Crew location during dry dock ?

[horseymike]

Where does the crew reside during a ship’s time in dry dock ?

[Meander Ingwa]

 

 

[BruceMuzz]

Dry Dock is the busiest time of the year for ship's crew.

In most (not all) dry docks, the crew lives onboard - sometimes in their own cabins - sometimes in guest cabins. Many times the crew is required to move when the renovations affect crew areas. In extreme cases, crew are housed and fed in hotels or on accommodation ships located nearby. This is a very expensive option for the cruise line.

Often, the hundreds or thousands of contractors who are renovating the ship are housed in passenger cabins and fed onboard. The crew is very busy cleaning up after them and feeding them.

Galley staff keep cooking.

Housekeeping Staff keep cleaning cabins and doing laundry.

Waiters and barmen keep working in their areas.

Reception Desk is open.

Shops, Casino, Shorex are closed.

 

Ship renovations create a great deal of debris and waste materials. Crew members are issued safety uniforms and equipment, and assigned to teams that remove all the debris from the ship.

Ship renovations are also dangerous. Some crew are issued radios / ship telephones and stand fire watch or security duties.

During renovations in the dry dock, the company attempts to maintain elevators, water, toilets, elevators, aircon, and electricity onboard. But the renovations often require some or all of these services to shut down for hours - or sometimes days.

When aircon, toilets, and electricity stop working, a cruise ship gets very uncomfortable very quickly. The crew just has to work through it.

[horseymike]

Thanks for the replies.  Very interesting and extends my respect for those who crew the ships.

[57redbird]

Our favorite waiter in Club Orange on the K was going to be on fire-watch during the dry dock.

[Heidi13]

4 hours ago, horseymike said:

Where does the crew reside during a ship’s time in dry dock ?

 

In addition to having managed a shipyard, I have completed around 20 drydockings on cruise ships, cargo ships and Ro/Pax. Where the crew resides depends on the graving/floating dock facilities and the scope of work.

 

On all my live aboard vessels, the crew slept and ate aboard and had FW for washing (most of the time), but no guarantee of toilet facilities. Since most areas on the ship are on a 5-year inspection schedule, at times the sanitary facilities were shut down and we had to use the facilities ashore. Not all services were available, with air conditioning being shut down on most of my drydocks.

 

From a deck department perspective, our ratings were working on scaling and painting the outer deck areas and also within the hotel area, as required. They also worked on maintaining the taff rails, stripping, sanding and re-coating. They also performed the routine deck maintenance.

 

As Deck Officers, we were assigned an area of responsibility to provide quality oversight to the shipyard and/or contractors. We received a copy of the scope of work, within our assigned area. Day 1, we had to liaise with the shipyard/contractor to determine and record the schedule for each job. As refit progressed, we monitored the progress of each job, checking if it started on time and finished on time. We also performed continuous quality inspections. If jobs didn't start on time, we advised the Master and/or Superintendent, who ran it up to the shipyard. When quality issues were noted, we initially dealt with the shipyard/contractor rep and if not resolved, passed it up to the Master/Superintendent.

 

When the scope of work required Flag/Class inspections, we completed quality checks on the work completed by the ship crew/shipyard/contractor, then scheduled a Flag/Class Inspector to conduct the survey and sign-off.

[horseymike]

Sounds nothing short of a Herculean task.

[CruiserBruce]

28 minutes ago, horseymike said:

Sounds nothing short of a Herculean task.

Yes, when you understand that everyday out of water is money lost for a ship owner, whether freight or passenger. Most drydocks of cruise ships are planned down to the minute, frequently restricted to 2 weeks or less, and everything required is ordered months in advance to be there before the ship gets out of the water. The shipyard goes 24 hours a day to get things done. People here complain work is started before the ship drops off it's passengers, or is sometimes unfinished when the first pax get back on board. It is an extremely complicated affair.

[MBP&O2/O]

Much the same as I remember. Once in the dry dock then minimal facilities. No toilets at all.

Porta-loos on the dockside, sometimes for more than a week.  

Occasionally, they came to fumigate the ship ... cockroaches ... which was a night ashore in a fleapit hotel 😄

It used to kill the cockroaches .... but not the eggs 😏

It was nice to be able to strip down things and sort at leisure, and get hints and tips from the techies😵‍💫

[chengkp75]

My experiences as Chief Engineer for cruise ship dry dockings.

 

Most cruise ships have special stations (much like the bunkering stations, where the fuel hose goes into the ship while loading fuel) to take sea water provided by the shipyard's pumps to cool a generator.  There will be a special flange on the cooling water overboard, where the shipyard will connect a hose to take the cooling water away.  This allows the ship to run one of its main generators, and keep all hotel services running (lights, AC, galley, toilets, etc).

 

Nearly all work in the hotel areas (both front of house and back of house, like the galley and laundry), is done by sub-contractors hired by the cruise line, not the shipyard.  As noted previously, this can range to over a thousand workers, and they will be housed onboard to keep cost down (no hotels, as these contractors are generally flown in from other countries) and to eliminate commute time (they are working where they live).  These workers will live in guest cabins, so cabin stewards will still need to service these cabins (though not daily), galley staff will still need to feed them, some wait staff will be needed in the MDR and buffet, but for the most part, bar staff will be assigned other duties like fire watch and clean up.

 

Crew like spa staff, shop staff, casino, etc, are hired by the concessionaire, and generally leave the ship, as do entertainers.  Cruise staff may or may not remain.

 

As noted previously, there are times where certain services are taken down for maintenance, repair, or inspection, like AC, toilets and fresh water, but these are pre-planned to minimize disruption.

 

Shipyards do not normally work 24 hours a day.  The maximum number of workers will work "day shift" (8-10 hours), and then there will be a "night shift" of about half the number, who work another 8-10 hours.  Generally, there is no "graveyard" shift.  The contractors work a 12 hour day.

 

As Chief, I was the primary contact between the shipyard and the cruise line's technical supervisor (my boss, and in overall charge of the shipyard period) for doing much like what Andy stated above regarding Deck officer duties, but not only for the technical maintenance (engine room, hull, machinery), but also the mechanical aspects of hotel maintenance (new galley/laundry equipment, etc).  This also meant that I was the one who the shipyard contacted whenever there was a problem.  By the end of a 14 day shipyard, I developed a noticeable twitch whenever someone shouted "Chief", and my hair was grayer and there was less of it.

[horseymike]

Thanks again for your interesting and informative replies. I feel like I have learned a few things about something that I have not really been aware of previously.