[Old_Salt]

What did the storm say to the sailor? You’re going overboard!

So it was the last day of our annual seminar in Mumbai when I was advised that there is a urgent need to proceed to Shanghai and Ningbo to carry out joint inspections with external parties on some of our assets calling these ports.

I was like a fish at the party, having a whale of a time which ended abruptly as I was aware of Typhoon Bebinca brewing up in South China sea.

Bebinca made landfall in Shanghai, China, becoming the strongest typhoon to hit the city since Typhoon Gloria in 1949.
Due to Bebinca, both Shanghai International Airports cancelled all flights.All highways inside the city were closed, while driving speeds were limited to 40 kilometres per hour.
This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I only arrived SGH a day after Bebinca made landfall.
Just before landing in SGH



Weather in Sgh..



The inspection was pushed by a day, this allowed me to spend some time on Nanjing Road and visit The Bund.









We carried out our joint inspection at Yangshan port, part of Port of Shanghai which is the largest port in the world.





After inspection we were happily enjoying the best weather which SGH had to offer and waiting in hotel for the next vessel to arrive from Ningbo.

That’s when Port of Ningbo announced closure and asked all vessels to evacuate.
Tropical Storm Pulasan, On September 19, made landfall in Zhoushan,Ningbo, followed by a second landfall in SGH, just days after Typhoon Bebinca affected the Shanghai area.


As the vessel got delayed, we had to travel by road from Shanghai to Ningbo over the Hangzhou Bay Bridge which is a long 35.7 km (22.2 mi) highway bridge with two separate cable-stayed portions, built across the mouth of Hangzhou Bay. At 35.673 km (22 mi) in length, Hangzhou Bay Bridge was among the ten longest trans-oceanic bridges.

Somewhere on the bridge..



After reaching Ningbo and completing the joint inspection, two back to back storms had pushed the network into heavy congestion and as a result I had to reshuffle my assignments.

This took me to Singapore to board the next vessel and on a 4 day trip to Hong Kong.

Long walk along the Singapore River and dinner at Hawker Chan which use to be a Single Michelin Star Restaurant.





Vessel had come straight from Santos/Brazil after a 3 week long sailing and had 2 long days in port to carry crew change and pick up stores, provisions and fuel.
Soon after we left, our weather routing system, SPOS alerted us that a tropical depression in the area had now developed into a Typhoon, Krathon.

The present wind speeds are close to 100knots or 200kmph.

Double red flags are out



Another Typhoon although away from us was heading towards Japan, Typhoon Jebi.




We left Singapore yesterday morning and as they say, between storms, we find our calmest seas.

The calm before the chaos.







This is how we scrub it..



Something about storms..

Hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones all start out as a ‘tropical disturbance’ when water vapor from the warm ocean in the tropics or subtropics condenses to form clouds. This is when you first see the pattern of wind circulating around a center.



They develop over warm tropical oceanic waters between June and November, although they can occasionally occur outside of these months.
Have a spiral or circular system of strong winds rotating around an eye, sometimes hundreds of miles across in diameter
However, not all tropical cyclones become hurricanes or typhoons. They begin as Tropical Depressions, graduate to Tropical Storms when winds reach 39 miles per hour, and become hurricanes (or typhoons) at 74 mph, at which point they are classified by levels and additional titles.
Tropical cyclones above the equator spin counterclockwise, while those below it spin clockwise. This is not a difference in storms, but rather a result of the Coriolis effect, a force in physics causing our position on earth to shape our perspective.

Interestingly, If a storm forms in one place and crosses over the International Date Line, it will change names. For instance, in 2014 Hurricane Genevieve formed in the eastern Pacific but became Super Typhoon Genevieve as it moved west and crossed the International Date Line

Hurricanes and typhoons begin to lose their strength once they hit land. Without the warm waters of the ocean to fuel them, they eventually decrease in both speed and size until they dissipate. Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen quickly enough to prevent irreparable damage.

For now our ETA Hong Kong has been pushed ahead by a day, but this sure will turn out to be a bumpy arrival due to the aftermath of the typhoon.

Weather you like it or not, goodbye!

[Blue Express]

Lovely pictures, and an excellent and detailed writeup! Always had a confusion between the three - Hurricane, Typhoon & Cyclone which has been explained to the point.
Could you explain more on how difficult it feels in the vessel when the storm passes?

[Jeroen]

Thanks for sharing! Brings back some memories.

My first trip as a, then still apprentice, marine engineer took me to join the vessel NedLLoyd Florida in Singapore. This was in the late 70’s.

A couple of weeks later we we moored in Hong Kong. In those days general cargo ships moored on a buoy, not alongside a quayside. So called lighters would take the cargo off and bring new cargo to us.

It was here I encountered my first typhoon. We stood a full watch on deck, bridge and the engine room as the typhoon past right over Hong Kong. The Florida broke her mooring and we had to drop both anchors! The typhoon blew us all around and we twisted the anchor chains badly. Several vessels were less lucky and grounded.

It took us a full day of careful manoeuvring to get the anchor chains untwisted again. You don’t want to be out in open sea when a typhoon hits you. However, staying in sheltered waters such as Hong Kong wasn’t without certain risk either.

