To competently, professionally “deck” on a conventional tug doing harbor and short coastwise work requires a particular seamanship skillset. Line-handling is critical. This includes throwing and taking in mooring lines from tugs and barges, making and breaking tows, assembling tows of multiple barges, and everything in between. While it certainly isn’t rocket science, there’s more to it than meets the untrained eye, and it still requires a nimble mind to visualize what needs to happen and execute properly without injury.
A few months back, a new trainee deckhand arrived on board, and although he claimed some previous maritime experience, that experience had little value on the tug’s deck. He was, in most respects, starting from scratch. He knew no knots or how to splice a simple three-strand line. The able seaman (AB) he was on watch with attempted to teach him some simple knots and how to make an eye splice with three-strand — the fundamentals of deck seamanship.
The trainee, oddly enough, was disinterested in learning those fundamentals. The reason: He had apparently already decided that he wanted to be a captain and that those things were beneath the position. When pushed by the AB to make some effort he declared that if he ever did have to really do those things he would simply “TikTok it or watch YouTube videos” to learn how. And that was that.
It’s a hell of a philosophy to have for a beginner trying to make his way successfully into a demanding new job that is unlike any other. Why learn anything when you can just outsource or crowdsource it to the internet whenever you run into trouble because you don’t know what to do? No need for mental discipline, critical thinking, and problem solving. Just click.
This is what we’re dealing with now, more and more. Excessive, compulsive use of social media destroys the ability to focus and feeds this bad attitude at nearly every turn.
