Engine Room Fire, Death at Sea & Near Misses | Captain Ravi Chaudhry

Captain Ravi Chaudhry shares harrowing engine room fire experience, bullying issues, and decades of merchant navy life insights.

Key Takeaways

Life at sea involves significant risks including fires, injuries, and fatalities.
Harassment and bullying remain issues on board, especially with changing crew demographics.
Merchant navy careers evolve with technology, but hands-on experience remains crucial.
Effective leadership and teamwork are vital during emergencies and operational challenges.
Maritime culture and traditions continue to influence seafarers’ experiences.

What the video covers

Captain Ravi Chaudhry recounts a severe engine room fire where the entire engine staff was badly injured and one person died.
Discussion on harassment and bullying aboard ships, especially with the introduction of female cadets and officers.
Ravi's 34-year career in the merchant navy, sailing oil tankers, OBO carriers, and navigating before GPS technology.
Insights into the modernization and automation of ships over his career.
Challenges faced at sea including storms, near misses, and technical issues like cargo and pump problems.
The importance of teamwork and decision-making during crises on board.
Reflections on changes in shipboard culture, including party culture and restrictions over time.
Ravi’s active presence on social media sharing real-life maritime stories and experiences.
The podcast host, Captain Sammy Catlin, introduces the episode and highlights the value of nautical narratives.
Maritime folklore and superstitions such as the significance of the albatross are briefly touched upon.

Chapters

What happened during the engine room fire described in the video?

There was a severe fire in the engine room that caused serious injuries to the entire engine staff and resulted in one crew member going missing and later found dead.

How does Captain Ravi Chaudhry describe bullying on board ships?

He highlights that bullying and harassment are ongoing issues, particularly with the presence of female cadets and officers, which was not common during his early career.

What types of vessels did Ravi Chaudhry sail on during his career?

Ravi sailed on oil tankers, OBO (Oil-Bulk-Ore) carriers, and experienced a wide range of vessels before retiring in 2013-2014.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

There was a fire in the engine room, and the entire engine staff was injured, burned very badly, and one person was missing. And then during the search, it was found that he was dead. Also, the harassment or bullying on board, especially now that the girl cadets and girl officers are there on board. My time, I never sailed with any girl seafarer.

Speaker A

cadets and girl officers are there on board my time. I never sailed with any girl seafarer.

Speaker A

Love listening to Deck Tales? Be sure to smash that subscribe button so you never miss a seaworthy story, fascinating insight, or incredible behind-the-scenes moment. Climb aboard, stay shipshape, and catch every episode fresh off the boat the second it drops.

Speaker A

Climb aboard, stay shipshape and catch every episode. Fresh off the boat the second it drops.

Speaker A

Ahoy! Ahoy to all you smooth sailors out there, and welcome aboard the Deck Tales podcast. I'm your host and Captain Sammy Catlin, and this is where we dive headfirst into life at sea.

Speaker A

From stunning destinations to unexpected storms, our guests have stories that will make you laugh, gasp, and maybe even shed a tear. Whether you're a seasoned sea dog or simply curious about life, on board, Deck Tales is your boarding pass to a world of nautical narratives. To close

Speaker A

From stunning destinations to unexpected storms, our guests have stories that will make you laugh, gasp, and maybe even shed a tear. Whether you're a seasoned sea dog or simply curious about life on board, Deck Tales is your boarding pass to a world of nautical narratives. To close out season three of Deck Tales, my guest today is Mr. Ravi Chowdhury, a thirty-four-year merchant Navy veteran who sailed everything from oil tankers to giant OBO carriers. From navigating the seas before GPS existed to surviving engine room fires, storms, and near misses at sea, Ravi brings decades of raw experience, wisdom, and unforgettable stories from life on the ocean. So let's anchor up and dive right in. Hello, Ravi.

Speaker A

storms and near misses at sea, Ravi brings decades of raw experience, wisdom and unforgettable stories from life on the ocean. So let's anchor up and dive right in. Hello, Ravi.

Speaker A

Good evening, Sam. Or rather, good morning from India.

Speaker A

00:01:53 Speaker 1: It's same. You know, it's a proper noun. You can pronounce it the way you want it.

Speaker A

Good morning. Yes. And I should apologize. I said, Ravi, it's Ravi.

Speaker A

00:02:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:02:08 Speaker 2: I put a bit of an English inflection on it where it shouldn't be. But where are you calling from today? Ravi. Ravi.

Speaker A

It's Sam. You know, it's a proper noun. You can pronounce it the way you want it.

Speaker A

00:02:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, two hundred miles. So you're nearly neighbors with your nearly neighbors. I say two hundred miles is a big distance. But with the captain, Sam's.

Speaker A

I got told off in the past for mispronouncing, you know, Indian names like my landlady's Kantan, but it's Kanchon, you know. I.

Speaker A

know, merchant Navy industry. And he, his stories were such an eye opener. I kind of wanted more, if that's okay. That's fair. I've got the bug for it. Now for the stories and I, I don't know if this is relevant to your experience. If you worked on any

Speaker A

Yeah.

Speaker A

00:03:10 Speaker 1: Yeah. I was on oil tankers. I was on tankers also. But that was a long time ago when I was a cadet. But later on I shifted to, like I told you, on oboes.

Speaker A

I put a bit of an English inflection on it where it shouldn't be. But where are you calling from today, Ravi? Ravi.

Speaker A

00:03:24 Speaker 2: Oh, oil bulk. Oh, say that three times faster. That's a mouthful, isn't it? All about oil bulk or oil bike or. I can't do it. That's too much. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

Oh, I'm in Chandigarh. If you've heard, it's a beautiful town north of Delhi, about two hundred miles north of Delhi.

Speaker A

us a bit about yourself or take us back to the beginning? It's your choice, my friend.

Speaker A

Yeah, two hundred miles. So you're nearly neighbors with your nearly neighbors. I say two hundred miles is a big distance, but with the Captain, Sam's.

Speaker A

00:04:08 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Of course. 00:04:09 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So I land on a ship in Tokyo. It was a good size bulk carrier, and I didn't I didn't know anything about Merchant Navy. Just happened to, you know,

Speaker A

Yeah, he's somewhere in Delhi region. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

you know. Yeah. So that is the time I joined. I went through the transition, the modernization, the super specialisation, and, you know, total, automation. And eventually thirty four years I sailed and I quit in twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen and fourteen. And a very happy man.

Speaker A

I think it was after I spoke to him that I saw your profile, and I thought I'd reach out because I haven't, I haven't spoken to many people in the cargo freight, you know, merchant Navy industry. And he, his stories were such an eye opener. I kind of wanted more, if that's okay. That's fair. I've got the bug for it now for the stories, and I, I don't know if this is relevant to your experience. If you worked on any of these types of vessels. I'm pointing at a mobile oil freight for the audio listeners.

Speaker A

00:05:22 Speaker 2: Mhm. Yeah. There's obviously it's not been fully implemented yet, but I think Captain Samms was saying about like fully kind of, uh, well, like not automated, but like, um, remote steering from land on cargo. And yeah,

Speaker A

Yeah. I was on oil tankers. I was on tankers also. But that was a long time ago when I was a cadet. But later on, I shifted to, like I told you, on OBOs.

Speaker A

00:05:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. 00:05:49 Speaker 2: So you're done. You've been out of the game for, what, twelve years now? But you're very active in the social media space, much like Captain Sands, but different because he's still in the industry and he's.

Speaker A

Onto which one?

Speaker A

the, The Pink Elephants song in Dumbo. I was like, wow, that, that took me right back. But we should, we should say that that's not all he does. He, he, he does other content too, but he shows the fun side of it. What sort of content is it that you're putting out on social media?

Speaker A

Sorry, OBOs, OBO, oil, bulk, or.

Speaker A

experience and you know how you handle things when you were there and which you don't read in the in the textbooks or anywhere, you know, so those kind of hands on experience, which I.

Speaker A

Oh, oil bulk. Oh, say that three times faster. That's a mouthful, isn't it? All about oil bulk or oil bike or. I can't do it. That's too much. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

or bullying on board, especially now that the, the girl cadets and girl officers are there on board my time. I never sailed with any girl, you know, seafarer. I mean, I sailed with the women who were the who were the supernumeraries someone's wife and but never with these young girls who are

Speaker A

OBO for short.

Speaker A

00:07:54 Speaker 2: That's very nice. That's good. You said they think you are approachable. Are you suggesting that you're not approachable?

Speaker A

For sure. Yeah. Not to be confused with the wind instrument. Oboes, they're making a lot more noise. But. So you've had a very long and, well, somewhat varied career as, as most seafarers tend to do. Do you want to tell us a bit about yourself or take us back to the beginning? It's your choice, my friend.

Speaker A

00:08:12 Speaker 2: It's alright. You don't have to defend yourself, rabbit. It was a joke. I appreciate you joining me so late as well, because the time of recording, it's, uh, seven thirty seven forty five p m for me here in,

Speaker A

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I joined in nineteen seventy-nine, eighty. I was a, you know, nineteen, twenty-year-old young lad from a small town in Punjab. If you've heard of Punjab.

Speaker A

00:08:35 Speaker 1: Because I am a late sleeper and I wake up late. So, I mean, this is the best time for me. Me time. All quiet. No disturbance, no phone calls.

Speaker A

Oh, yeah. Of course.

Speaker A

00:08:49 Speaker 1: I have absolutely no problem. 00:08:51 Speaker 2: I bust a hump to get finished in time. I was running around in Imperial Wharf, building beds for someone, and then I went all the way over to Dalston Kingsland to build two

Speaker A

Yeah. Yeah. So I landed on a ship in Tokyo. It was a good size bulk carrier, and I didn't, I didn't know anything about Merchant Navy. Just happened to, you know, join there. And I like I always tell people I joined when they used to be Columbus navigation. You know, there was absolutely nothing on the ships. You know, there were skilled seafarers on board who used their brains, intelligence and, you know. Yeah. So that is the time I joined. I went through the transition, the modernization, the super specialization, and, you know, total automation. And eventually thirty-four years I sailed and I quit in twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen and fourteen. And a very happy man.

Speaker A

three, I don't know, four or five degrees. So you got your jacket, you're bundled up. And by the time you finished your first job, you're back on the tube with your, with your double jacket and your bag of tools. And you just have to apologize to people from the hate

Speaker A

You got out way before the AI revolution.

Speaker A

00:09:38 Speaker 1: But, uh, the temperature is still under control in my part of India. It's not gone crazy yet and we have been having a lot of showers every now and then. So it's in in mid twenties, which is perfect. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

Oh yeah. Much, much before that. But, uh, I, my last couple of vessels, which I took over, you know, yard delivery, they had modern equipment and those things I managed to see in my last two or three years.

