Transfer at Sea

It’s quite amazing really. The shipping business can be traced back to the earliest of all human trading activities but over the centuries has developed into one of the most organized and hi tech industries that quite literally keep the worlds economy’s, governments and societies moving along 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact, if it weren’t for shipping, our world would be completely unrecognizable and a lot less interesting I’m sure.


Automation is becoming more prevalent and the level of technology I have seen in the newer Liquid Natural Gas carriers would make some NASA specialists raise an eyebrow or two. For example, the last monster I boarded had a 9 megawatt power plant aboard…just to keep the LNG cold and the energy stored in the one vessel alone could supply all the energy the UK uses in a single day. The figures are staggering.

So when it comes time to hop aboard for a spot of electronic maintenance, how do you think we do it? A good old fashioned rope ladder, that’s how. This method of boarding is as old as ancient history itself and it never ceases to tickle me as I scramble up the most technologically advanced ships with a web 2.0 device in my pocket and various electronics systems monitoring our every move from the bridge, the shore and low earth orbit that it still comes down to spliced and interwoven fibers and planks of wood to get the geeks aboard in the first place.

Getting off the ship and onto the launch for the return leg to shore is the same but in reverse. The difference here is the launch is smaller and weighs a fraction what he ship does and so bounces up and down by as much as 2 or 3 meters. Like good comedy, it’s all about timing!

You have to time the jump from the rope ladder to the launch and hope you get it right. Time it wrong and you’re going to twist an ankle or worse, slip between the launch and the ship and then risk getting squashed. If you don’t have a life jacket you could drown, if you have a life jacket and you fall in then you can’t dive down below the surface to avoid the squashing. Perhaps that’s where the saying “between the devil and the deep blue” comes from.

Strange as it may sound, it’s almost comforting to know that some things have remained the same for hundreds, if not thousands of years and the humble rope ladder is just one of those things.