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Old 07-02-2020, 08:02 AM   #1
The Colonel
 
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Default Any sailors aboard?

Was left wondering recently about the processes of crew getting on and off ships in the modern era - especially as it applies to moving characters across large water obstacles.

When a merchantman docks, do immigration/border control come aboard and rummage through the crew or do they only process those going ashore? Do merchant crews even go ashore routinely anymore, given that a lot of these Conex facilities and bulk loading docks are not close to anything in particular?
How do such ships victual? Does a ship come out to them or what? Do old fashioned general cargo and reefer ships operate anymore or is it all conex now?
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Old 07-02-2020, 12:17 PM   #2
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
When a merchantman docks, do immigration/border control come aboard and rummage through the crew or do they only process those going ashore? Do merchant crews even go ashore routinely anymore, given that a lot of these Conex facilities and bulk loading docks are not close to anything in particular?
How do such ships victual? Does a ship come out to them or what? Do old fashioned general cargo and reefer ships operate anymore or is it all conex now?
Everyone on board gets their paperwork checked, both passport status and medical reports. (Obviously you could hide someone aboard, with the connivance of enough of the crew.)

Resupply is usually a very boring-looking catering delivery van.

Taxis will come and take the crew to drinking and whoring establishments, and deliver them back later if they aren't paying for hotels ashore. (There are always drinking and whoring establishments within a taxi-ride of a large port.)

Conex is primarily a US term (strictly it refers to the smaller Vietnam War-era containers rather than the modern ISO-standard ones); for the rest of the Anglophone world it's "container" or if you're in the trade sometimes TEU or FEU (twenty-foot / forty-foot equivalent unit).

There may be a few refrigerated transports left, but you're much more likely to ship a refrigerated container (with power hookups) aboard a normal container ship. There's basically no breakbulk cargo any more. You get some specialised tankers, but anything that can go in a container does.
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Old 07-02-2020, 02:40 PM   #3
johndallman
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

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There's basically no breakbulk cargo any more. You get some specialised tankers, but anything that can go in a container does.
There are still a fair number of bulk carriers. Where there's a lot of something cheap to be shipped. there's little point in packing it into containers.
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Old 07-03-2020, 03:02 AM   #4
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

I did see some article about current real-world problems in the shipping industry from Covid-19 because crews can't take shore leave or be flown home at end of a tour.
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Old 07-03-2020, 04:29 AM   #5
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

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There's basically no breakbulk cargo any more. You get some specialised tankers, but anything that can go in a container does.
There's still some breakbulk cargo shipping, but most of it is from container port to riverine ports.

Quite a number of palletized loads go by river in Alaska, especially up the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. (for about 6 months of the year, the Yukon and Kuskokwim are navigable. You can get most of the way to Fairbanks)

A number of small ports along the southcentral Alaska coastline also get serviced by breakbulk shipping. Some are islands, others in non-road-accessible mainland areas.

I've seen loads and unloads, but never from an onboard perspective.
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Old 07-03-2020, 04:46 AM   #6
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There's basically no breakbulk cargo any more. You get some specialised tankers, but anything that can go in a container does.
2018 statistics for Anvers port :

Container : 122 Mtonnes
Bulk (liquid) : 73 Mtonnes
Bulk (solid) : 12 Mtonnes
roll-on/roll-off : 5 Mtonnes (of which 3.9 vehicles)
Various : 10 Mtonnes

So, about 5% of breakbulk (various and non-vehicular ro-ro) by Tons

Last edited by Celjabba; 07-03-2020 at 12:48 PM.
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Old 07-03-2020, 07:35 AM   #7
The Colonel
 
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

Thanks all, that sounds useful … and that you're not going to get a tramp steamer plot anywhere familiar in the modern era.

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Everyone on board gets their paperwork checked, both passport status and medical reports. (Obviously you could hide someone aboard, with the connivance of enough of the crew.).
I'm guessing that, unless border control are tipped off, this is going to just mean the captain is told to muster his crew and the people who turn up are compared to the ship's papers. Presumably anyone who actively hides stands a reasonable chance of not being spotted.

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Conex is primarily a US term (strictly it refers to the smaller Vietnam War-era containers rather than the modern ISO-standard ones); for the rest of the Anglophone world it's "container" or if you're in the trade sometimes TEU or FEU (twenty-foot / forty-foot equivalent unit).
Didn't know about the size shift - to be fair, most of my experience with containers is with them being used for pretty much anything but shipping (usually overflow storage and temporary facilities for site work), so I have no idea why they are getting called ConEx boxes. Presumably someone watched some American TV at some point and it spread...
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Old 07-03-2020, 07:43 AM   #8
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Default Re: Any sailors aboard?

You amy want to search for "Freighter Cruise" travel blogs, writers and other artist that spend some time as passenger on a freighter.

I know a couple, but they wrote about it in French. However, I am sure it also exist in English.
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Old 07-03-2020, 12:41 PM   #9
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Thanks all, that sounds useful … and that you're not going to get a tramp steamer plot anywhere familiar in the modern era.
According to wikipedia, the tramp trade is not quite dead, and maybe even coming back.

And maybe you should take a look at the feeders.
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