Speaker A

00:09:58 Speaker 1: Not really. Maybe forty two, forty three. That's uh, I mean that will be probably three days in the season, but that's enough, you know, to make you crazy.

Speaker A

Mhm. Yeah. There's obviously it's not been fully implemented yet, but I think Captain Samms was saying about like fully kind of, uh, well, like not automated, but like, um, remote steering from land on cargo. And yeah, that's something that it has to be one hundred percent right. And you know, if that comes in, I guess you could do that if you wanted to pick up a few extra quid.

Speaker A

how's the weather? Knowing that it was hot by our standards. And I would be like, oh, we're having a scorcher. It's twenty eight degrees. And she'd be like, yeah, do you want to check the forecast over here, Sam? And I'd be like, oh my God, what am I complaining about? It's fifty two. crazy I die.

Speaker A

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:11:05 Speaker 1: thirty, forty years? 00:11:06 Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember your first day at sea?

Speaker A

So you're done. You've been out of the game for, what, twelve years now? But you're very active in the social media space, much like Captain Sands, but different because he's still in the industry and he's.

Speaker A

life I saw a vessel in Tokyo. I was joining with a couple of people, captain's wife and his daughter.

Speaker A

Still on the ships.

Speaker A

And there were there were six cadets during my times. We used to have a lot of cadets, you know, all my. I did four ships as a cadet and there were five cadets, six cadets, every ship. So you know,

Speaker A

He's doing TikToks on the bridge, you know, like dancing with his bridge stuff. And I see one. I see one that he did the other day. He was doing something with some of his bridge officers, I think, to the tune of, um, the Pink Elephants song in Dumbo. I was like, wow, that, that took me right back. But we should, we should say that that's not all he does. He, he, he does other content too, but he shows the fun side of it. What sort of content is it that you're putting out on social media?

Speaker A

not a very good day for the chief mate because he was expecting a reliever. So I was standing down below on the jetty, waiting for the gangway to come down, and I was wearing a very smartly dressed. I was wearing an overcoat, black overcoat and a nice shirt and, you know, good trousers.

Speaker A

I, I, I don't actually put in much of a content, but I'm more into, you know, teaching, training, guiding and some, some teaching stuff. You know, it's an experience like, you know, the things they don't teach you in the books, you know, those kind of personal experience and you know how you handle things when you were there and which you don't read in the textbooks or anywhere, you know, so those kind of hands-on experience, which I.

Speaker A

00:12:35 Speaker 2: I'm in good. 00:12:35 Speaker 1: Hands when I come up. Yeah. And I, when I come up and he asked me, hi, who are you? I said, I'm the cadet. And the look on his face, because he came

Speaker A

Practical learned advice.

Speaker A

00:12:57 Speaker 2: So you you did that? Uh, first that was in Tokyo, you said.

Speaker A

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And basically and all kind of advice. A lot of kids, you know, they send me messages, uh, DMs and various doubts and, you know, also the harassment or bullying on board, especially now that the, the girl cadets and girl officers are there on board. My time, I never sailed with any girl, you know, seafarer. I mean, I sailed with the women who were the supernumeraries, someone's wife and but never with these young girls who are now working on board. And they are many incidents where they are having issues. So they, they every now and then they call me, I don't know, they they find me approachable and they think I may be, I am. I can guide them better. So I get those kind of messages and I try to guide them.

Speaker A

00:13:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, it is from, from Punjab. I went, I took a flight, went to Mumbai, which was Bombay at that time, and from Bombay took a flight. Of course, in the same flight, the captain's wife and daughter were there and

Speaker A

That's very nice. That's good. You said they think you are approachable. Are you suggesting that you're not approachable?

Speaker A

00:13:38 Speaker 2: When you are a cadet going to these far flung places like Tokyo, it all sounds very glamorous, of course, because you're getting to travel the world. But the reality is you're on the ship most of the time, right?

Speaker A

No, I am, I am. I mean, there must be, I mean, something about my, you know, the way I talk or my videos that they find, you know, that, okay, this guy, we can go and talk to h

Speaker A

00:13:57 Speaker 1: We did get time because, you know, that was a bulk carrier. First of all, and we were loading in two or three ports, I think Chiba, Kobe and Ohama or someplace I don't remember clearly. But I remember one day the chief mate asked all six cadets to go out.

Speaker A

That was like, you know, I was like, wow, this life is great, you know? Six cadets. And then the senior most asked me, do you have any money in your pocket? I just looked and there was some fifty dollars note in my pocket, you know, which a friend of mine, our family friend,

Speaker A

he had given me, I didn't know how much was fifty dollars that time. So I just handed over that fifty dollars to this senior cadet. So that was kind of my contribution. So we went ate something, you know, had dinner, came back to the ship. Um, yes, we did get a lot of time in those days.

Speaker A

00:14:50 Speaker 2: Fifty dollars back then must have gotten you, uh, some, some nice food and drinks. I assume.

Speaker A

00:14:55 Speaker 1: It did. It did. But, uh, just to, you know, let you know my monthly stipend or salary, whatever you call it was seventy two dollars.

Speaker A

00:15:06 Speaker 2: So you went in hard on that first outing? 00:15:10 Speaker 1: Yeah. Good.

Speaker A

00:15:11 Speaker 2: Good memories though, like, you know. Yeah. Obviously memorizing the ports and how much money and you know, all of these things. It's, it's, it's, it's always kind of the, the first memories that you kind of will never forget, right? Whether they were good or

Speaker A

bad, right? Everyone remembers the the first day, but it's the stuff in the middle that sometimes gets a little bit muddled. Right? The order in which it happens, Uh, it's only when you sit down and you try to piece it all together because it happens so fast, you lose track of things.

Speaker A

If we were to sort of compare you back in the day to who you've become, how would you describe the difference in your growth?

Speaker A

00:15:53 Speaker 1: Um, you're talking about young Ravi. Naive, inexperienced. I wouldn't say irresponsible, but, you know, not, uh, someone who was street smart and from a small town landed on a on a vessel in Tokyo. Like I told you, and I accepted people on face value. And, uh,

Speaker A

probably that's what made me a popular person. You know, I was young and bubbly and always willing to work, you know, to carry out orders. Whoever said whatever. I was always there to, you know, carry out the orders. And, uh, then obviously, you know, the sea made me a very responsible

Speaker A

person. As you climb the ladders, you become more responsibility comes on your shoulders and you become patient. She taught me patience. And I would say I'm a damn good judge of character, which only she taught me, which helped me in my professional life as well as in my personal life,

Speaker A

you know? You know, I could go to the ship when I became especially when I became a master, I would go to the vessel ten days, I will observe everyone, and then I'll have a meeting with entire vessel, talk to people and I'll in my head, I'll make a team of six or seven people, you know,

Speaker A

obviously the chief mate and the chief engineer, two department heads are obviously in that team.

Speaker A

But then I'll see with my own experience, with my own eyes. Okay. These are the four or five other people who are going to be my core team while I'm there for the next four months. Six months.

Speaker A

00:17:43 Speaker 2: Your very own Avengers? 00:17:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. 00:17:46 Speaker 2: So the A team.

Speaker A

00:17:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. A team. So basically, you know, from that young, innocent, naive Ravi. I turned out to be a person who was responsible, who had, you know, so much of responsibility on the shoulders and made me a disciplined soldier, if you like.

Speaker A

00:18:05 Speaker 2: Mhm. But having gone from, you know, a place that has nothing to do with ships to becoming interested. Do you remember why you got interested all of a sudden? Or what was the the thing that kind of clicked for you as to this is a thing that you want to go and do?

Speaker A

00:18:19 Speaker 1: It just happened. Yeah. Like, you know, it's there was nothing on the cards. And there was this, uh, you know, a very, a person very higher up in the in the Hong Kong Shipping company. He was a family friend. He saw me. He came to my house. He

Speaker A

saw me. He came to meet my father. And he looked at me. What are you doing? What grade are you in?

Speaker A

What subjects? How much you are expecting? I was in twelfth at that time. And how much are you expecting? Physics. Chemistry? Math? English? Yes, sir. Are you interested in, uh, shipping merchant Navy? I had heard of Merchant Navy because one of my math teacher, his son,

Speaker A

used to be in the Merchant Navy. And when I was in the school and I had heard that this is a, you know, very respectable profession and very highly paid in those days compared to the other other jobs in India. I mean, remember, we I'm talking about not even developing India. That was

Speaker A

not even developing states, India of the eighties, you know, that time Merchant Navy had a very big name, you know, okay, so and so is in the Merchant Navy. So I had heard of Merchant Navy and there were a couple of other family friends also, but I had a very little idea what the job is about. What

Speaker A

is it about? So this person asked me. I said, yes, I'm ready, I'm willing. And he put me on the ship.

Speaker A

00:19:39 Speaker 2: You said that when he started asking you these questions, you were twelve.

Speaker A

00:19:43 Speaker 1: No, I was in the twelfth grade. 00:19:45 Speaker 2: Oh, twelfth grade. I was okay.

Speaker A

00:19:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to join? Okay. 00:19:49 Speaker 2: How old are you? At the twelfth grade. Like fifteen. Sixteen?

Speaker A

00:19:52 Speaker 1: Oh seventeen, I think. Yeah, seventeen. Seventeen and a half. Yeah. 00:19:57 Speaker 2: At at that point, Ravi, had you had any other ideas about what it was you wanted to do before he came and started engineering all these ideas?

Speaker A

00:20:05 Speaker 1: Engineering, engineering. Yeah, yeah. Because I had taken the engineering subjects in twelfth because in the twelfth, in those days, you had to pick your subjects, what you want to do, the arts or engineering or science or medical or what? So if you

Speaker A

are going for medical, you have to pick biology. If you're going for engineering, you have to pick mathematics, right? So I picked up math, physics, chemistry, math, and English.

Speaker A

00:20:30 Speaker 2: And you mentioned earlier that you joined literally the was it Columbus navigation era? I think Captain Sam said the same thing. Is that a world, a widespread term, or is that just coincidence?

Speaker A

00:20:41 Speaker 1: No, no. I mean, uh, probably, you know, uh, I, I, I speak with the Captain Sams very often. You know, he's one of my most favorite masters sailing right now. I mean, I, I often tell him that, captain, although you are about a decade junior to me,

Speaker A

but I would love to go on your ship and watch you under you, sail with you and watch you, how you operate the ships and learn something you know, different. And he gets very flattered.

Speaker A

Yeah. So probably I mentioned to him, this is my term, you know, the Columbus.

