San’bonani from South Africa!

Hello All!

I haven’t been around this site since about 2005 – so here goes the standard newbie greetings and introductions.

I studied a technical diploma (Marine engineering) back in the ’80’s, and served seatime aboard a few ships, first as a Cadet Engineering Officer then as an acting Junior Engineering Officer. The company was Safmarine. I still have my Seamans record book and my last discharge certificate!! If I knew then what I know now, I would never have left!

Over the years I have done all manner of things, Affirmative Action having been implemented in my country since ’94, which made employment opportunities for pale natives of advancing years a little difficult. One took what one could get……transport brokerage ( got to managerial level though, then got tired of doing the same thing day in day out), tech manager on a doomed farm (retrenched, no severance), domestic maintenance contracting ( got sick in the city and of not getting paid timeously by clients) etc etc.

In terms of relevant experience, I worked for several years as a crane safety tech, installing, servicing and maintaining micro-processor controlled crane safety systems that dynamically measure load by means of load cells or pressure transducers, measure telescoping boom length by means of a pot driven through gears by a cable winding on and off a drum at one end and fixed to the boom tip at the other, calculate and compare to a load chart programmed on an E-PROM, giving a warning at 90% and dumping hydraulic pressure through a solenoid at 95% of safe load. Interesting stuff, doing odd component-level repairs in the middle of a minefield on the border ‘tween Zimbabwe and Mozambique! We started getting into CANBUS stuff, then my then wife got fed up with my travelling all the time, so I resigned just in time to get divorced! Good Times!

Did a little boat building as a systems tech and machinist, ’til salaries were being paid in scrap ally plate! Senior management were up to no good, suppliers weren’t supplying anymore etc. Beautiful boat though – Corsta V ( Google it) – she got finished in the end.

I have had something like twelve jobs in 25 years, enduring boredom, frustration, low pay, no pay, boredom, making silly decisions and poor choices, boredom, oh, and boredom; yet I still think I was designed and built for ROV’s.

And inasmuch as there are undoubtedly good grounds for the occasional moans and complaints about cr**py companies and sh**ty vessels, I cant help feeling that those who are employed in this field are singularly fortunate to be doing this kind of work. I make boxes out of MDF all day, call them cupboards and people sometimes pay for them. The prospects for forty-somethings are bleak in this country, we have serious problems with electricity supply for the next eight or ten years or so, the economy is soon to start shrinking – I guess what I am saying is I would be grateful to have reasonably well paying work in a field of endeavour that is surely set to be around for some time, and that is a lot more interesting and challenging than box-building!

On that note, yes, I will send out some CV’s, and be positive and persistent and hopeful for a berth somewhere, and I wish all the other newbies the very best of luck in their search too.

And I would hope for peace and prosperity for everyone. 😀