In recent months, I have heard several times that the pilots deliberately made things difficult for the ship to pass through Panama, causing the ship to delay crossing the river. At first, I did not take it seriously, because I have always had a good impression of the management and services of the Panama Canal, just like the canal. The charming tropical rainforest scenery on both sides of the strait is the same, until recently, my personal experience has subverted the original cognition. Therefore, I decided to write it down and be a kind reminder for colleagues' reference, which may be helpful.
It is planned to enter the Pacific Ocean through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and then return to China. According to the afternoon before the scheduled date of passing the canal (no later than 02:00lt on the same day), our ship successfully anchored in the northwest of the sea off the CRISTOBAL breakwater, and boarded the ship at 1515LT the next day. It was planned that our ship was at the fleet number S10, and the actual 0518LT arrived at the PILOT STATION (the mouth of the breakwater). The first pilot successfully boarded the ship with a boarding speed of 5 knots. Due to epidemic prevention and control, all crew members are required to wear four sets of epidemic prevention suits: protective clothing, masks, face shields or goggles, and rubber gloves. As soon as PILOT boarded the ship, his attitude was very unfriendly. He had to walk into the bridge from the living area, otherwise he would not lead the boat (during the epidemic, the pilot water was generally allowed to go outside).
After the water was brought to the bridge, he got angry again and again, complained that we were wearing protective suits and disrespected him, mocked that everyone was like a WHITE RABBIT, and kept expressing what seemed to be "reasonable anger". When he had a conflict, he could only explain it well: "During the epidemic, we traveled through various countries, and the risk factor was high, and it was also for everyone's safety... At the same time, the company also clearly stipulated and so on." I thought that PILOT's vexatious troubles would end with our friendly consolation, but I didn't expect that the nightmare had just begun.
About 500 meters before entering the first gate, the speed of the ship is 2.2 knots, and the PILOT requires the bow thruster to turn to the left at full speed (BOW THRUSTER FULL TO PORT). I was worried that the water diversion would take advantage of the problem. After checking with the old track, after turning off some unnecessary equipment loads, I took a risk and adjusted the thruster load to 100%. However, PILOT said NO GOOD, IT'S PROBLEM, we must let it go. The chief engineer came up to explain and repaired it. It was ridiculous. With a side thrust of 900KW and a full-load displacement of more than 40,000 tons, how could the effect be immediate. I knew in my heart that the Chief Engineer came to no avail. Once he came up, he would have less flexibility to deal with it, so I explained that the Chief Engineer couldn't go away and kept procrastinating.
During the period, the worst thing was that PILOT insisted that the cooling effect of the air conditioner was not up to standard, and secretly called the canal authorities to complain (the canal prosecutor has inspected the equipment of our ship, and the condition is good, including the air conditioning system), PILOT also Said to me, due to the fleet adjustment, I passed the third LOCK and went to drop a short anchor first, which I believed at the time. It was not until ten minutes later that I received an inquiry call from the company on the bridge that my boat had been delayed to cross the river due to a complaint about the air conditioning system. After hanging up on the phone, he was furious, but quickly realized that he couldn't get angry, otherwise it would be counterproductive. First of all, go to check the thermometer on the bridge, the actual temperature at that time was 26 ℃, take evidence, photos and videos, and send them to the company and the agent to ask the authorities to reconsider and verify. In the third LOCK, the canal authorities sent a third-party inspection engineer to board the ship to inspect and test the air-conditioning system, including the bridge and living area, and finally concluded that the temperature was comfortable and normal, and the plan of crossing the river was resumed again, but The anger that caused the diversion rebounded sharply, and the difficulties became even more intensified. The second PILOT boarded the ship at 0625LT. The two of them seemed to have negotiated well, and then began to criticize the protective clothing of my ship, especially the PILOT reported earlier, which was even more unreasonable. They communicated, otherwise, they refused to communicate. For the sake of safety, of course, we did not agree. We still maintained peaceful exchanges and tried our best to avoid the escalation of conflicts.
We made it through the canal anyway, and although it wasn't delayed, the results were good, but the process was a real ordeal. To sum up, I think we should not only carefully prepare the inspection content stipulated by the canal authorities, but also prepare how to deal with a series of malicious difficulties from PILOT. Maybe there is any interest relationship behind it, we don't know, the only thing we have to do is Resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of ships from being infringed.Want to ship goods in China? Contact us!