Speaker A

00:21:14 Speaker 2: So he stole it from you. 00:21:16 Speaker 1: So probably, probably or maybe, you know, it's it's used by other people. I'm not I'm not too sure.

Speaker A

00:21:22 Speaker 2: That's fine. What I noticed on your profile, on your Instagram profile, like with Captain Sam's, he's got, uh, that he's a C fluency.

Speaker A

You've got hashtag yours says hashtag Captain Steel. Yeah. What's that about? 00:21:35 Speaker 1: Oh, there's a little story behind that. You know, when I was a cadet and I used to be very, very strong, you know, physically. And I would do things, you know,

Speaker A

which other people could never do. I would open the, you know, bolts or nuts or spanners, use things and, you know, carry whatever, you know, physically I was very strong. So there was another cadet with me. He was from Mumbai, so he named me steel. So he only called me steel. Hey,

Speaker A

steel. Till today. I'm in touch with him. We meet, you know, once a year or once in two years. Whenever I go to Mumbai or he comes here. So even when we are communicating, I call him handsome because he's he was in the movies also, you know,

Speaker A

very handsome boy. So I call him handsome and he calls me steel. So that's how the name steel came.

Speaker A

00:22:26 Speaker 2: It works both ways. Yeah. It's full of compliments, but. So it's good to know that it wasn't like a title that you bestowed upon yourself and that it came from somebody else.

Speaker A

00:22:36 Speaker 1: No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:22:37 Speaker 2: You say you were strong. And Captain Samson's ten years your senior and that man, he's.

Speaker A

00:22:43 Speaker 1: He's ten years my junior. 00:22:45 Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry. I meant yeah, he's ten years your junior and he does a lot of heavy lifting. He's quite strong as well.

Speaker A

00:22:50 Speaker 1: He does. He does? Yes. 00:22:52 Speaker 2: Who would who would win in a fight between you and him?

Speaker A

00:22:55 Speaker 1: Oh probably he'll he'll he'll win it. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: Yeah. You think so? Because he's, uh, he's still in the game.

Speaker A

00:23:02 Speaker 1: But I would love to see him when he's my age. 00:23:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:23:07 Speaker 1: When he is at that time. 00:23:08 Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a good way of looking at it. Fair enough. Well, if we can get a charity fight organized and, uh, it's for a good cause, who knows? Yeah.

Speaker A

00:23:17 Speaker 1: We'll do that. I'm all game for it. 00:23:36 Speaker 2: The Columbus theory of navigation. That was when you had literally nothing, tech wise, on board.

Speaker A

What were the biggest challenges of learning the ropes in those days that you remember.

Speaker A

00:23:46 Speaker 1: From that time? I would say we learned basics of navigation, seamanship, and survival. Okay. Uh, we were not dependent on technology. There were barely any equipment on board. And, uh, there were manual calculations. Calculations were long and hard. And, you know,

Speaker A

it's like, uh, you know, just to get one position, you had to do calculations for, what, forty, forty five minutes And you know how you improve every day. You take a position and you you want to be the best. Take the best position and everything you know and

Speaker A

do better and better. And it was basically experience and, you know, doing the same thing again and again and without any help of any calculation and strive to be the perfect no GPS.

Speaker A

00:24:40 Speaker 2: No help, no help from. 00:24:42 Speaker 1: No help, no help. Yeah. So like they say, practice makes a man perfect. You know, we were dependent on, you know, your own raw skills.

Speaker A

00:24:51 Speaker 2: Mhm. Do you think that is something that's becoming lost in seafaring with the newer cadets? It's something you're trying to drill into them that they need to learn the practical side of things before they can start to rely on the bells and whistles of equipment. They should.

Speaker A

00:25:06 Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. Because, you know, overreliance on equipment can, you know, you lose that hands on experience. You know, the, you know, the eyeball navigation or like. Recently I watched a video by Captain Sam's. You know, where a pilot came on. He

Speaker A

was explaining one of the case histories. A pilot came on board. They come with their own computer, they plug it in, you know, and they have the ship's data and all the charts are fed in.

Speaker A

And he's going he's, you know, bringing the ship alongside. And suddenly there was an alarm that you are too close to the buoy astern. And he gave some action which was not supposed to be given. The master peeped outside the window. He saw that boy was far away. It was fifty metres,

Speaker A

one hundred metres from the vessel. The duty officer saw. Everyone saw, everyone kept quiet.

Speaker A

They did nothing and the pilot just relied on his computer and ship banged into the jetty and they had an accident. And later on they realized the data on that computer was not corrected. For this particular ship. It was last vessels data. Oh, so you know the pilot experienced person

Speaker A

who's doing that thing. Probably three ships a day, four ships a day or whatever, day in, day out. He just did not go to the bridge wing and just peep outside and just look at the boy. Mhm. That is what I'm saying. Today's generation is lacking. You know,

Speaker A

you know where where you are so dependent on the on the equipment. Equipment is great. It saves time. It's accurate. You know, everything is nice, but you still have to have that, you know.

Speaker A

00:26:54 Speaker 2: Use your. 00:26:54 Speaker 1: Eyes. Use use your eyes. Eyeball navigation.

Speaker A

00:26:58 Speaker 2: I said that to my girlfriend this weekend. We went to the theater and she was the one who booked the tickets. So she was leading the way. When we got off the train and we was making our way there. Uh, I knew exactly where it was, but I wanted to see until, like,

Speaker A

you know, I let her lead the way and we've got ourselves on the straight, the, you know, the road is just straight ahead now. And she's still following the GPS. She's she doesn't know her left from her right. Sometimes hate me for saying this. I was like, you got it.

Speaker A

00:27:24 Speaker 1: Exactly. Same. 00:27:24 Speaker 2: Do you know what? Do you know where we're going? She's like, yeah, I think it's just straight down there. I was like, are you sure you need that anymore? She's like,

Speaker A

huh? I said, I'm pretty sure that's the theater big building. You know, like with the theater on.

Speaker A

00:27:36 Speaker 1: It right. 00:27:36 Speaker 2: There, she's like, oh yeah, sometimes. 00:27:39 Speaker 1: Just exactly.

Speaker A

00:27:40 Speaker 2: That's exactly. 00:27:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always tell the newcomers, you know, compare what you see on the chart, the that thing see on the radar, and then go outside the window and see it visually. Compare all three things. It's the same structure,

Speaker A

same lighthouse or same thing or same boy. Just make sure the chart, the radar and the actual are the same. Don't rely just on your on your radar or whatever equipment you have on board.

Speaker A

00:28:13 Speaker 2: Good advice. Do you have a memory that you can remember where it was the first time in your life you were thinking, uh, that this life at sea isn't for everyone?

Speaker A

00:28:24 Speaker 1: Definitely. Because it's not a, you know, a job. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. First of all, right. Because obviously because, you know, the loneliness, the, the rolling of the ship, the disrupted sleep, the different routines, you know, everything was different. And people on

Speaker A

land know about shipping only what they see on a, on a particular video or hear from people.

Speaker A

You need to go and live on a vessel to understand what sea life is. You know, like people, if a friend of mine is working on land in an office, I know what kind of job he is doing. You know,

Speaker A

wherever he goes to the office for eight hours, comes back home, picks up, you know, maybe, you know, goes, uh, uh, for a party in the evening or do whatever. That's his lifestyle.

Speaker A

But people have no idea what shipping lifestyle is. They only come through, you know, there's no commute communication. They don't know exactly what we do on the ship. And the worst part is, you know, a lot of kids, they go to the ship, make very fancy videos. And that's a misguided, very,

Speaker A

you know, the people see it, especially the aspirants who want to come to the ship. They see those nice fancy videos. And the reality is something different. So, you know, I would say shipping life is not for everyone because when there is a comparison, then you lost it.

Speaker A

00:29:54 Speaker 2: Absolutely. 00:29:55 Speaker 1: That's what is happening today with the social media.

Speaker A

00:29:58 Speaker 2: Mhm. 00:29:59 Speaker 1: There's a constant, constant comparison with what you are doing and what your friends are doing assure they are partying, they are going for a movie, they're going for a dinner and you are sitting alone in your cabin watching them have fun on the on the on the,

Speaker A

on the, on your phone. And you are. Yeah. And you are comparing it. You forget at that particular moment, this is your profession. You are paid for doing what you're doing at that time.

Speaker A

00:30:28 Speaker 2: And no one forced you to do it. It was your own decision. Yeah, yeah. So you gotta, you know, you gotta lie in the bed that you've made for yourself.

Speaker A

00:30:35 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. 00:30:37 Speaker 2: Something like that. 00:30:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:30:40 Speaker 2: But you got nineteen seventy nine was when you first joined and quick math, uh, was basically what, two, seventeen, sixteen, seventeen years until you became a master in nineteen ninety five?

Speaker A

00:30:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, about sixteen years. Yeah. 00:30:55 Speaker 2: Right. What did the moment mean to you personally and how did that transition come about?

Speaker A

00:31:01 Speaker 1: Absolutely amazing. I mean, that moment I was waiting for a while to get command, but that particular moment. Suddenly there are so many thoughts in your head. The first thing which comes to your mind is the buck stops here. You are all

Speaker A

by yourself. You cannot go and ask your junior, how do we do this or whatever? Because you are the one who is taking all the decisions. All the responsibility falls on your shoulders.

Speaker A

So whatever you do is your own decision, and it better be the right decision that you don't regret later. And a lot of responsibility, exhilaration. And, uh, I would say loneliness. Like they say, the higher the higher you climb, the lonelier it gets. So at that particular time, you feel very

Speaker A

lonely. And the other thing is you are wary of the people around you because they are watching you at all the times they are judging you, because I have seen that happening. When I was a junior and I saw

Speaker A

a newly promoted master, he was a chief mate with me. He got promoted. How is he behaving? When is he panicking? Why? When I become a master, I better have control on my emotions, you know, because people are watching me as a boss. If I lose control, there's a panic on the ship. Yeah.

Speaker A

So, you know, those kind of, you know, thousands of, you know, thoughts and responsibilities and emotions and everything was there in my head. But once, you know, you handle a couple of things. I mean, on the same particular day, I got command. I handled a couple of things. I mean,

Speaker A

first thing when the master left, we opened the cargo holds and there was a damage in the cargo. It was a expensive grain cargo. We were discharging in Amsterdam and we opened the cargo hold. There was a damage. So suddenly you go back to your school time, your notes. What do you do?

