The Modern Chief Engineer

The following insight is different from other articles that I have written; this is a personal and in-depth journey into a career that is as different from that of a Shore-Based Engineer as a South African Bottle Washer in Bombay has in common with a Mongolian Lion Tamer in Montreal!

When I was a Second Engineer life onboard had its ups and downs, certainly some days seemed to be rather sweatier and oil soaked than others. Sometimes life resembled a full blown Olympic games without enough time to think and other days a tiddlywinks game in slow motion! Being a Second Engineer I always had somebody else to moan and groan about (the Chief is useless, he never comes down, couldn't organise a piss up in the brewery, sort of thing) whilst knowing full well that should anything go wrong the Chief is ready to take on the chin whatever pops out of the hat, usually anyway. When I was a Second I hated Chiefs to invade my space to make a nuisance of themselves in the engine room but conversely if they didn't come down I would always grumble about their lack of interest in the job and how they never showed their faces! In fact they could never win whatever they did. Overall though my Second Engineering days had purpose and whether stuck under an engine or counting spares the days rolled into one and a life at sea!

I am here now, I am the Chief and in charge with all routed to me in times of disaster. I am he who once was the subject of many a withering glance of annoyance and anger and I am he who now finds that being a Chief is not quite the same as being a Second. I used to think it would be the same, just with larger shoulder to take the responsibility!

For the sake of discrepancy or misunderstanding I must clarify what an actual Chief Engineers duties are onboard a vessel, were he stands in the hierarchy of ranks and culture of life onboard. The Chief Engineer is basically the second in command under the Captain. Major decisions of any sort are routed to these two old fogies. Here the river splits; two tributaries that have nothing in common with each other. In brief and simplified form the Captain looks after all matters pertaining to the deck, passengers and navigation of the vessel and to aid him in this task are a series of Junior Officers and seamen who are suitably able to tie fancy knots and who know were the sun sets (on a clear day of course).

The Chief Engineer on the other hand has the rather arduous task of keeping anything remotely mechanical in working order, or for that matter to get it fixed should it not be doing what it was designed to. Various other tasks arise, including the unofficial one of winding-up mates but in general the main aim of any Chief is to keep the engines turning, the structure intact and the toilets flushing in a safe and productive manner. To aid him in this task is a small army of engineers and oilers who bear equal rank and position to their counterparts in the deck department and whilst one might be staring at the stars the other under an engine they share the same tables and position as each other.

I am certain that many people ashore picture a Chief Engineer wandering around a glittering array of gleaming bare steel pipes, stooping every so often to wipe off an oil speck that nobody else can see whilst sweating invisibly under the weight of his fancy gold braid. Or an image might spring up of a grimy, shrivelled and oil streaked hunchback screaming unintelligibly into the tube that "the bloody things are overheating". And I suppose these pictures could be joined by many others, some which might include steam pipes hissing or spanners larger than humans flying across engine rooms but by and large all of these imaginative pictures would be wrong.

Certainly I get dirty and I am often tempted to throw a spanner or two at an engine or machine that adamantly refuses to jump when I tell it to (and a few engineers to boot) but modern day seafaring does not entertain these jolly old images for long. Here and today as in any business ashore, paperwork has become the ways and means by which life ticks forward. Forms have to be filled, occurrences documented, offices kept updated and files made on each and every aspect of life onboard. No seafarer from the Captain downwards can escape from the mountains of paper that encroach into daily life, paper controls the way the world turns and ships are no different. Nearly every action and reaction is documented, many vessels are in 24/7 contact with their head offices and should it care to be mentioned ships have experimentally been controlled remotely and without the need for humans at all! Thankfully though office goons have not quite grasped the essentials required to steer ships or fix engines so humans still remain onboard to do the necessary. In this respect paperwork is the ingredients through which offices and organisations keep tabs on the minions and so there we have it, mounds and mounds of forms and tables to be filled out and completed and millions of signatures and ships stamps to be adhered to anything from flimsy little blue bits of paper to large and impressive pink watermarked pieces of artworks that would put many an aspiring artist back to the dole queue with head hung low.

Paper, computers, they are all the same. In fact even though the ship is riddled with computers they only seem to serve to generate more paperwork!

In short, life as a Chief is no longer that of an engineer scratching his balding head in consternation but that of a computer bound desk jockey, the only difference being to that of a life ashore is that the computer on the ship is lashed down just in case a large wave should try and make its mark.

Oh, not every minute of every day am I be found behind the computer. Certainly I find time for many other occupations, and jobs that require my attention. My favourite one is were I walk down six flights of stairs to the control room to get something, get involved in some conversation or other about nothing, walk back up six flights only to realise that what I had originally walked down for was still down there. In fact I do this at least twice a day on average!

So from hairy arsed engineering to desk jockey, dirty boiler suit to a slightly cleaner one - that is the life of a Chief Engineer. Despite the paperwork life is good and no Second will ever dare to tell me to keep out of the engine room, it's were I started and were I will finish and he can grumble all he wants to.