Antwerp - Finland
DAY 8
- by Nikki and Pol
- Friday, July 22, 2022
The Timca is experiencing a restless night (to our mind). After rounding Skagen, the fog quickly lifts. But 2.5 meter high waves make the ship move brighter and 'creak' louder, with sounds I have not heard before. By morning, the North Sea calms down and a chilly greyness hangs over the water that persists until late afternoon.
At around 10h30 we meet Bas, a fourth year student in the HBO course at the Maritime Academy Holland (apparently a level between regular and higher maritime school that does not exist in Belgium).
He will guide us through the engine room, in Dutch, as Gisela is not coming with us.
We descend deeper into the Timca than we ever have before, put on earmuffs, and follow Bas into the ship's heart that beats with an infernal noise. What we see there - we learn afterwards - are two engines of 14,000 hp (10,500 kW) each driving two 30-meter-long propeller shafts and four generators. They provide power to everything on the ship that needs any kind of energy. The two floors of the huge engine room are therefore packed with (peripheral) equipment and accessories of which mostly only Arnout, a civil engineer by training, understands the function and purpose. For example, the Timca has its own desalination plant, which works with the cooling water from the two engines. And in a separate room are the separators, which filter the sulfur from the exhaust fumes.
All this machinery is supervised from the control room. In an estimated 15 meter long corridor you see there on both sides only control panels with at each pointer, switch or indicator light a picture that refers 'somewhere'. This is the realm of the three machinists or 'engineers' (a 1st, a 2nd and a 3rd, all Russians) and the three 'wipers', Filipino sailors whose job it is to almost literally sweep everything clean.
In a place where we can hear each other, Bas enthusiastically talks about life and work on board the ship.
He himself is here to add another series of days to his 300 unpaid days at sea as an internship in his training. And he loves being on the Timca. Shipping company Transfennica works on this ship with two permanent crews that alternate. The crew members regard the Timca as 'their' ship and take much more care of it than is usually the case on other ships. Bas also confirms that the Filipino sailors earn around 800 to 1,000 dollars a month, and receive an extra month's pay when they return to Transfennica after their vacation.
When we are back upstairs, Gisela joins us for the dessert of the tour: Bas will show us a lifeboat. The Timca has two of these: submarine-like orange craft, each with room for 40 people, powered by a simple diesel engine. Every ship, even the largest cruise ship, must have enough lifeboats on port and starboard side for all the people on board. After all, in the event of an accident, these boats may be unusable due to the heel on one side.
Bas opens the hatch and lets us in on the lifeboat: four rows of seats with safety belts, under the benches supplies of drinking water and a sort of 'super energy bars'... but fairly cramped for 40 passengers. In emergency situations, it seems, even the most hardened sailors are obliged to take a pill against seasickness if they end up in this boat. After all, being trapped in such a shell on a rough ocean with a pack of people after having just survived a traumatic experience is sometimes too much for even a steely sailor's stomach.
Also on board: a fishing line. Not to provide food (a portion of raw saltwater fish would do you no good in those conditions), but to pass the time until rescue shows up.
Before closing the lifeboat again, Bas let the diesel engine run for a while.
They do this once a week, he says, as a test. You do want these things to work faultlessly when you really need them. Another tip: according to Bas you could buy such lifeboats for 1,000 to 1,500 euros. He knows a man who has made a pleasure boat out of them and is now sailing the canals of Amsterdam.
After a short detour via the bridge, we go to the table for lunch. Our intention is to read or write a bit afterwards, but soon Nikki and I lay down and we don't wake up until two hours later. Does it have to do with the total relaxation that has come over us in the meantime? Then we do some reading and writing, until it's time for the last dinner.
Special dinner this time, because Jim prepares us, as promised, a few classics of Philippine cuisine. We enjoy what is probably his personal version of sinigang: a slightly sour-sweet broth with pieces of chicken and some vegetables, flavored with ginger and tamarind, basically a soup you eat with sticky rice. He also prepared adobo, pork ribs cooked in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce and a tiny bit of spice, served with a variation on pilaf rice and slices of cucumber in a vinaigrette of vinegar and sugar. We ourselves improvised a glass of cool French white wine to accompany all this goodness.
To lick off thumbs and fingers!
Then we install ourselves in the TV room for half an hour for the News on One. Then we went to the bridge again, not to miss the Timca approaching the Belgian coast and then taking a big turn to sail up the Scheldt. Through the binoculars we can see the coastal towns, from Cadzand over Knokke to Ostend. When we are close enough to Vlissingen, the 'pilote' boat approaches at high speed. This boat berthed itself on the starboard side of the Timca, so that the pilot could get on board through a hatch (which seemed simple from our vantage point). When he appeared on the bridge 91 steps later, that was the signal for us to disappear and let the people there do their work undisturbed.
Around half past eleven, we return to the bridge, hoping to see once more that science fiction-like nighttime bustle of the container port. When we get to the top, the steaming cooling towers of Doel are just passing by. But instead of turning right into the container port, the Timca sailed straight ahead, towards the Kallo Lock. Joris from CptnZeppos had let us know via WhatsApp that he was on duty as a boat(s) man at that lock tonight, and that our ship was expected there at around half past three.
All four of us installed ourselves in a dark corner of the now dark bridge, so as not to get in the way of the pilot and the Estonian second mate for sure, and followed how the Timca gently sailed up this rather... dark stretch of the Scheldt.
When the ship docks in the lock, we see through the binoculars how indeed Joris Van Bree, together with a colleague, catches the stern mooring lines and puts them around the bollards. He pays no attention to his customers high above him, is "focused on the job," as he whatsapps afterwards. And we don't want to yell at him, because right below us crew members are sleeping.
We didn't wait for the Timca to exit the lock, but returned to our cabins for a few more hours of sleep. Although we don't succeed immediately because of the rumble of the ship while maneuvering and mooring in the dock.
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