Speaker A

Call the surveyor damage control protest letter. Authorities call up the office. You know, insurers. And once you get busy in that and suddenly you forget that you are a newly promoted master. I mean, that was what was going on with me at that particular on the very first day when I

Speaker A

took command. So all sort of things are happening and by evening I think I was a pro and later again the test was when we were getting out, I dropped the pilot. Now I was navigating the vessel in the

Speaker A

channel, getting out of Amsterdam on my own. And there's a duty officer with me, there's a helmsman with me, there's a cadet with me, and I am all by myself, you know, handling the vessel. That's the second test. But by the I think, end of the third day I was very confident and normal and at ease.

Speaker A

00:33:58 Speaker 2: Like you've been in the job for years. 00:34:00 Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker A

00:34:00 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, so that was kind of answering my next question, but, uh, you kind of it was like a baptism of fire in the sense of when you became a master, you got tested immediately. Absolutely. But but you dealt with it very professionally straight away. Yeah. Uh,

Speaker A

was there ever a moment when the weight of command truly hit you and you found it really difficult to hold together? Or have you never, ever let your emotions get the better of you?

Speaker A

00:34:29 Speaker 1: Never. I never kind of let anything get out of control. Especially like I told you, you know, people are watching me. I am the boss. And if I lose control, let my emotions get the better of me. And you know, things could go wrong in one way or the other,

Speaker A

you know, while the other guys are watching me and, you know, handling the vessel or handling certain situations. So yes, the, the weight of command, responsibility, it's always there.

Speaker A

I mean, the day you don't feel that, you know, stress or weight of command, I think you should not be sailing that day. You know, that has to be there at all the times. You know, be it engine problem or bad weather, someone's sick on board or some pressure from the charterers

Speaker A

or cargo issue or some pump issue or whatever. You know, you have to take the decision. But yes, you have a team with you, you know, discuss the problem sometimes, you know, you call your top management the chief, the chief engineer, whoever is involved, talk to them. Okay,

Speaker A

this is the issue. Let's tackle the things. But yes, the responsibility of command is huge.

Speaker A

00:35:41 Speaker 2: Mhm. And just out of interest. So you did thirty four years at sea. What type of ships did you say you worked on again? You did the obos, the oil bulk.

Speaker A

00:35:51 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Or. 00:35:52 Speaker 2: Or. Yeah. Yeah. And what else was it was fright.

Speaker A

00:35:56 Speaker 1: So, I mean, when I was a kid, I did four kind of ships. I did four ships, completed my sea time on four ships. The first was a bulk carrier, the second was a tanker.

Speaker A

The third was a cattle carrier used to carry buffaloes from India to Jeddah for slaughter, and the fourth was a general cargo ship. So these were the four ships. And then after I finished my cadet ship got my cock, my certificate passed my exams. I directly went on an oboe. So oboe

Speaker A

at that time were very difficult ships. So from then third mate all the way to master, I was on oboe only. I mean, maybe one ship in between. There was a bulk carrier.

Speaker A

00:36:38 Speaker 2: You say that they're the most challenging ones. 00:36:40 Speaker 1: They are the most challenging one because, you know, it's a oil liquid cargo.

Speaker A

Mhm. There's bulk grain, coal, bauxite, whatever. And then there's ore, which is a high density concentrate cargo. So all three cargoes on the same ship in the same cargo hold. Just imagine you have loaded oil in the cargo hold. Okay, you go and discharge oil and you get the

Speaker A

orders. In next seven days, you are going to so and so port to load grain. And now just imagine the kind of the quality of cleanliness which is required in that oil cargo hold to carry grain.

Speaker A

So it's any master achievement's nightmare. You know, when a message like that comes, you know, I mean, you are working day and night, seven days or maybe ten days. You ask the company, okay, I'll try my best. But you know, you, you kind of, you know, delegate work in a different way. You,

Speaker A

you start, you know, make maybe make two teams. You want to work to go on for twenty four hours.

Speaker A

You make one team for twelve hours, the other team for twelve hours. And they are continuously around the clock. They are working and preparing the ship. And these ships were big. They were like one hundred and forty zero zero zero ton kind of ships, one hundred and fifty thousand ton

Speaker A

and nine crew. At that time, I would say probably twenty five, thirty, thirty maybe.

Speaker A

00:38:05 Speaker 2: So much work. 00:38:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. So much work and thirty. Mind you, not all thirty are working to clean the ship. Thirty are they are they are the people who are in the galley cooking. Yeah. Okay. Preparing food then. They're half the people are in

Speaker A

the engine room working on the machinery. You only have eight or ten guys on deck which are there for this job. But then you request the chief engineer to give you a couple of guys, and maybe you pull out one guy from the galley, a steward or someone just to give a hand on deck,

Speaker A

you know, make your teams at that time, you know, it becomes a kind of a project.

Speaker A

00:38:43 Speaker 2: Well, that answers my next question, which is about what makes OBO so challenging. Let's go into some of the darker, dangerous stuff that's occurred. You've seen a lot over the years, things such as, but not limited to fires, deaths, breakdowns, storms.

Speaker A

00:39:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:39:20 Speaker 2: Yes. Can you can you walk us through a few of those incidents? And which situation would you say scared you the most, if that's possible.

Speaker A

00:39:28 Speaker 1: Okay. The most scary, I would say, was a death on board. There was a fire in the I was chief at that time, not a master. And there was a fire in the engine room and the entire

Speaker A

engine staff was injured, burned very badly, and one person was missing. And then during the search, it was found that he was dead and he was lying in the engine room and his body was pulled out. And the ship engine, I mean, ship was without power. So we just dropped the anchor. We were in

Speaker A

the Red sea, very close to Yemen. Yemen was one side and Djibouti was on the other side. And that was a scary moment. And the most scary was, you know, when we landed these people ashore for help.

Speaker A

My wife and my one year old daughter, they were on board with me. So we decided to land them with the injured people so that they can be looked after by someone who is hale and hearty, not injured.

Speaker A

So my wife looked after them and then they were in Yemen, the ship which offloaded them, they, you know, offloaded them in Yemen, somewhere in some port where the local authorities, the agents, whoever they, you know, try to look after them. And my wife was there, but we were not getting,

Speaker A

you know, much news from that end. And I was quite worried and scared for, of course, my wife's well-being also. And eventually they managed to. Yeah. The charters were very influential at that time for that vessel. You know, even the owners, they were, uh, Cargill International,

Speaker A

uh, you know, a company called called Cargill. So they sent an air ambulance and airlifted all these people. But there was a lot of drama in that country. People wanted to, you know, they thought, you know, these, uh, they could kind of, you know, hold the people for ransom

Speaker A

in Yemen. So there was yeah, in Yemen. That was in nineteen ninety two. And that I came to know only after I met my wife, you know, went back home. So those were the scary moments. And then, yes, we had other issues of storm and kind of bad weather and engine breakdown and sometimes,

Speaker A

you know, engine breakdown and there's a storm. What do you do? It's it's a very, very helpless situation. What do you do, this kind of thing? Basically, you, you, you, you wait for the, you know, engine. I mean, the engineers are struggling to, you know, get

Speaker A

the engine moving. You are trying to, you know, maneuver the ship in such a way that she is not, you know, behaving too badly. But there's nothing much you can do because, you know, you lose the, uh, the, you know, stairway and vessel is at the mercy of the waves. And you try to, you know,

Speaker A

kind of make the situation the atmosphere better by showing to the other people that things are okay. You are in control. Nothing can go wrong and try to, you know, the things which are flying here and there. Square it up and kind of tie the things up, you know, make sure no one is hurt and write

Speaker A

instructions are passed. You know, those kind of things. And, uh, um, and there was another moment where again, there was a, there was a fire and, uh, there was a, you know, danger of, uh, it was a fire on the, on the generator, which we used to use for, uh, for, you know, various works

Speaker A

which are being done on deck, you know, like cleaning or high pressure washing or chipping, painting, whatever. That generator got fire and we were nearing a port and there was a danger of oil spilling overboard, you know, from that generator, which is a big scare for any seafarer. So,

Speaker A

you know, and somehow we managed that. That was a scary moment also. So I mean, you, I mean, there could be thousand other, you know, incidents, you know, which are smaller and less significant.

Speaker A

00:43:45 Speaker 2: Had a relatively. You would say in your thirty four years, not completely untarnished, but mostly incident free.

Speaker A

00:43:52 Speaker 1: I would say I was I was kind of happy with my sea life eventually.

Speaker A

00:43:59 Speaker 2: Is there like a, a cap in terms of like, if you are witness to say certain amounts of trauma, then you are paid off by the company. You're not required to work anymore.

Speaker A

00:44:12 Speaker 1: No, no, no. 00:44:13 Speaker 2: There's nothing like that. No. In some industries there obviously are. Like if you're a train driver and you have someone, for example, who throws themselves in front.

Speaker A

Um, you know, like a national rail train out in the country. If somebody does that, there's nothing you can do. It's all over the windscreen. And so three times I think it is, if you have that in your life, then they pay you off. Right. And you're no longer

Speaker A

having to work. There's absolutely nothing like that in the in the shipping industry. Is that something you think that they should implement or is it too far and few between?

Speaker A

00:44:45 Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it should be because. 00:44:47 Speaker 1: You know, the kind of trauma the seafarers go through. Yeah. And but yes, sometimes you get some kind of bonus, you know, for extra work you are doing, you know,

Speaker A

some charters like, you know, like I mentioned on an oboe, you, uh, you loaded oil and now you're loading grain and, you know, there's a lot of work happening. So yeah, push you. But at the same time, charters will send, let's say, three thousand dollars or two thousand dollars for

Speaker A

the staff who is doing this extra work on board, which is evenly distributed among all the people you know. So sometimes you get that kind of bonus. So, I mean, which is nothing great if there are ten people, it will be, you know, something like two hundred or three hundred dollars per

Speaker A

person for those, you know, ten days or something, which is not much, not much.

Speaker A

00:45:34 Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to ask you, when you was talking about being in a storm and engine failure. Um, I don't know much about ship construction, but one thing I know a little bit about is, well, with cruise ships, especially, how they're built to tackle storms,

Speaker A

is that they have a bit of a flex in the middle. Is that the same with oil carriers?

Speaker A

00:45:54 Speaker 1: Uh, not really. Not really. Not really. I mean, yeah. 00:45:57 Speaker 2: Because with the cruise ships, they, they tend to bend in the middle, right? There's a flex to them. So when, um, a ship's out in a storm,

Speaker A

it's kind of bending and, you know, um, they call it hogging and sagging, I believe.

