Long day....

[Grant Lamontagne]

Some of my posts earlier may seem a little scatter brained, and for that I apologize.  I had a hell of a day today, and here's why it'll be an early night for me tonight!

I worked at the dockyard where we import cars from Europe- for those who don't yet know what I do, I survey cargo, and one of the biggest clients I have is a shipping line called Wallenius Wilhelmson, which is a large shipping line.  What I do for them is verify inventory and make notations of any damage of European cars coming into our port.  All European cars coming into Canada come through my port, but not all through WW.  I only deal with Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Land Rover, Rolls Royce and a few others.  I don't do any of the VW brands.

Anyways, we had a larger than average ship, but by no means a HUGE one- just over 1,600 cars this week, while the average is usually 1,200-1,500.  As an aside (I told you I was a bit scatter brained!) today's ship was the Faust, which was featured on the Discovery Channel's Mighty Ships:

http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/mighty-ships-/mighty-ships-season-1/#clip279823



It's the world's largest car carrier, and it's one of many ships I work on.

Getting back to the story, today was going to be a long day, taking about nine hours to unload all the cargo, and my job is to keep an inventory of what comes off, and assess any damage that might have occurred in transit- bearing in mind that I have to go over 1,600 cars with a fine toothed comb (not literally!) to find even the tiniest of scratches.  This was made more difficult as it was only a few degrees above freezing (+4C), moderately high winds (gusting to about 50kph- worse of course at the dock!), all during a heavy rainfall warning.  We got several inches of rain today, and coupled with the wind and cold, it was a very unpleasant day, and I was outside for the whole bloody thing.

I soaked through three pairs of gloves before I gave up on wearing them, and I was glad that my insulated rain suit and very expensive workboots held up- for the most part at least.  The rain was driving at about a 45 degree angle to the lines of parked cars I was walking up and down, which meant that my right boot sprung a leak around 2pm from walking into the rain, and the back of my left shoulder sprung another leak moments later while walking down the next line.  This process continued for the next few hours until we were done, and I sat in the Jeep for a while before driving home, trying to warm up, at least enough to get my fingers to work well enough to drive home safely!

Days like this only happen a couple of times a year, and it's part of the job and I accept that, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it when it happens!

Def

[Pacu]

Ever find a car totally trashed from shipment?

Good thing Jeep heaters work almost instantly.

the settings are deep space-earth-and hell. no in betweens

[Gareth]

That sounds like no fun at all boss.

[cerbera147]

What a crappy day  but what an interesting job 

Is there ever that much damage to the cars? I guess there is a lot of movement on the trip over 

[DaveK]

It's good for the soul though Def - technically you are a better person after a day's work like that 

[jzmtl]

Did you use the teletubby suit you showed the other day? That looks would work well in this situation.

[donvito]

Feel warm and get your well deserved rest. I've worked outdoors at some of my earlier jobs and one of them involved being outside, rain or shine for 8-12 hours standing up with plenty of movement. One particular day the replacement shift was running late and we got a few extra hours to "enjoy" the rain. After a while you just accept it and actually get to enjoy it in a weird kind of way, I still love the rain (being in it outside) while everyone I know does't. That night when I got to take a shower my fingers and toes burned under hot water from being frozen over, and gloves and rain suits only hold up for a few hours, gore tex liners with water prof boots helped

[Dunc]

Sounds like a bad day Def    Sounds like an interesting job , ever tempted to take some of the cars for a spin ?

Dunc

[Zed]

yep sounds like a crap day, so feet up hot cuppa and relax  as said does sound like a interesting job Def, should take the rolls for a spin, or should i say BMW    

paul

[Whoey]

You forgot the part where you woke up and thought the sites were offline again, but it was just your router.



Sounds like a downright smurfty day to be out, shame the port is not here it's been between 12-18C lately... currently 14C @ 10:30am

[hawkchucker]

Yup bad day! But really look into Redwings. Uber expensive, but the best boots out there. Like Wearing sneakers!