Many years later whilst sailing on the KNSM vessel Hector in The Atlantic oceaan we became aware of a hurricane brewing. We decided to take shelter in Barbados. A tiny island in the Caribean, also the most easterly island in the Caribean.

I was suppose to stay onboard as it was my turn for keeping the engine room watch. But the Chief engineer took my watch. That night I met a very nice lady. A year later we were married and the rest is history as they say! So, sometimes strong winds bring good tides too!

Jeroen

[pedrolourenco]

Originally Posted by Old_Salt

So it was the last day of our annual seminar in Mumbai when I was advised that there is a urgent need to proceed to Shanghai and Ningbo to carry out joint inspections with external parties on some of our assets calling these ports.

If you don't mind me asking, what type of inspections do you carry out?

[ashkamath]

Awesome thread. Loved the way you shared your seafaring experience, that's a seafarer, weathered and taking it in the stride.

Popeye, the sailor, looks great.

@pedrolourenco, I believe Old_Salt is an ex- Master mariner / Chief engineer and now as a vessel superintendent who does routine/ regular boarding sail a voyage or two conducting inspection of vessel, maintenance advisory, drydock planning of the company vessels & also as a coordinator with all his company vessels. He is a vital link between the ship & shore.

Ofcourse I would love to hear more from him.

[Old_Salt]

Originally Posted by Blue Express

Lovely pictures, and an excellent and detailed writeup! Always had a confusion between the three - Hurricane, Typhoon & Cyclone which has been explained to the point.
Could you explain more on how difficult it feels in the vessel when the storm passes?

Thanks, well the whole idea is to avoid the storm as far as possible. With advanced weather observation and weather routing systems, we can make better and timely decisions. The systems can predict the path/track with good accuracy and ships actually either slow down, turn around, or wait for the storm to pass.
But saying that, storms do bring in a fair amount of rough/heavy weather. That is unavoidable. We have a checklist before getting into such areas and start battening down/securing the vessel.

I had once in my training days on the Hyundai Innovator, a container vessel doing the Pacific Northwest route, gotten stuck in a storm near the Aleutian Islands(Alaska), which eventually pushed us up into the Bering Sea.
It was like visiting the dark side of the moon.

As my favorite quote goes, "The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great ship-handling", so avoid bad weather at all costs.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thanks for sharing! Brings back some memories.

My first trip as a, then still apprentice, marine engineer took me to join the vessel NedLLoyd Florida in Singapore. This was in the late 70’s.
It was here I encountered my first typhoon. We stood a full watch on deck, bridge, and the engine room as the typhoon past right over Hong Kong. The Florida broke her mooring and we had to drop both anchors! The typhoon blew us all around and we twisted the anchor chains badly. Several vessels were less lucky and grounded.

Jeroen

Thanks for sharing, PnO NedLLoyd was eventually bought out by our company in 2005 and I have the pleasure of working on a few of the old NedLLoyd ships.
Hong Kong still provides Typhoon Shelters and anchorages but I can imagine the effort to untangle those chains.

Originally Posted by pedrolourenco

If you don't mind me asking, what type of inspections do you carry out?

Originally Posted by ashkamath

Awesome thread. Loved the way you shared your seafaring experience, that's a seafarer, weathered and taking it in the stride.

Popeye, the sailor, looks great.

@pedrolourenco, I believe Old_Salt is an ex- Master mariner / Chief engineer and now as a vessel superintendent who does routine/ regular boarding sail a voyage or two conducting inspection of vessel, maintenance advisory, drydock planning of the company vessels & also as a coordinator with all his company vessels. He is a vital link between the ship & shore.

Ofcourse I would love to hear more from him.

Sir, as @ashkamath pointed out, I am an ex-Master Mariner now working as an Assurance Superintendent. I carry out ISM/ISPS/MLC/ISO14001 audits.
The joint inspection was called by Flag State DMA(Danish Maritime Authority) along with MSA(China).

[sailorgonewild]

Wow! It’s exciting to meet a fellow mariner over here. So just to clarify - you’re employed by a third party who were hired to send you for the inspection by the DMA and MSA?

[Old_Salt]

Originally Posted by sailorgonewild

Wow! It’s exciting to meet a fellow mariner over here. So just to clarify - you’re employed by a third party who were hired to send you for the inspection by the DMA and MSA?

I am the internal auditor with the company and as part of annual exercises participate with different flag states like MPA, MARDEP and DMA to carry out inspections.

[pedrolourenco]

Originally Posted by Old_Salt

Sir, as @ashkamath pointed out, I am an ex-Master Mariner now working as an Assurance Superintendent. I carry out ISM/ISPS/MLC/ISO14001 audits.
The joint inspection was called by Flag State DMA(Danish Maritime Authority) along with MSA(China).

That's cool. I'm also a Master Mariner. Currently sailing on Oil-Chemical Tankers. In our company too we get Internal Auditors who sail wit the vessel for a few days.

[marinerandy]

Nice to see so many mariners on this forum. I am a sailing Chief Engineer with a small gig on shore as technical supritendent. Recognized early that shore job is not my cup of tea after being 22 years at sea. And ohh the audits! They are sometimes the nightmare, especially AMSA and USCG. But of late USCG has gone little nimble on the seafarers. It's the China and other small countries which are becoming stringent. Hope to have a small meet up in future with the fellow mariners.