Speaker A

00:46:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, that, that, that we have. 00:46:11 Speaker 1: On the ships, you know, hogging, sagging. I mean, it's a high tensile steel is there. So there's a bending is there. But, but in addition, the cruise ships will have the stabilizers and, you know, certain plates welded

Speaker A

on the sides which are for correcting. I mean, they, they, you know, kind of, uh, go easy when the, when the ship is rolling. And also rolling is not that tight, that harsh? Yeah.

Speaker A

00:46:38 Speaker 2: And there's none of stabilizers. No, there's none of. 00:46:40 Speaker 1: That on on other vessels. No, I not that I have seen or on my ships I haven't come across. So like I told you, like the the old cargoes, I don't know. I mean, probably.

Speaker A

00:46:54 Speaker 2: If it works for one ship why not apply it to the others.

Speaker A

00:46:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, probably. You know, because there the cargo is, uh, human beings, you know, the lives. So they don't want to make them uncomfortable. And, uh, yeah, for that, you know, and also probably, you know, they'll have their roots, uh, which will be, you know, their

Speaker A

weather routing, of course, will be much better. And they'll take the roots, which are kind of, you know, very friendly weather wise and, uh, but, uh, merchant ships are going, uh, worldwide, you know, everywhere ocean going. So it doesn't matter what, whether you are just going through it.

Speaker A

00:47:32 Speaker 2: In much the same way as passengers on a cruise ship will be sitting down to dinner and waiters coming around with a flute of champagne on a tray, you know, oh, it's okay, we've got the stabilisers on, you know, who's to say who's to suggest

Speaker A

that you wouldn't be walking around with a tray of champagne to give to your crew, right? Yeah. If you had stabilisers, then, you know, everyone's happy. I just don't get it.

Speaker A

00:47:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:47:55 Speaker 2: True. Is it. Is it an impossible task to get them on carriers?

Speaker A

00:48:00 Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, probably they will lose that much capacity to load cargo. You know, if you have stabilisers, you'll have extra tanks. You know, there'll be stabilisers, permanent water inside and that much extra cargo means

Speaker A

that much extra money Chartres making or the owner is making. 00:48:21 Speaker 2: So of course it comes down to profit margins.

Speaker A

00:48:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. That's the and like we're talking about talking about, you know, the the bad weather and all on when you are carrying a high density or cargo. That vessel is called the stiff vessel. There is something called stiff vessel and tender vessel. Stiff vessel is.

Speaker A

00:48:42 Speaker 2: Tender vessel. 00:48:44 Speaker 1: Or tender vessel. So tender vessel is, you know, when there's a nice light cargo coal or, you know, let's say grain or something, you know, the center of gravity is, you know, very decent. And the ship is rolling very nicely. That's called tender ship. And when

Speaker A

you have a or cargo or concentrate, uh, center of gravity is very low. So those ships are very stiff and their movements, their even the roll is also very uncomfortable, you know, and they are very jerky. So that's what we call stiff vessel and tender vessel on a, on a or, or voice. You,

Speaker A

you won't have a very good sleep, you know, because I mean, if the weather is bad, if the, if the waves are there, ship will be very, very stiff and rolling like hell. Very jerky. Yeah.

Speaker A

00:49:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. What's, uh, what would you say is one of the hardest decisions you've ever had to make as a captain? Oh.

Speaker A

00:49:59 Speaker 1: I would say okay, once, uh, uh, there was a bad weather. I was, uh, going towards Japan, I think somewhere near Philippine. Bad weather ship was, you know, these big ships, you know, when the weather is from front, if the waves are hitting from the front,

Speaker A

the speed drops drastically. And there's so much of load on the engine, you have to reduce the RPM.

Speaker A

Otherwise, you know, it could be harmful to the engine as well as the structural. Yeah. RPM and it's bad for the engine when there's a load on the engine. And also structurally the vessel is, you know, uh, is not good to, you know, go at a high speed. And the charterers had to make a

Speaker A

particular date to reach Japan. And they were constantly pushing me to, you know, continue the speed. And that is a very tricky situation for any master to think about the charter who's, you know, paying the money to the owner and we are being paid or to look after the interest of

Speaker A

the owner who ship this is and which ship could be, you know, it could be a danger to the vessel, to the engine, to whatever. So at that time, the charters were. Captain, increase the speed, increase the speed. And and chief engineer was going crazy in the engine room. He said the,

Speaker A

the vessel, the engine is screaming, you know, you know, because, you know, there's so much of load in the engine, it cannot cope up. So I said, sorry, bad weather, I cannot do anything. Speed is reduced anyway. These are big ships, whether it is from front and it's automatically speed

Speaker A

drops so I cannot do much. They said no captain, more RPM doesn't matter how much fuel you burn.

Speaker A

00:51:47 Speaker 2: What is RPM stand for? Sorry. 00:51:49 Speaker 1: Revolutions. The the the propeller revolution.

Speaker A

00:51:52 Speaker 2: Yes. Sorry. I, I did know that. 00:51:54 Speaker 1: So RPM you know the vessel is normally, you know, these ships are, uh going at, you know, whatever sixty or seventy rpm, you know, normalcy speed, but

Speaker A

you can go increase it to a little more, you know, depending on the whatever is the upper limit and the, and then, but then you are burning more fuel. So normally the charter will tell you to go at a certain RPM burning this much fuel. So you make sure that if they say forty

Speaker A

tons of fuel every day at sixty rpm. Make sure you are at sixty rpm and burning that fuel or at sixty. If you're burning more RPM or more fuel, then probably, you know, bring it down to fifty eight or fifty nine or whatever. So in this case, the charters told me go full speed,

Speaker A

whatever maximum RPM. Don't worry about the fuel consumption. We want to reach there. And that's the time I put my foot down. Sorry, I cannot do that. I will have to. On the contrary, I'll have to reduce the speed. And then I get a phone call. That captain will pay you

Speaker A

four thousand dollars cash once you arrive in Japan. That is for you. Bonus. And if you reach on time, if you make that date, please increase. I, I, you know, put the phone down. And then I made all the log entries vessels speed reduced due to bad weather and log entry messages sent to

Speaker A

the company, to the owners, to the charters, to everyone. And I reached whatever, half a day or one day late. But that was a very, very difficult decision to make. But I had to, I had to.

Speaker A

00:53:38 Speaker 2: Yeah. Because if it goes tits up, as they say, yeah, then they lose all the cargo and the crew and the vessel.

Speaker A

00:53:44 Speaker 1: Crew and the vessel. 00:53:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. You just got to take it. You know, slow is fast. Fast is slow. Are there any moments that really, like, come back to you at night? I'm not trying to

Speaker A

get you to relive anything too traumatic. It's completely your call. If you have, I don't know.

Speaker A

00:54:03 Speaker 1: I mean, they're always, you know, moments like I would say, uh, which is called near-miss, right?

Speaker A

00:54:11 Speaker 2: Near-miss. Right. 00:54:12 Speaker 1: Near-miss is something which could have happened, but it didn't happen. You got lucky. And, you know, so those kind of moments are always there. Oh my God, what if I had taken so and so action? It was a close quarters situation,

Speaker A

a fishing vessel or some other vessel. What if I had waited another 10s 10s I would have banged into this vessel or something. You know, totally disastrous would have happened.

Speaker A

So those kind of moments are always there in the head and not one there, maybe two dozen.

Speaker A

00:54:46 Speaker 2: When you say they you don't dream of these things on a nightly basis. But now and again.

Speaker A

00:54:51 Speaker 1: No, no. 00:54:52 Speaker 2: It comes back to. 00:54:53 Speaker 1: You. But but when you go back, when you go back in your cabin and you go to your bed and you know, you think over it, the thought comes in your mind,

Speaker A

oh my God, what if you know? Yeah, those kind of things. Yes. Those, those are I mean, nothing traumatic. But you know that fear. Thank God nothing went wrong at that particular moment. So I would say that kind of a situation. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker A

00:55:19 Speaker 2: Well I had a near miss the other day. Actually, I, uh, you just reminded me someone wanted me to put. They had a. I walked into their flat and they had this, like, glass cabinet that was like, you know, longer than my arm span. And it was

Speaker A

glass cased and the back was open because what was inside this glass cabinet, Ravi, was crown jewel replicas like scepters and swords with like, you know, gems encrusted all over it. And they wanted this thing mounted on a glass shelf on metal brackets. And I said,

Speaker A

no, that's stupid. You need something to pad out. Obviously, if you're going to put that much weight on them, you can't put a glass shelf on metal brackets with no cushion underneath.

Speaker A

00:56:05 Speaker 1: Absolutely. 00:56:06 Speaker 2: Yeah. And you need to be able to close the back of this cabinet because it was, it was, it wasn't able to close because something inside it was so big. If the compartment closed

Speaker A

up, it would have smashed and cracked the glass. And Absolutely. At one point in the job. I know this isn't tech related, but bear with me. This is relevant to near misses. I was trying to balance it. Move it. We was doing all kinds of stuff and at one point the cabinet that it was on,

Speaker A

um, I, I pulled all kind of like a doorstop type of thing out from underneath it so I could push it back further. And as I pulled this thing out, the cabinet fell forward a little bit, and the glass cabinet on top of the cabinet slid towards me,

Speaker A

and I managed to put my hands out and embrace it and keep it from falling on top of me. We're talking thousands and thousands of pounds and they were replicas, but they were damn good. But but.

Speaker A

00:57:03 Speaker 1: I woke up. 00:57:03 Speaker 2: And I woke up in the middle of the night and it crashed on me, and I. And it woke me up.

Speaker A

00:57:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does happen. Yes, yes, there are moments like that. Yeah.

Speaker A

00:57:14 Speaker 2: I'm getting paid enough to deal with that stuff. No. Thank you.

Speaker A

So you said earlier, at the start of the call, you've experienced the full evolution of, uh, equipment at sea. All the texts and all the gadgetry from Sextants to GPS, from isolation to social media. What would you say

Speaker A

has been the hardest transition that you had to adapt to over the years? 00:57:48 Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think it was hard to change from, you know, normal navigation to the to the, you know, latest equipment and the GPS. It became in fact, you know, the things became faster

Speaker A

and more convenient. Mhm. And, uh, you know, we moved from skill based navigation to system based navigation. right. So initially, I mean, you, you kind of relied on your skills, your sharpness, your intelligence, and, you know, you navigated, you felt you were intuitive. Now, I mean,

Speaker A

if I talk about the new generation versus the old generation, that is what they lack. You know, they are relying on that. We were talking about yeah, we are. I mean, they are relying more on the equipment, etc. and what they miss is as a as a master. I remember even as a chief mate, you know,

Speaker A

you felt the vessel, you felt the vibrations, the shuddering, the movement, the RPM drop. You were sitting in your cabin. Suddenly the the vibrations have, you know, become lower and lower. You know, they are diminishing and you jump. Now something is wrong. RPM has come down. You, you know, jump

Speaker A

up to the bridge navigation deck. You go there and you look at the RPM meter and you realize, okay, the RPM has come down, you call up the engine room. Anything wrong or no, I mean routine, maybe some small little issue over there so they lower the RPM. So what I'm

Speaker A

saying is these were the things which were kind of we were, you know, trained mentally.

