Eagle Auriga
5th
March 2002 to 6th
September 2002
I join this
vessel after the 911 incident, my sign off had delay for a month due
to security issues and both me and the Second Officer had to go to
the airport at least 5 hours before the flight for the security
clearance procedure. We are the first to try out the procedure after
the 911 incident and the check in luggage had to be open up for
inspection and all the items inside had to be wipe by a chemical
paper to check for any explosive content.
I had manage
to break up with my girlfriend due to her unreasonable demand of long
phone call which is not possible after the 911 incident. I had went
for a backpacking trip to China spending a week each in Guangzhou,
Shanghai and Beijing after that.
I took over
the Generator from another third engineer and all are due for major
overhaul, we mange to complete one of the major overhaul with two
second engineer in just two days before one of them sign off and the
other one took over.
The remaining
two generator had to be done over the span of six day with two units
per day as we had a lot of STS Operation after that. The other
engineers will keep 6 on 6 off watch while me and fifth engineer will
carry out the overhaul during the short voyage out of the river.
Most of my
time are spend on preparing the cylinder heads at the Generator
Platform, each generator had 6 cylinder heads and each cylinder head
will take about a day or two to prepare. With the major overhaul of
all the three generators with 18 cylinder heads to prepare and
service, most of my time on this ship are spend on the job.
There are a
lot of leakage around the engine room, cleaning also took up most of
our time as there are a lot of oil major inspection coming one after
another. Fifth Engineer CJ is always complaining about the job, but
his complain doesn't really have any effect and in the end he still
had to carry out most of the job against his own will.
Second
Engineer Sam doesn't really talk much, he became a contrast to Chief
Engineer Patrick who join later who like to talk a lot. Chief
Engineer Patrick join the company after he left another better
company when he was third engineer, he always comparing how life were
better in the previous company. When he first join this company he
cannot get use to the fact that most of the job had to be carry out
by engineers ourselves, he use to having engine crews in the previous
company and all he have to do is just supervision.
Our company
happen to let other company manage 4 of our vessels later towards the
end of my sailing career, one of my fourth engineer met the crew from
the other company and try to chat with them about machinery
maintenance. He realize that the engine crews actually know more
about the machinery than the engineers as they are the one that do
the actual job.
Chief
Engineer Patrick told me more about the famous Rogina, he was sailing
on one of the vessel and Rogina was the Third Officer. Most of the
guys onboard were very interested in her but she only have eyes for a
fourth engineer name Soh Hai. So one day the fourth engineer went to
Chief Engineer Patrick and start crying and saying that he had been
sexually harass by the Third Officer. When Patrick ask about the
details he found out that Rogina had brought some candles and light a
path from fourth engineer cabin leading to her cabin.
I had heard
about how two of the girls from my batch had join a container ship
and turn the vessel into a love boat where one having a relationship
with Second Officer and the other had relationship with Third
Engineer. There is also a Professional Third Engineer who sail on one
vessel with his wife, when the vessel arrive Singapore the office
inform him that his wife had requested to join the vessel. He start
to panic and that is when they realize that he is having two wives in
different countries, some rumor say he actually got three wives in
three different countries too.
