Is there a shortage of seafood on board? Shouldn't the least valuable thing be seafood, but vegetables are more precious?
Seafood on board is also a matter of purchase
Want to buy? It's not like you want to eat it and just cast two nets. I always thought the boat was flooded with seafood.
The above passage of dialogue does not know how you will feel after reading it, the reason why there is such a question is because some people do not understand the seafarers as a group, may hearsay say some things and preconceived not to think that as seafarers some things are taken for granted. So I'm here today to talk to people who don't know about the ship and the crew, and there's something on board that's very different from what you think. (I am referring to ships here to ocean-going cargo ships and the crew on ocean-going cargo ships, that is, seafarers)
The first is that eating seafood on board is not a common thing, and the seafood eaten on board is purchased from local vegetable merchants in the port when the ship docks at the port. It is not because the boat sails on the sea, so they eat seafood every day, if so, then those who live by the sea do not have to buy seafood, and those who live by the river do not have to buy fish.
Eating on board is also the same as ordinary families, three meals a day. It may be that the crew comes from different places with different customs and habits, so there will be some differences in diet. When the ship is sailing, it is impossible to cast a net, and there is no fishing net on the boat, and the general people who can cast the net are professional fishing boats, and the ship is impossible to fish on the boat during the voyage.
The crew on the ship is fishing, but generally the ship is in the process of drifting or anchoring, and when the ship arrives at the port, it is generally not allowed to fish, because the general port has no fishing regulations. Just like when you get to someone else's river, you can fish casually, it is obviously impossible, and others are forbidden to fish.
The second is that the vegetables on the ship, especially the green vegetables, are not as scarce as you think, and the general green vegetables can be kept for ten days and half a month in the ship's vegetable warehouse without problems. And vegetables are not only green vegetables, but also which can be preserved for a longer time, such as onions, carrots, broccoli, potatoes and so on. Just like you are at home, it is impossible to buy vegetables every day, sometimes buy a dish once and put it in the refrigerator for several days, and you will not eat green leafy vegetables every day, the potatoes and onions and carrots you buy at home are not also dishes that have been preserved for a long time? Some boats may buy vegetables once for a month or two, but the ship I am currently on buys three times a month, which is still due to the epidemic and try to buy as few vegetables as possible. Before the pandemic, boats like ours bought vegetables on average six or seven times a month.
There are also some people who think that the crew may not see land for several months on board, which is even more ridiculous. Our ship is a near-ocean vessel, which calls at one or two dozen ports a month, and the longest sea voyage time is almost three days. At present, the long route from Hong Kong to Panama is close to 10,000 nautical miles, and the container ship sails for almost twenty days, and the bulk carrier may take a little longer, but it will take about a month.
In this regard, container ships have advantages, because container ships sail fast, and now the market is better, basically fast sailing.
I once ran a boat from the Panama Canal to Shanghai for about 9100 nautical miles, and it took 15 days to arrive. At that time, the speed of the ship exceeded 25 knots, and the whole process needed to be dialed faster by one day, 11 hours slower, that is, 11 days, 25 hours a day, and the daily sailing distance reached more than 600 nautical miles.
Then the ship is sailing 24 hours a day during the voyage, people can rest, machines do not have to rest. The driver's station is kept in turn with the first two and three first officers, each of whom is four hours at a time. And the ship sails on the sea at night, the driver's lamp on the ship is extinguished, and the curtains in the living area are to be closed. Black lights are more conducive to looking, and driving on the lights at night is completely different.
Finally, when the ship's crew member is disembarked from the ship, another crew member will come on board to take over. The number of crew members on a ship varies from company to company, generally between eighteen and thirty. The salaries of crew members in different positions also vary greatly, with captains having the highest salaries and interns having the lowest salaries. The salaries of crew members of different ship types and different shipping companies also vary greatly, so there is no conclusive conclusion on crew salaries.
The above is just that I see more people who do not know much about the crew, because I have been running container ships, so some aspects may be slightly better than bulk cargo tanks.