Speaker A

It's like muscle memory, you know. Yes. You, you know, something, something goes wrong, you know, you, your intuition tells you or the movement tells you, you know, suddenly you're sitting, everything is normal and ship starts shuddering. Obviously there is

Speaker A

something wrong, maybe bad weather, a bad wave or something like that. 00:59:51 Speaker 2: Did it feel a bit not a mess when I when I say like, you've gone from having this, uh, muscle memory to basically having a machine telling you what to do,

Speaker A

is it like it undermines you a little bit, right? It kind of does. Do you feel like it almost emasculates you or you feel like it's not the right way? It must take a bit of time to kind of accept that this thing is there to help you, right? Yeah.

Speaker A

01:00:16 Speaker 4: I mean, I, I don't say. 01:00:18 Speaker 1: The new technology, the equipment, everything is wrong. It is amazing. You know, that's a that's a added help to you. But you know, the new generation, they do not know about the other stuff. Their overreliance on the instruments and equipment

Speaker A

is what is my worry? You know, like we people, my generation, like I said, you know, we had a skill based kind of, you know, technology or whatever you call now. It is system based, you know, the systems are there, the equipment is there and things are there. So the transition is

Speaker A

good. There's nothing wrong. It's not difficult. Yes. You know certain things. Of course. You know, new stuff came which you didn't know, which you hadn't seen. You know, the computers came. I remember computers came on the ships in ninety two or ninety three. I

Speaker A

was not a student who was taught computers in my school. At that time I was chief mate. My cadet comes on board. He knows about computer, and he suddenly, you know, does something and this small word becomes this big. And I asked him, what did you do? He said, oh, sir, I changed the font,

Speaker A

increase the font. I said, what is the font? So this thing is called font, you know. I said, don't use that fancy language with me. You know, just tell me, okay, I don't understand what font is. And now remember, you're a cadet. I am a chief mate, your boss. I give you seven

Speaker A

days to teach me everything you know about computers. That's how I learned computers. 01:01:50 Speaker 2: Wow. That's a good example of transitioning.

Speaker A

01:01:53 Speaker 1: It's a survival. It's a survival. I mean, you have to. If if you don't fit in, you leave that transition. I can tell you, Sam, many people, the older generation, my seniors who couldn't cope up, it's like someone trying to teach me cryptocurrency

Speaker A

that will go over my head. I don't understand C of crypto, right? So similarly, a master at that time when he saw fancy, colorful day and night radar, he was not happy with it. He had to learn two thousand things. They had to leave C so that was the challenge in front of me as a young chief

Speaker A

mate, I have few years ahead of me. I need to learn to survive. So transition was kind of, you know, it was I had to go through that whether I like it or not. But then as you go through it,

Speaker A

you learn new things. It becomes interesting because things become easier, faster. Okay. You are not running around from the chart room to the, uh, your binocular to see what's happening.

Speaker A

You just go on your radar, you plot a certain positions and you look at the radar. You acquire that other ship which is coming. You know where she is going and how she is going to pass you, and that makes life so much easier. But you better know the right stuff how to do it.

Speaker A

01:03:23 Speaker 2: One question I didn't ask Captain Sams that I'm now just thinking of what's the like drinking culture or like the party culture, like on cargo vessels? Is there one?

Speaker A

01:03:34 Speaker 4: There is. I mean, is there is. 01:03:36 Speaker 2: There. 01:03:36 Speaker 4: A lot of drinks?

Speaker A

01:03:37 Speaker 1: There are a lot of restrictions now. 01:03:39 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:03:40 Speaker 1: If you compare the party culture, back in my days when I was a cadet, I mean, there was there was no control over the drinks. People were lying here and there. Some

Speaker A

people, not everyone except the person on duty. A person on duty also went after drinking. Yeah, we didn't know. We didn't know that drinking and driving kind of a thing back in the eighties. Okay, so parties were fun. I mean, it was like, you know, I mean,

Speaker A

the best part when on my first ship, we had an orchestra of cadets. We were six cadets.

Speaker A

There was one guy who was good at singing. He had a guitar. There was another guy who was a drummer. So he took one huge drum from the galley from the stores, and he bought some sticks from somewhere in USA or wherever, and he made that drum. And then we had these little,

Speaker A

uh, caps, you know, the beer bottle caps or whatever, those metal caps. 01:04:39 Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker A

01:04:40 Speaker 1: So we made holes in those caps. 01:04:43 Speaker 4: And. 01:04:43 Speaker 1: Those caps in a, in a wire. So it became that chick chick chick thing.

Speaker A

01:04:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:04:48 Speaker 1: So the vessel is waiting. The party has started. Entire ship is waiting for the cadets orchestra to come and start. You know, entertainment. It used to be so much fun singing

Speaker A

games. People are, you know, bonding together. Life was, you know, so much fun. But slowly, slowly, the restrictions started coming into picture during my time. You know, there was a.

Speaker A

01:05:13 Speaker 4: Lot about the young. 01:05:15 Speaker 2: The young cadet who taught you how to use the computer. Did you teach him how to party?

Speaker A

01:05:19 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, obviously. 01:05:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I did. I mean, I was, I was that way that, you know, off time. We used to have a lot of fun mingle with the juniors and seniors. Everyone. Yes, they would

Speaker A

party because, you know, that became also one of my therapies when I became a master because I had seen as I was, you know, climb up, climbing up the ladders that a lot of people today, they are going crazy. I mean, you know, people are going into depression. The young kids, you know,

Speaker A

they're going into depression and all these issues are happening. Why? Because the life has become so lonely. You know, people are sitting on their gadgets, on their telephones, inside the cabin and watching all kind of depressing or whatever stuff. Or the news transfer of news is so fast.

Speaker A

01:06:07 Speaker 4: That. 01:06:08 Speaker 1: Something bad happens on the at home. This small thing, it reaches you instantly. Okay. Mom is unwell today. The guy is already into depression.

Speaker A

My mom is unwell. You can do nothing about it. You know those kind of things. During our time, there were no phones, there was no internet. There was absolutely nothing. We wrote letters.

Speaker A

The snail mail agent would take the letters and take it home. I started a new thing, you know, something which nobody had even thought of. I used to send my wife audio letters. You know, we used to have those microcassette recorders. I will have that micro recorder.

Speaker A

01:06:46 Speaker 4: And I'm walking down. 01:06:48 Speaker 2: What do they call them? Um, dictaphone.

Speaker A

01:06:50 Speaker 1: Dictaphone. That was what it was called in those days. And I would, uh, you know, go around. I was a third mate, second mate, whoever I was married at that time when I was second mate. So I would take that with me and keep talking. This is happening. That's

Speaker A

happening. Beautiful weather today. I had a fight with the captain and blah blah blah blah blah. And of the voyage I will send that small cassette with the agent and mail it to my wife.

Speaker A

She would listen to all those things, you know, that was the those were the days when there was nothing. And ship used to be a fun place. When you finish your work, everyone is in the smoke room, you are playing darts, you are playing cards, you are watching a movie. You are, you know,

Speaker A

reading a book or all the activities are happening. Out of twenty five thirty people, there are fifteen people sitting over there at any given time. That was, oh, what a party was like.

Speaker A

But then slowly, slowly, companies came, came up with their, you know, regulation, okay, no booze, only some companies will have only beer and wine. And some companies, even the tanker ships, they will have total dry ship, no booze at all. People had problems, you know.

Speaker A

01:07:58 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that's why these, uh, these these, these rules came into place because people obviously abused it too much.

Speaker A

What I wanted to ask you just real quick. Did your wife send you audio notes back?

Speaker A

01:08:08 Speaker 1: Uh, not really. Not really. Because they never came back from the other side. Yeah.

Speaker A

01:08:13 Speaker 2: It's like a one way conversation with her. 01:08:16 Speaker 4: Right.

Speaker A

01:08:16 Speaker 2: So that way you don't argue. 01:08:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. 01:08:20 Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. I, I also remember a very funny incident, you know, when my younger daughter, she was, I think, two or three years old. And

Speaker A

when the first cassette went and she put it in the recorder and they are listening to my, you know, whatever I'm talking and this while I'm talking, my younger daughter, she's asking me something. She thought that was the real person talking to her. And she asked me

Speaker A

a question. And the recording is going on and on and on. And eventually she got so upset, she said, you're not even listening to me. You're going on and on. And Everyone had a laugh, you know, because she thought that was the real person talking to her.

Speaker A

01:09:00 Speaker 2: How old was she at that time? 01:09:01 Speaker 1: Two or three, I think.

Speaker A

01:09:03 Speaker 2: Oh bless her. 01:09:03 Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh. 01:09:05 Speaker 2: That's lovely though. I like I like to hear things like that, you know. Well you said you started when you started doing the audio notes.

Speaker A

Was that something that other people started to do as well? 01:09:14 Speaker 4: Mhm.

Speaker A

01:09:14 Speaker 1: I haven't heard anyone. In fact, there was a journalist friend of mine.

Speaker A

He used to write for a newspaper here. He's no more God, you know, give peace to his soul. So he once heard this story from me. He said, oh, my God, I'm going to sit with you and make this story and write the story in the newspaper. But you know,

Speaker A

it never happened. You know, he had never heard of a thing like that. 01:09:35 Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker A

01:09:35 Speaker 2: As your wife kept all the tapes. 01:09:37 Speaker 1: Oh, yes. I mean, even the letters. I became a poet. I started writing English poetry. I used to send poems to my wife. And a couple of poems I sent to a

Speaker A

seafarers magazine, which is published in India. It's called sailor today. And it's a it's a it was started by a ship captain. And now it's a very popular magazine. So I used to send these, uh, you know, stories and, uh, and my poetry to that magazine they used to publish.

Speaker A

01:10:07 Speaker 2: Oh that's amazing. 01:10:08 Speaker 1: And there was another, there was one article also which, you know, the so-called UFO, which I saw on the ship.

Speaker A

01:10:14 Speaker 4: So-called. 01:10:16 Speaker 1: UFO. I mean, it was it is still a mystery. What was that? You know, it was it could be bioluminescence, you know, uh, phenomena or, or, you know, it was in the middle of the night and it happened. So I sent this story after almost

Speaker A

eight or nine years. I sent this story to the seller today. They published it also.

