wrote in news:qaupc3h03p9djjkjr2fidcn3tmfhs02em2@
4ax.com:



Crew of 13? One watch officer, one on the wheel, and one lookout times
three shifts. Plus a cook, the skipper, and the chief engineer. Twelve
right there. The seven masted schooner Thomas Lawson, had steam
winches to work the sails, and a crew of 18, and I believe Lakers
mostly have a crew of 29.

The engine room crew work a standard 8 hour day with annunciators in
the engineer's quarters. Direct engine control from the bridge. At
night, two people on watch., maximum. The "autopilot and the chart
plotter" steer the boat and the O.O.D. writes up reports and MAYBE
there is a man on watch. Say, Captain, two watch keepers X three
shifts, Cook, Two deck hands and a three man engineering crew......


Where you folks get your versions of ship's crew is beyond me.
No such thing as an OOD on Merchant ships. Engineers have alarms in rooms
for duty engineer during night. Auto pilot normally steering but only few
have GPS and waypoints inputed to make course changes. Master does not
spend his day on bridge.



Maresk has the reputation of under stating the capacity of their ships
and outside estimates of capacity are in the range of 14,000 TEU's
giving a possible cargo capacity of 245,000 tons.

Go to www.pancanal.com to watch ships go through the locks in the
Panama Canal. Mostly boxboats.

The world's freight travels by container. Try and get old fashioned
"deck cargo" any more. We were trying to ship a 28 ft. sloop back to
the west coast and "luckily" there was a conventional cargo boat that
ran back and forth between two ports on the east coast and Phuket,
Thailand carrying raw rubber. Otherwise the boat would have to have
been shipped on a container carrier and billed at the cost of the
number of containers displaced by the boat. Plus the cradle would have
to have standard container hold downs and lifting eyes.

It ended up as a "no sale" as we couldn't get it back to the U.S. at a
cost much less then the selling price.

Plenty of "breakbulk" still running.... alternate method to ship yachts
is on an "carcarrier"