DISQUS

Correct JP!

Fixed, thanks M.

Paul,

I agree, Cota's main error was in not recognizing the mess around him. The other errors can be summed up in the report statement:

"Captain Cota was unaware that Captain Sun and his crew had only joined the vessel on Oct 24 (two weeks previously) when there was a change in the vessel's ownership.".

The most I have personally seen in a two week period was an 80% change of the marine dept and this was followed by the closest near-miss I have ever witnessed.

It is hard enough for one individual to work with a new bridge team aboard an unfamiliar ship. It is criminal to have every member of the bridge team try to do this and the company official who made the decision should be on trial. In my opinion Captain Cota and Sun suffered from the less objectionable charge of cowardice for not walking off the vessel.... but how many captains have you seen walk away from an operation they knew was unsafe? It's a common problem in the industry as fear of loosing one's job seems to trump fear of an incident.... surprising to me considering the myriad of employment opportunities available to mariners today.

I do, however, find it hard to dismiss the fact Cota completely forgot he had a tug alongside. This seems inexcusable.

Very interesting comments! Thanks for the insights everyone!!

MV,

Agreed!

Fixed, thank you!

Seesmic video reply from Disqus.

Not too many American ships use PASS devices and if they do it's usually for the Fire Teams. While reviewing confined space rescue techniques, this was suggested and since we already had them in the Fire gear locker we decided to give them a try. They work great.

We later found out that MSA makes one specifically for this task (but it works the same basic way):
http://www.msafire.com/catalog/product748.html

Mr. White,

Can you be more specific with the problems you are experiencing?

Thanks!

Michael, the only post titled "review" only posts links and video provided by 3rd parties, not commentary by gCaptain.

Unfortunately we are not journalists and do not have degree's in Journalistic Practices. We are mariners who work on ships, our expertise is the sea.

As mariners we live by the mariner's creed "One hand for you and one for the ship". If we can save lives we do, without thinking of the economic impact to the company that pays our salary. To this point gCaptain, or any of our bloggers, has not received any monetary compensation from Golden Shellback and does not have any contract in place. Do we hope this changes in the future? Yes. Are the other blogs aware of our relationship? Yes.

The bottom line is this technology is going to save lives and we want to help promote it.

I will update the FAQ with a brief explanation on the relationship and move these comments to a more appropriate place on this blog.

Michael, why do you think they gave me the exclusive? Maybe because we designed and built the on line services for NMI?

I understand your concerns which is one reason we facilitated demonstrations with tekzilla, CNET and gizmodo shortly after posting. Prior to that the video was an exclusive.

http://tinyurl.com/5sbbyz

Remco, Depends on the repair but one coated circuit board could be changed out for another coated one if each part was coated at the factory.

Scott,

It doesn't protect against the pressures experienced at depth.

Rick,

The coating uses ideas learned from the manufacturing of semi-conductors so it's bonding at the molecular level. Speakers and touch screens are seemingly unaffected. The contacts need to be masked, either by coating the device with plugs attached or applying tape.

Believe me... it's real! Just don't ask me technical question about how they do it. I'll try my best to give an overview of the process in my next blog post.

Of note, all future posts about Golden Shellback can be accessed directly via the following link. Be sure to bookmark it!

http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/tag/golden-sh...

-John
Founder & CEO
http://gcaptain.com

Texino.... we have way too few mac techs in the Maritime world. Thanks for the comments! -John

uscg.mil ;)

You guys are way to fast!

Peter,

I whitnessed an ensign try that with a Master Chief once. I must say he was very nice in his refusal!

Victoria,

Sounds like an fun class!

Thanks OneEighteen!

Brian, this is based on Marcket Cap (what Wall Street thinks the company is worth) not the size of a companies assets.

While Transocean doesn't transport anything they do own quite a few of the world's most technologically advanced and largest vessels.

Thanks Scott and be sure to spread the word!

Mike... we accept cash, check or charge ;)

Good point Ben.

-John

Glenn,

It's great to hear from you. Please feel free to post any stories from the time, we'd love to here them!

KC,

HA... having worked Chief Mate as recently as a few months ago I can say with conviction it ain't much better.

Now the position was on an exploratory drillship but during my 6 years time in position I witnessed the proportion of deck time to desk time completely invert. Part of the problem is that the ship had full time internet, email and reletively inexpensive phone lines which created a second inversion. When I started company HQ was often called "shoreside support... now the majority of calls are from shore asking the ship questions like "What is the HP of your thrusters?" (actuall question I recieved on my last hitch). In Feb every ship was asked to conver all JSA's and checklists from excel to word format. This took me and the Jr. mates a week to finish... and cold have been easily completed by a High School Intern for $10 an hour or an Overseas outsourcing agency for $0.50 per hour. And don't get me started on the ISPS reporting.

Now the Captain has it worse BUT he also has the power to deligate tasks to the officers. The Chief Mate has the power to deligate tasks to the unlicensed crew but as you can imagine SMS reporting is not the stron suit of *most* AB's.

-John