Speaker A

01:10:35 Speaker 2: So did you find out what it was or it's still a mystery to this day?

Speaker A

01:10:39 Speaker 1: No, it's still a mystery because it was around two, two thirty in the night. My wife was at that time sailing with me. I quickly called up the captain. I said, you come up in those days. This was nineteen ninety one. I

Speaker A

was a. I was a second mate at that time or. Yeah, I was a second mate, so I called up the master at two thirty. I said, you know, there's something. And, you know, the people on board had recently bought these handycams, you know, the movie cameras. So I.

Speaker A

01:11:03 Speaker 4: Said, on the shoulders. 01:11:04 Speaker 1: Please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I said, captain, you just run up to the bridge. There's something I have to show to you. And same time I called

Speaker A

up my wife. Just run up. Come. So both came at the same time and we saw, you know, this really, you know, beautiful, colorful lights, you know, going this way all around in the center, there's a there's a revolving, you know, kind of a blinding searchlight. And I saw this thing slowly,

Speaker A

slowly, slowly land at the sea. There was no fog, there was nothing. And then, you know, I that time, you know, I mean, there was a lot of, you know, the scare, the mystery, the, you know, thing of what if there are, you know, aliens over there or whoever. And it came and then,

Speaker A

you know, landed and passed us like this on my starboard side. And we were in the Russian coast, you know, coming from Japan, uh, moving towards the USA. And, uh, it was amazing. But, uh, I wanted to send these, you know, the.

Speaker A

01:12:06 Speaker 2: So you weren't abducted. You weren't abducted? 01:12:08 Speaker 1: No, no, finally, we were not.

Speaker A

01:12:10 Speaker 4: Okay. Got that one. 01:12:12 Speaker 1: The funny part was that in the picture, the colored lights never came. Those spirally going outward.

Speaker A

01:12:20 Speaker 4: Only. 01:12:20 Speaker 1: The blinding light. Only the blinding light came in the in the in the picture.

Speaker A

When we saw the video later on. Interesting one of those mysteries. The captain never let me send these reports to the Hydrographic Department for whatever reasons. Otherwise, I wanted to, you know, send these reports at least, you know, we sighted something, you know, some phenomena is.

Speaker A

01:12:38 Speaker 4: There. 01:12:39 Speaker 2: Was he like a religious nut? And he thought they undermined his.

Speaker A

01:12:42 Speaker 1: No, probably at that time. I never asked him. I never asked him any question.

Speaker A

Probably he was wondering, you know, that will put him into too many. I mean, a lot of paperwork and messages going. And in those we are talking about the days when there were no emails, when there were no absolutely nothing in ninety one, ninety two, there was nothing on board.

Speaker A

01:13:01 Speaker 2: So so there's nothing on board. But you don't want to have to go into conversations about something that might make your life a bit more interesting.

Speaker A

01:13:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. 01:13:11 Speaker 2: Put my foot down. No, I'm used to doing nothing. So let's keep it at nothing. You stepped ashore to become principal of a marine academy.

Speaker A

How different was that leading on land versus at sea? Oh. 01:13:39 Speaker 1: I mean, you always feel out of place. I mean, the first time when you think of, you know, moving to land, you, you have sailed enough. You want to, you know, come to the land

Speaker A

and do whatever. You know, settle down kind of, you know, to the land life. And it's kind of a it's funny, you don't feel at home when you're on land because, I mean, it could be an oxymoron, whatever you call it. You know, you are on the ship that becomes your home. That is your life,

Speaker A

your lifestyle, everything. And you come on land, suddenly you realize you don't belong here.

Speaker A

And then you know, from a very disciplined life where you have your rank on your shoulder. People don't question you. Your authority is on your rank. And suddenly you come on land. Here you are dealing with youngsters and their parents who are equally involved with them, and they

Speaker A

are worried because they are putting their money. They are wondering what this life is and whether, you know, their children can go through wherever they want to go through. So you are dealing with, you know, different kind of a setup. And here you don't throw orders,

Speaker A

you are into counseling, you are into guidance and advice, different kind of lifestyle. But it became fun. You learn, you know how to how to deal with, you know, the new lifestyle. But like why I started this thing because teaching and

Speaker A

training was always very close to my heart. When I was a chief mate, I started, you know, taking classes of all the cadets on board Saturday, Sunday, I'll give them off Saturday, I'll set up a small paper. Few questions. Okay. These are the questions. Tomorrow, Sunday, come

Speaker A

to the bridge at so-and-so time and they'll be exams. So, you know, I would teach them, you know, take their mark, give them marks, etc.. So it was always very close to my heart. So I've.

Speaker A

01:15:43 Speaker 2: Done the. 01:15:44 Speaker 1: Ground thing. 01:15:44 Speaker 2: You've done the ground work before. Kind of that led you into it.

Speaker A

And you kind of transitioned easier because you'd already sort of been doing it right.

Speaker A

01:15:53 Speaker 1: Right. 01:15:53 Speaker 2: You also sort of went on to try and start a training center for kids to find work in the Merchant Navy. Yeah, yeah. That was in, I think you said twenty fifteen. Is that right?

Speaker A

01:16:06 Speaker 1: Twenty fifteen. Yeah. Yeah. When I quit one year, one year after I quit sailing. Yeah.

Speaker A

01:16:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. But it didn't work out though. Ravi. Why was that? 01:16:14 Speaker 1: Actually, the work ethics of my I had two partners. The work ethics didn't match with them in a way. There was one who was a seafarer, another one was a land person. So they

Speaker A

were more into business. I mean, I mean, it's fair enough. You know, they want to make money also, you know, with whatever they do. But my concern was of teaching and training the child, shaping up the career of the child and giving this child a direction and kind of help him go to the ship,

Speaker A

join a vessel. But these people were not bothered about that. They just wanted their money. And after that, whether they get the ship or not, whether they are capable or not, they were not bothered. So I kind of took out one batch, managed to put them with whatever,

Speaker A

you know, goodwill I had in the Merchant Navy. There were a lot of friends who were, you know, working in the shipping industry, so managed to put them on the ships here and there. Not all of them, but a couple of, you know, guys couldn't make it. So I eventually thought,

Speaker A

you know, this is not where I should be, you know, working. And I started online coaching, teaching, training free of cost, of course, which I'm still doing.

Speaker A

01:17:32 Speaker 2: MM. Yeah. I was going to say. So you've not tried to do another training centre. That ship has sailed.

Speaker A

01:17:36 Speaker 1: No. Once I, I, I was, I was a principal in a marine academy. That was a short time while I was sailing. I was thinking of leaving sea. So two thousand and four, till two thousand and six, I was in a. Do you. Have you heard of Rajasthan? Rajasthan? Yeah,

Speaker A

the state of Rajasthan. There's a there's a very popular city called Jaipur. 01:18:01 Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I've heard of Jaipur.

Speaker A

01:18:02 Speaker 1: Okay. So so I was in Jaipur for two years and there was a marine academy.

Speaker A

I was a principal there in the Marine Academy. So I worked over there. But somehow the Marine Academy closed down and I was back to sea in two thousand and six. For next seven or eight years, I was sailing again. So after after that, like in twenty fifteen, like I said, you know, I,

Speaker A

I wanted to do it in my city here in Chandigarh. It didn't work. And that was the end of it. And then in twenty sixteen, I joined this NGO for women and children next year.

Speaker A

01:18:36 Speaker 2: Okay. So let's talk about I had another question I was going to ask, but let's talk about the NGO. The NGO is on was on my list of questions, but you've just segued into it beautifully. So what is that about, Ravi?

Speaker A

01:18:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about women and children, empowerment of women. You know, this NGO is very old, actually. It was started by India's very first prime minister in nineteen forty eight. He thought, you know, the women and children, women of this country

Speaker A

must be empowered. You know, they should, you know, be given good coaching and, you know, the education and they should work on their own and be financially independent, etc.. So this.

Speaker A

01:19:13 Speaker 2: Was. 01:19:13 Speaker 1: In. 01:19:14 Speaker 2: The forties. 01:19:15 Speaker 1: In the forties.

Speaker A

01:19:16 Speaker 2: So that's very progressive by comparison. 01:19:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is in those days, you know, he had a vision. The Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. So, uh, and there are about, I think twenty, twenty two branches all over India. I am looking after the Punjab branch.

Speaker A

So the entire state I'm looking after. And it's it's got everything, all the all the, you know, everything to do with women and children, be it, you know, education or bad marriage or wife beating or child abuse or marital discord or any other issue. You know, so we deal with everything.

Speaker A

And then we also run a crutch for the children, crutch for the children of the laborers, you know, who go to work every day. And the children, they are with us. And we, you know, look after them all day and give them meals and a basic education, small children. And we have vocational

Speaker A

training centers like beauticians course or, you know, stitching and tailoring course. You know, we keep doing new things and, and also current, uh, topics, you know, whether it is pollution or drug addiction. So we keep doing different things at different times. But idea is to empower women,

Speaker A

make them understand that you know. Once they are financially independent, they are better off.

Speaker A

01:20:42 Speaker 2: That's that's amazing. What's what's the name of the NGO? 01:20:45 Speaker 1: It's called Indian Council of Social Welfare, Punjab branch I c s w.

Speaker A

01:20:52 Speaker 2: Amazing. It sounds like a full package. You've got everything you want there. Creche, meals, classes, counselling. Yeah. It's like a it's a it's an amazing service.

Speaker A

01:21:01 Speaker 1: We have a counselling centre, we have counselling centre. There are two girls which are employed by the government. I mean these are certain projects which are government aided. You know, we come under the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare,

Speaker A

so we take these projects from them, so they fund it. And with those funds we employ the counsellors and then they look after the issues or whatever. Yeah.

Speaker A

01:21:24 Speaker 2: I can't imagine the people that turn up to this place, this NGO working at to be particularly unruly, I imagine they're quite well behaved. Most of them.

Speaker A

01:21:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. We never have issues over there because they are basically the needy people, the people who have a fire inside. They don't have the resources, but they want to do something in life. You know, those people are the most disciplined people wherever you go.

Speaker A

01:21:50 Speaker 2: So they're the ones you want to, you know, give your time to because they, they won't want to waste the opportunity. Did you know, did you in your career, did you ever have the discipline, someone in a situation where, uh, it felt uncomfortable, emotions were running high,

Speaker A

you know, like you kind of didn't want to have to do it, if you know what I mean? But it was needed.

Speaker A

01:22:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, many times, many. 01:22:13 Speaker 2: Many. 01:22:13 Speaker 1: Times. There's too.

