Shipyard

We are going to do a little bit of time traveling here. The next few posts actually happened last hitch. But with moving/work/life, etc. getting in the way I just haven't had time to put pen to paper. Or 000111010100111's to a digital memory system, as it may be.

Shipyard sucks. There. I said it.

Shipyards look so clean and organized in the pictures

Generally, life aboard a tugboat isn't too taxing. In fact, anytime you meet someone new and tell them you work on a tugboat a usual response is, "Oh, that must be EXCITING!" No. No, it's not. Which is just the way we like it. Sure, it is usually 23 hours and 55 minutes of complete and total boredom. Only interrupted by 5 minutes of sheer terror. But we like boring. Boring is good. Boring means things are going well. Boring means you haven't screwed up. Screw ups are expensive. 'Boring' trumps 'exciting' any day of the week on a tugboat.

But shipyard isn't boring. Shipyard is expensive. Shipyard is a lot of hard work in a minimal amount of time. Time is money in this business. And the longer you are in shipyard the more money the company spends and the less money the company makes. It's like "Fast and the Furious". Without Vin Diesel. Or cars. Or women with clothes that are 2 sizes too small. In essence, shipyard is: Get in. Fix it. Get out.

Maybe clothes 3 times too small?
Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Tugboats are work boats. You don't make money tied to the dock. The busier you are the better things are. The hitch seems to go by faster. The company is making money. Everyone is happy. However, tugboats are floating pieces of machinery. Machinery that needs to be maintained. Constantly. There is ALWAYS something to do on a tugboat. If you aren't doing regular maintenance, you are doing preventative maintenance. Let things go too long between the two, and you are doing replacement maintenance. The maritime environment is brutal. Even worse so in the southern climates and the Gulf of Mexico. Even with keeping up with the maintenance schedule and doing everything 'by the numbers, things still break. Things wear out. Not to mention that some things just can't be fixed or overhauled while the boat is out working. Which is why we are in the shipyard. It's time to fix all the stuff that is broken, is about to break, needs to be overhauled, worked on, tweaked, inspected, repaired, replaced, or just looked at.

Plus, you have less than 2 weeks to do a over a months worth or work.

Which is why I'm trying to get caught up with the blog.
Shipyard isn't exactly a blog friendly environment.