridgeâsweating marrow, reading about rat guardsâI found it hard to imagine being affectionate toward the Cygnus, but not entirely impossible.
to the same ship at sea. Andy, staring forward from the bridge, seemed to be out there somewhere on the deep ocean, a very great distance from the Wando River. “You develop affection for your ship,” he said quietly. “A rusty grimy disagreeable bucket soon becomes an object of affection.” There on the Cygnus bridgeâsweating marrow, reading about rat guardsâI found it hard to imagine being affectionate toward the Cygnus, but not entirely impossible.
As time passed in Charleston, Andy got more night-mating workâFarrell Lines' American Resoluteâbut essentially he waited. At some point during the second week, his shipping card became eleven months old. “I'm up in the big leagues now,” he said. “Basically, I think I'm all right, but it's healthy to be a little nervous.” One day, he felt his health running over when a second mate arrived from New York specifically looking for the Stella Lykes. New York! Oh, Jesus! Andy thought. But he had the older card.
I was up at five-thirty on the day we expected the ship to be called. I read a long political article that included a catalogue of every national deficiency except the Merchant Marine. Andy slept until nine-thirty but got up nervous about the drawbridge. We left at ten-thirty to make the one-thirty call. Andy said, “This way, if we run out of gas or get a flat tire we can still make it.”
I said, “We got gas last night.”
We arrived in Charleston, of course, early enough to ship out on a Yankee clipper. We drove around. We exchanged worries. We killed ten minutes in a Burger King,
and carried the food away, because we felt pressed. When we went into the union hall and sat down to eat and wait, Andy's hands were shaking. Lettuce fell out of his sandwich. He was unable to line up the straw that was meant to penetrate the lid of his takeout Pepsi. One o'clock. Thirty minutes to go. The door opened. Chester Dauksevich came in, the mate from New York with the inferior card. Beardless, tall, and going bald, with a white mustache, he wore brown leather wing-tip shoes, white-faded jeans, a guayabera. To destroy a few more minutes, I asked him why he had come to Charleston.
and carried the food away, because we felt pressed. When we went into the union hall and sat down to eat and wait, Andy's hands were shaking. Lettuce fell out of his sandwich. He was unable to line up the straw that was meant to penetrate the lid of his takeout Pepsi. One o'clock. Thirty minutes to go. The door opened. Chester Dauksevich came in, the mate from New York with the inferior card. Beardless, tall, and going bald, with a white mustache, he wore brown leather wing-tip shoes, white-faded jeans, a guayabera. To destroy a few more minutes, I asked him why he had come to Charleston.
“Because I'm hungry and broke,” he said. “There's forty guys ahead of me in New York. That's why I'm here. I might run out of money. It's costing me too much here.”
Having been informed long since that this was to be the day of the all-important call, we had not been much concerned about the shipping board. One port-relief-officer job was up there, nothing more. At the job call, there was no mention of the S.S. Stella Lykes. The telephone rang at one-thirty-four. Andy's wife, MaLinda, standing in rain at a pay phone in Bucksport, Maine, wanted to know if he had a ship. No ship. He would have to wait it out for another twenty-four hours.
At that moment, the whereabouts of the Stella Lykes happened to be Port Newark. As Andy and I left the Charleston hall, I mentioned to him that Luke Midgett, the incumbent second mate, would be getting off in Charleston because his time was up, and, since he lived in Charleston and was well aware of the difficulties of getting a ship, could
be expected not to go around telling the whole city of New York about his coming debarkationâbut word could be got out of him. I confessed that, in my overanxious way, I had just thought of this and begun to fret.
be expected not to go around telling the whole city of New York about his coming debarkationâbut word could be got out of him. I confessed that, in my overanxious way, I had just thought of this and begun to fret.
Andy said, “That's why I was hoping the ship would be called today. Actually, all the people on these ships know now that you can get a ship out of Charleston. If they are talking, some people might hear that and come down here. Say there's almost no one in the union hall five days running, then a ship comes in and three guys show up from New York. They go on the company's ships there, which talk to other ships, and get advance word of who's getting off where. They could come tonight. They could come in the morning.”
In the morning, he again allowed three hours. As we approached the Ben Sawyer Bridge, we saw that it was open. Andy turned off the engine, and we sat in the line of cars. Above the Spartina grass we could see the stack and the bridge of a slowly moving tug, bearing the insignia of the Corps of Engineers. Andy said, “Last year, down here in the Charleston hall, I saw a guy come in with an eleven-months-plus-thirty-days killer card and take a ship an hour before his card was to expire.”
I said, “A lot of good that card would have done him if he'd been stuck behind this bridge.”
The tug went off to our left, and the drawbridge swung closed.
“There's always anxiety about making the jump to a new ship,” Andy continued as he drove on. “It has nothing
to do with the competition. Suddenly it's time to go. I can sit in a hall for weeks and weeks just dying for a ship, and then when it's there I get all wound up. It's something like whitewater kayaking: you go down a long placid stretch of river, and when you hear the roar ahead you think, Do I really want to go through with this? It's always the same. It's true of practically everybody.”
to do with the competition. Suddenly it's time to go. I can sit in a hall for weeks and weeks just dying for a ship, and then when it's there I get all wound up. It's something like whitewater kayaking: you go down a long placid stretch of river, and when you hear the roar ahead you think, Do I really want to go through with this? It's always the same. It's true of practically everybody.”
At eleven-forty-five, in the union hall, a sheet went up on the board:
| **** OFFSHORE SHIPPING JOBS **** | |
| COMPANY: | Lykes Bros. |
| SHIP: | SS Stella Lykes |
| LOCATED: | Wando |
| SAILS: | 0300 Monday |
| RUN: | West Coast South America |
| JOB: | Second Officer |
| TIME: | 120-day rotary |
| RELIEVING: | L. Midgett |
| REASON: | Time up |
Visible through the glass door was a strange face, approaching. Was this the killer card? The man turned right and vanished into a men's room. The hall closed for lunch. In Applebee's restaurant, on Sam Rittenberg Boulevard, a sinewy, nautical, shaggy-blond, bearded man in a sleeveless shirt sat under an Uncle Sam poster (“I WANT You”).
“He's looking for a ship.”
“He came here in a new Mercedes.”
“He's obviously a second mate.”
At twelve-fifty-six, we were back at the hall, waiting for it to reopen. A man in an electric-blue shirt and dark glasses, obviously a merchant mariner, came up the stairs. It was John Abbate, second mate. We knew him already, and he was no threat. He owned rental units near Charleston, did a lot of night-mating, and was not looking for a ship.
At a quarter after one, there were footsteps on the stairs. Pete Pizzarelli appeared. Fifteen minutes to go and there were no killer cards from New York, or, for that matter, from anywhere else. Time to relax. Try telling that to Andy.
The door opened. Chester Dauksevich came in, wearing a Mets cap and smoking a Salem in a holder. The guayabera of the day was adorned with filigree.
Ten minutes to go and Andy's eyes were still flickering toward the door. Dauksevich, in response to a question, said that his high-school class was 1950 and he went to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Andy asked him how shipping was in the fifties.
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