[Gareth]

Feel warm and get your well deserved rest. I've worked outdoors at some of my earlier jobs and one of them involved being outside, rain or shine for 8-12 hours standing up with plenty of movement. One particular day the replacement shift was running late and we got a few extra hours to "enjoy" the rain. After a while you just accept it and actually get to enjoy it in a weird kind of way, I still love the rain (being in it outside) while everyone I know does't. That night when I got to take a shower my fingers and toes burned under hot water from being frozen over, and gloves and rain suits only hold up for a few hours, gore tex liners with water prof boots helped

I actually know where you are coming from on this, BUT there has to be the prospect of a hot drink and shower at the end of the day IMO.  If all you have to look forward to is a cold tent and putting on the same wet clothes the next day it can be extremely tiresome.



Yes, sometimes Gore-Tex just isn't enough.

[Whoey]

I'd of figured by now 90% of the clothing in the UK would be made with goretex

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I'd of figured by now 90% of the clothing in the UK would be made with goretex

Not till Adidas start making it (chav dig)

Bugger me that's a big ship boss

[WhichDawg]

wow boss, what a day! I saw that show on the ship, it was very interesting.

good clothes would be important for your job, and I agree, Gortex would be nice; some really nice (and expensive) stuff out there!

[Grant Lamontagne]

It's good for the soul though Def - technically you are a better person after a day's work like that 

I'm a good enough person now...

This isn't the worst day I've worked- I've actually done much worse in the past and survived, but it's amazing how much it takes out of you each time you do a job like this.  I woke up this morning almost as wiped out as I was when I went to bed last night, as if even sleeping was as energy consumptive as walking all day!

I'd love to take some of the cars for a spin, but that would likely cause some serious problems as I'm not authorized to do that.  In fact, my job there is to assess the integrity of the cargo, and driving the cars around might affect that (I could be blamed for any damage already on the car) so we are very careful with what we do, as our entire purpose is about liability.

Last week we had a nice big Unimog come in, and if you've read any of my posts at all you'd know how badly I wanted to take that out for a spin!

Most of the damage we see is minor- drivers getting in and out of the car occasionally scratch the paint behind the handle or chip the edge of the door.  We also see some damage on the wheels and tires from the lashing, but for the most part the lashing crews at both ends are pretty good at what they do.  Transit damage is pretty rare even though the cars are packed within inches of eachother.  The tires are lashed down so the only movement each car has available is the flexibility in the suspension.  That usually allows a few inches of travel in any direction, but even in heavy weather every car is moving in unison so they don't come in contact with eachother.  Occasionally something will break loose of it's lashing and get damaged, or simply be packed wrong, like in the case of a John Deere tractor that got it's roof caved in by a movable deck that was lowered a bit too far.

The drivers also damage cars, occasionally banging them into eachother when parking or taking corners too sharp on the ship and dragging the side of the car against a bulkhead.  It's a terrible thing to see a car like this:



with the side caved in and the ship's yellow paint all over it, before it's ever even been owned or really driven by anyone.  

The other thing we monitor is mechanical damage resulting from the drivers.  We don't raise the hood or anything, but most of the cars coming off the ship have governors on them to keep drivers from "opening them up" to see what some of the really nice ones sound like.  Tragically, that doesn't stop the drivers from trying to open them up.  I saw a pretty sweet Mercedes come off one day and the driver was trying to gun the thing all the way across the parking area.  He managed to get it up to almost 35 kph, and just about burned out the engine/transmission.  We could smell it burning a few hundred yards away!



As for what I wear, well I have a good insulated rain suit (not the survival suit!), and a good pair of insulated and waterproof safety boots rated for -40 degrees.  However, as any survival/outdoors expert can tell you, you are more likely to freeze to death in the rain around the freezing point than you are at -40.

Def

[zepla]

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

One of these days I'll get a MOG!

Def