Speaker A

01:22:14 Speaker 2: Many. 01:22:14 Speaker 1: You always. Yeah, so many examples. You always find people, you know, who are the rebels or who want to talk or create problem at the wrong time. You have some kind of a crisis on board or some, you know, too much work is going on. Everyone is working and

Speaker A

working extra hours. And this one person who probably in front of everyone else, you know, he gets emotional. So you learn to handle these people. Yes, you discipline them. But, you know, like I always used to say, my idea of disciplining a person is not to insult him, but to

Speaker A

guide him and coach him, you know? So, you know, whenever a situation like that is there, okay, how would I handle that person? Probably I'll tell him, okay, I understand you have a problem. Can we talk after a while? You know, let us go through this and I'll definitely listen to you, you know,

Speaker A

maybe later on, call him to my cabin and tell him whatever he did, he's. You are a wonderful person. You are. You know, I know you are hard working. You are good. You are reports are good, whatever. But what you did publicly was not really, you know, which is acceptable under

Speaker A

the code of conduct and that, you know, when the person is alone with you, the temper is down. He'll forget because that person probably is more vocal in front of when he has an audience.

Speaker A

You know he wants his voice to be heard. Sometimes it does happen. So you are basically not hitting the behavior. You're not attacking the behavior. You're attacking the emotion, basically. You know, you are handling the person's emotion. I would say so, yes. Many times it happens. And I always used

Speaker A

to say, Pat the back publicly and kick the ass in solitude in private idea is not to insult the guy.

Speaker A

01:24:02 Speaker 2: Back the back, back. 01:24:04 Speaker 1: The back publicly. Yeah. Pat the back. You've done a good job. You are a good person. Let everyone else also know it. This person will feel so good. But when you

Speaker A

want to rip, when you want to reprimand him, you don't want to insult him in front of everyone.

Speaker A

Call him to your cabin. When he's alone, reprimand him. Tell him where he went wrong, what he should not be doing, what is expected of him will be perfect.

Speaker A

01:24:29 Speaker 2: Very good advice. 01:24:30 Speaker 1: And I never had never had issues, ever in disciplining people.

Speaker A

01:24:33 Speaker 2: Very good. Do you have any do you have any superstitions at sea or on land?

Speaker A

01:24:52 Speaker 1: On sea. At sea? No whistling, because one of my masters told. One of my masters told me, if you whistle, you are attracting bad weather.

Speaker A

01:25:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. 01:25:02 Speaker 1: So that's one superstition. Other superstition was every time if I completed this vessel and I. I love this vessel. This is a good vessel. I would love to come back.

Speaker A

When I'm going back, I'll kiss the hull. And once I am going, leaving the vessel, I will look back at the vessel. I don't know who told me. Once you look back at the vessel, the vessel will call you back, so I. I always followed that ritual on a on a vessel where I

Speaker A

was very happy, which went, you know, smoothly. So I would always kiss the hull while going while getting down the gangway, kiss the hull, and then when I'm in the taxi or wherever, or the boat, I look back and probably wave and she will call me back. And

Speaker A

I did a couple of shifts like that. Back to back, three contracts, four contracts.

Speaker A

01:25:48 Speaker 2: It's like a, it's like a, well, a relationship, isn't it? Ships are always characterized as a woman. So you're kind of like, bye, sweetie. I'll see you soon.

Speaker A

01:25:59 Speaker 1: The other thing, other thing, which I always believed in was Lady Luck. You know, the. Whenever there was any family sailing on board, the atmosphere was always very nice and, you know, happy atmosphere. So always found lady. Lady luck is always favoring the vessel. Other

Speaker A

thing was, when you see the albatross, that means bad weather. If you see the dolphins, good weather. So you know, these were all kind of superstitions which were there.

Speaker A

01:26:25 Speaker 2: Why is the albatross bad? Or why is the dolphin good? Is there a reason I don't know?

Speaker A

01:26:30 Speaker 5: I don't know. 01:26:31 Speaker 1: They were probably. Dolphins are always considered as a sailor's friend, you know. And when they are, you know, kind of going with the vessel and they are, you know, playing with the hull and with the ways they are with you, you see them and you actually can see

Speaker A

them smiling. But albatross why? I think because, you know, mostly you see the albatross around the coast of, you know, when you're coasting Cape Town, South Africa, you know, and South Africa, it's more or less always, you know, very rough because all the fronts are there. Bad weather

Speaker A

is passing here and there. And you see these albatross. So, you know, they are probably related. I don't know why, but that's the reason you see a lot of albatross in that coast. Mhm.

Speaker A

01:27:14 Speaker 2: Side note an albatross is considered bad luck to seafarers, primarily because according to maritime folklore, they are believed to carry the souls of dead sailors, while simply seeing an albatross was often viewed as good luck. Injuring or killing one

Speaker A

was considered a terrible omen that would invoke the wrath of the sea and curse the vessel. These birds are often seen as guardians, so bringing good luck to the ships that followed across the vast ocean. And the superstition was famously cemented

Speaker A

in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's seventeen ninety eight poem The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, where a crew is cursed after a sailor kills an albatross. The sailor who actually killed the bird is forced by his crewmates to wear the dead bird around his neck as a sign of his penance,

Speaker A

making it a metaphor for a heavy, unavoidable burden. End of side note. 01:28:08 Speaker 1: I always tell people, you know, I mean, now I can laugh about it, but at that time it was annoying and, you know, very ridiculous. It's like, you know,

Speaker A

you're having a shower in bad weather. You know, you're holding on to the railing and the sha, you know stream is coming on your head, but that stream is also going port to starboard and you are trying to, you know, align your head with that and you are holding on to the railing with the other

Speaker A

hand. Other hand. You are, you know, applying soap on your body. It's really annoying. And, you know, very, uh, that kind of a situation. But now I can laugh about it. Yeah. That's all your life. The other yeah. Other thing is, you know, when you're eating food at in bad weather,

Speaker A

and especially if your plate is full sometimes, you know, some people fill up the plate so much with curry and stuff that, you know, you have to kind of balance it with the roll. Otherwise, you know, everything is falling here and there and it becomes very annoying at

Speaker A

that time. Now later on, you can laugh about it, you know, so there are some.

Speaker A

01:29:05 Speaker 6: You need less curry and more foods in like wraps, you know, like, yeah, because that it's easier to hold and stuff.

Speaker A

01:29:12 Speaker 1: Solid food, solid food. Yeah. 01:29:14 Speaker 2: Solid food or just get some stabilizers.

Speaker A

01:29:17 Speaker 1: Absolutely. Or go to a cruise ship. 01:29:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. Ravi, I could speak to you for a lot longer, but unfortunately, we've come to the end of the call. Um, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it.

Speaker A

01:29:31 Speaker 1: Thank you. And I just want to add that why I joined the social service.

Speaker A

You know, the NGO? Yeah, it runs in the family. My father was a freedom fighter, social worker, politician in that order. And it runs in the in my blood. So every time I used to go to the ship when

Speaker A

I was a third mate, second mate, I always thought, I will do charity work in my life. And when I was a third mate, I joined the foster parent plan, uh, Rhode Island in in USA. And I adopted two

Speaker A

children, a girl from, uh, Colombia, a boy from Senegal. And I supported them three years. And I used to, you know, always advise the cadets and the juniors whenever you start earning money, some money you must put in for social work. It's your social or moral responsibility in life,

Speaker A

you know, to to do something for the others. And probably that brought me into, uh, this, uh, such NGO work, which is very soul satisfying.

Speaker A

01:30:30 Speaker 2: That's incredibly noble of you. And it's a very lovely message to leave on. I don't want to cap off with a stupid story after that, because that just kind of ruins the sentiment a little bit, but,

Speaker A

uh, what's next? Ravi? Have you got, um, are you back to the NGO in the morning?

Speaker A

01:30:44 Speaker 5: Yeah. Nowadays, you know. 01:30:45 Speaker 1: Things are easier on the phone. Half the stuff you can do on the phone, the messages and other things. But yes, sometimes you have to go and, uh, you know, personally

Speaker A

attend certain matters when you're dealing with the government or the things. But otherwise it's not that, you know, a disciplined kind of a thing. I don't have to go there every day.

Speaker A

01:31:02 Speaker 2: Well, as you said, you're up late and you're going to bed late, so you'll wake up late. But you know, it's nice to get out of the house once in a while. Ravi, don't forget that.

Speaker A

01:31:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes. And before we leave, I want to tell you. When you are laughing, you. You resemble Richard Gere a lot.

Speaker A

01:31:21 Speaker 2: Wow. I've never had that before. I have, I've never had that before. My mum used to think I looked or had mannerisms of Ben Stiller and, um. Oh.

Speaker A

01:31:32 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:31:33 Speaker 2: My my my my friends when I was in primary school, I think, or in secondary school used to think Jim Carrey, but.

Speaker A

01:31:40 Speaker 1: Oh no, no no, no way, no way. 01:31:41 Speaker 2: I used to.

Speaker A

01:31:43 Speaker 1: That's funny. Yeah. 01:31:44 Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Ravi. It's been an absolute honor to have you and, uh, all the best with all your future work, and hopefully we'll catch up again soon.

Speaker A

01:31:52 Speaker 1: Definitely. Thank you, Sam, for calling me. It's been a wonderful evening and good luck and God bless.

Speaker A

01:31:58 Speaker 2: God bless. Thank you Ravi. Speak to you later on. Take care.

Speaker A

01:32:00 Speaker 1: Yep. Sure. 01:32:01 Speaker 2: Bye bye bye. So there you have it. That wraps it up for this episode of DuckTales. I hope you enjoyed it. If you've been entertained by the tales of laughter, camaraderie, and the occasional stormy sea. Then don't forget to like, subscribe and leave

Speaker A

a comment. There are lots of other shows out there to compete with, so if you are enjoying DuckTales, why not help us out by going over to Spotify or Apple and dropping us a five star rating?

Speaker A

This will boost the show's visibility and help to attract new listeners every week. Before I sign off, if you'd like to share your own stories for future episodes, then I'd love to hear from you. Simply get in touch over the socials, because after all,

Speaker A

the best stories often come from our listeners as we navigate through the waters of life. Remember to enjoy the journey as much as the destination, as well as those you choose to share the adventure with. I've been your captain, Sammy Catlin. Until next time. Fair winds, smooth sailing,

Speaker A

and may your adventures be as unforgettable as those shared here on DuckTales. Bon voyage!

Topics:engine room firemerchant navyCaptain Ravi ChaudhryDeck Talesmaritime storiesbullying on boardfemale seafarersOBO carrierslife at seanautical narratives

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