Sailing Days Musings by Jeff Mudgett

Sailing Days Musings by Jeff Mudgett,co-founder of the Maritime Executive Magazine and former Editor. Mudgett sailed for a number of years reaching Chief Mate before becoming an attorney.

Thirty three years ago, my time as cadet aboard the ARCO Juneau was an honest to God learning experience. She was a 120,000 deadweight ton tanker plying the Alaska/Pacific Coast crude oil trade. Her crew was an amazing collection of odds and ends and something just this side of the character list in a Mel Brooks movie. Check out these credits: the Captain was a dual license genius from Kings Point; eccentric to say the least. The Chief Engineer, bless his soul, was the fire breathing curmudgeon of the fleet; the man who could fix anything, but positively hated all school ship cadets. Come to think of it, he hated just about everything. The cool as a cucumber Chief Mate was James Bond personified and a fellow Keelhauler. The Errol Flynn like Second Mate was the closest I’d ever seen to a real pirate, especially with that French girlfriend of his- I think her name was Dominique- picking him up on the berth at the end of each trip. At twenty, that Second Mate was my hero. Rounding them out was Kim Estes- the fleet’s first black third engineer and ex-Corp Commander of the California Maritime Academy- more importantly, my best friend and teammate for three years on the school’s basketball team. Oh, and before I forget there was one other ‘character’ to make up this floating Housewives of New Jersey cast- Willie the didn’t-have-a -last-name boson, who I knew just had to be a full blooded Comanche Indian or something. He was as fierce as the fire was hot and drunk as the day was long. No one crossed Willie, no one with half a brain, except, of course, the Captain. The exclamation point to this seagoing circus was of course me, the too tall, too skinny and too hungry cadet from Vallejo.

Less than one hour after my having first stepped onboard, things quickly began to unravel. Hungry, who could have guessed, I went looking for the galley to grab some of ARCO’s world renowned chow before standing my first sea watch departing Long Beach Harbor. Unaware of the ‘rules’ and too wet behind the ears to decipher the barely suppressed giggles around me, I took the first available chair instead of the one normally reserved for cadets, the one around the corner. Savoring the deliciousness of the completely true stories about the food, I hardly noticed one of the third mates scamper from the compartment, apparently afraid of shrapnel, or my ex-teammate trying to signal me by kicking my leg below the table. Ignoring him, I did what I always did back then- I just kept eating. The roar that then erupted eclipsed that of the huge steam plant below. That and being pulled over backward and slammed to the deck, ending up covered in food and drink, looking straight up into the Chief Engineer’s drooling, reddened face. You think you’ve seen the eyes of the tiger, I don’t think so, for it seems I’d been sitting in his chair and no one sat in the Chief’s chair, certainly not the damned cadet. You see, no one had warned me, not sufficiently anyway, of this seagoing sacrilege. Seconds from my certain demise, the Captain stepped in and saved me from being keelhauled my first day on a real ship, by explaining to his Chief that I was an ignorant cadet who had been used as the butt end of a bad joke by his engineering staff. At that explanation, the Chief grumbled something incoherent and ordered me away with a sweep of his broad hand. He then sat down and began eating; staring down his crew until in no time at all he was the only one left sitting at his table. None had the courage to join him at the next meal for dinner either.

Saved, but still a cadet, the Captain informed me that a storm was brewing off Conception, the seas outside were going to be rough and as a safety precaution he was going to need me to stand a steering engine room watch after departure. His reasoning was that if a steering failure occurred at the wheelhouse, the mechanical steering in the aft station could be used to direct the ship to safety. All the one standing watch was required to do was wear headphones and, should an emergency ensue, turn a small circular stainless steel wheel to the numbers ordered- something even a green cadet could do. So, coke, ham sandwich, and Alistair Maclean novel in hand, off I went, convinced of my sudden importance. It didn’t turn out to be that bad really, not for the first six hours anyway. It was warm and cozy and for the first time since I’d stepped aboard the tanker, no one was yelling at me. But all that warm and cuddly slowly began to change. Minute by minute, the situation began turning worse, as the painfully loud, steam filled, bulkhead to bulkhead steel compartment jumped and lurched, eventually making avoiding falling down and getting hurt my most important consideration- and for twelve more hours. After a while, it was pure torture.

To make a longer story shorter, it turns out the bridgewatch had forgotten to call me up once we rounded Conception and the Captain, having assumed they did, took me for in my rack, sound asleep. It wasn’t until they missed me at breakfast, already knowing how much I ate, that they grew concerned with me having fallen overboard. So just before they executed the first Williamson turn of their careers, the light went off in the Captain’s head and he sent the Second back to drag me up from below decks. I can still hear the laughter around that mess deck table, all enjoying the discomfort of the goofy cadet. I’ll never forget two of the faces: the Chief Mate’s, ashamed of his schoolmate, looking at me like I was an idiot for not having simply picked up the phone and asking what was going on and the Captain’s, who instead looked at me as if I were the model for honor, discipline and toughness. Do any of us have a snowball’s chance in hell of figuring this life out?

Tired of hearing the Captain ramble on about the idiot from his school and duty, the Chief Mate instead scheduled me to work tank cleaning with the Boson. The Juneau having been equipped with automatic crude oil tank cleaning equipment, I still can’t quite figure out why four deck hands, the third mate and I went down into that cavernous, black, smelly depth, but we did and let me tell you, that tank with ventilators howling and its two small portals of sunlight eighty feet above our heads was Dante’s Inferno. And the bottom was a two foot thick, foul, gooey, grimy mass that would have made a cockroach sick. But we had our orders. So, decked out in safety gear, we climbed down and tiptoed over girders listening to that third mate- who knew nothing about the subject either- talk about tank cleaning. We did our best, or worst depending upon who was counting, scrapping it up with shovels and buckets as best we could. And all without, heaven forbid, touching any of it! After two hours of this fiasco we had collected about two milk cartons of the what had to be tons of stuff. Thinking back now, we must have looked just like that indoor cat on the wet deck.

The Boson, that old pro, having watched it all and being fed up with the mate’s foolish lectures, decided enough was enough and screamed out in what must have been as close to a Comanche death shrill as any living person had ever heard …and still lived to talk about. He slid down the ladder, ran down the girder, cuffed me alongside the back of the head, stood straight and tall not three feet from where I was standing and proceeded to swan dive the four or so feet directly onto and into the muck below, landing with a world class belly flop that I can still hear in my bones. He then stood up, still screaming, wiped the muck on his face as if it were war- paint and pointed, rather sinisterly I might add, down to his feet. His meaning was very clear. We immediately scampered down next to him- third mate included and shoveled as hard as we possibly could. Legend has it we cleaned that tank in less time than any before it, or ever since.

P.S. That third engineer, and still my best friend, Kim Estes, is up this month for an Emmy for his work as a supporting actor in the series House. Go Keema!