LIFE ON A TANKER:

SLEEPING ON A
MOVING VESSEL

January 9, 2017

“When we started rolling I couldn’t get over

the novel feeling that my bed was on a
rollercoaster for young children…”

By: Karen Campbell

As a VIP guest, as some of the guys liked to call me, I was given one
of the nicer cabins on board. Everyone on board had their own cabin
and washroom, my cabin was just bigger than most. It was the Pilot’s
Cabin, situated on the deck house level, directly across from the
bridge. Typically it would be used when the ship was on routes that
require long stretches of pilotage, where two pilots would be on board
spelling each other off. The easy access to the bridge also makes it
perfect for visiting students (though it was some five flights of stairs
away from the engine control room, which made the engineer in me a
little sad). Aside: I also was really interested to learn why the ship’s
small gym had the label ‘Suez Crew Cabin’. Similar in concept to the
 pilot’s cabin, this communal cabin was designed as a space for the
specialized crew that comes on board to take a ship through tricky
spots like the Panama or Suez canals.

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:
 The pilot’s room had a bed oriented in the forward-aft direction and a
couch in the port-starboard direction (at one point I was told that
some nights, depending on ship motion, couches were better to sleep
:
 on). There was a desk with a window view looking aft toward the
stack. A wardrobe by the door contained an immersion suit and
lifejacket. The bathroom was lined with the same plastic siding as
the rest of the ship, and had tile floor raised three or four inches
above the rest of the cabin’s carpeted floor. The faucets throughout
the ship took some getting used to – you pushed down to open them
and up to stop the flow – and the toilets were on a vacuum system,
much like an airplane.

I’ve always had trouble sleeping on any

“THE type of transportation – I’m usually way too
OMNIPRESENT excited to sleep if I’m moving at all relative
VIBRATION to the surface of the earth, or sea in this
THROUGHOUT case! Trying to fall asleep on a ship was
THE SHIP especially difficult – being the nerd I am,
WAS even the variations in the omnipresent
SOMETHING vibration throughout the ship was
I WANTED something I wanted to pay attention to,
TO PAY and when we started rolling I couldn’t get
ATTENTION over the novel feeling that my bed was on
TO” a rollercoaster for young children.
Somehow the entire effect was both
unsettling and soothing at the same time.
One night early throughout the trip I woke up to realize we were
rolling more than I’d experienced so far. I grabbed my phone to film
the objects sliding around on my desk and the curtains swinging
back and forth. The dark and blurry film ends with the objects flying
off the end of my desk from my perspective as I jump out of bed
trying to catch them. I started leaving my laptop on the floor after
that night. In my first few days I was completely enthralled by the
case of the ‘wandering water bottles’ as I liked to call them. After
several times coming back to my cabin and finding that the
waterbottles I’d been given had moved from where I put them simply
due to the vibration of the ship (we weren’t rolling at this point), I set
:
 up my camera on a tripod to catch their movement in 2-5 minute
increments. I told a couple of the officers about my experiment –
they thought it was funny how excited about it I was, and teased me
about there being ghosts on the ship.

Walking around with the ship rolling was

“I also something I had to get used to. The
LEARNED roll period and distance of travel are much
TO TIME larger than what I’m used to from smaller
THINGS vessels. It wasn’t particularly noticeable
LIKE below maybe 10 degrees off parallel;
OPENING above that, it factored into how you might
OR move around – for example I started doing
CLOSING things like modifying my walking to time
DOORS, with high or low points. I was delighted by
PULLING the prospect that I could walk downhill at
OUT all times if I so chose. I learned to time
CHAIRS, things like opening or closing doors,
AND pulling out chairs, and simply how I moved
SIMPLY around with the motions of the floor
HOW I underneath me. This helped a little, but
MOVED the motion wasn’t entirely predictable, so I
AROUND occasionally felt a bit like an oaf as I
WITH THE moved around. I was also significantly
MOTIONS more cautious about wandering out onto
OF THE the wings of the bridge when it was
FLOOR rougher. Taking showers with the ship
UNDERNEATH rolling around was also kinda fun,
ME.” watching the water bend relative to the
walls and slosh back and forth on the floor.

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Karen Campbell is a naval architecture and marine engineering

(M.Eng.) student at the University of British Columbia. She
:
 completed her bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s
University. She recently had the opportunity to go onboard one of our
conventional crude vessels, the MT Australian Spirit. Over the course
of 13 days, she had a front seat view at a vessel in action once it left
the shipyard – and also got a glimpse into what life is like at sea.
This series is a collection of essays about her experience. We hope
you follow along as she talks about touring the ballast tanks,
mealtimes, work-life balance, community and family onboard, social
activities, living on a tanker, and being in the bridge while sailing
into port. Read more about Karen’s experience:

$ A Naval Architecture Student’s Perspective

$ Exploring the Ballast Tanks
$ Together at Mealtimes
$ Work Hard, Play Hard
$ Pilotage into Bayway

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 Life on a Tanker: January 27, 2017 January 9, 2017
Blog
Together at Blog Blog
Mealtimes
November 24, 2016 December 7, 2016 November 17, 2016
Blog Blog

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