The complete chief officer 20 accommodation and catering

20 Accommodation and Catering
On a small ship, the 'department' could well be just the Cook. In this situation, the deck
department will take over the accommodation cleaning and often will peel the potatoes at night!
The small size of the crew will allow far more flexibility with the storing and it is common on
these ships for a monthly allowance to be paid for the ship, that the cook can spend where and
when he pleases. This generally ensures, provided the ship is making frequent port calls, that
the food is fresh and of better quality than that supplied by chandlers. If the order is big enough,
supermarkets will often deliver to the ship.

On small ships a trip to the supermarket may be better.

On larger vessels the department has to be more formally organised, with work schedules and
management. Too often this now devolves on the Cook, simply by the company changing his title
to Cook/Chief Steward as if a title is going to make him into a Chief Steward. The Cook will often
be a good cook, but will not necessarily understand the running of a department, so you could
find this becomes your responsibility. You may find there are no work schedules and that
considerable time is wasted, which is something you must deal with carefully and with a light
hand.

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The accommodation is the area most likely to be neglected by the company and the technical
department superintendents, with some accommodation and fittings unchanged until the ship
is scrapped, sometimes some 30 years later.
Your department is responsible for the fabric of the accommodation and this includes the
carpentry, plumbing and electrical fittings. Common sense dictates that there will be
limitations to what you are capable of doing
You will notice very quickly that, when there is a problem with the engineering or navigational
aspect of the ship that is beyond the capacity of the ship's staff to deal with, shore labour is
called in to assist. However, if you call for shore labour for a problem with the accommodation

it is a totally different story, even though you do not have the expertise to change locks, repair
doors or even anything beyond the basic rudiments of plumbing and carpentry.
I once joined a ship where all the lavatories/W.C.s had been locked except one. The company's
technical department would not allow shore labour for accommodation repairs and so, as things
went wrong, they were simply shut down. When I spoke to senior management about the
problem they were very upset at such a situation and immediately authorised the necessary
repairs.

Everyone onboard is entitled to well maintained clean accommodation. Power points
must work, cabin doors must lock and keys must be available. Curtains must not be
rags and carpeting must be clean. In other words, regardless of the company, think 'hotel
standard', and work towards this.

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20.2 Cleanliness
The accommodation will be your home for some months, but for the crew it might be home for
a year or more. The cleanliness of the accommodation is not only important for those living in
it, but also for the appearance and presentation of the ship to the visitors that come onboard in
various ports.

If you are in charge of the catering and cleanliness of the accommodation, have crew use
quick dry instant shine polish then indent for kraft paper and seal this down with tape over the
decks before arrival in every port. In this way you preserve the condition of your decks from
unthinking visitors with dirty shoes. Another tip is to purchase plug-in air fresheners as they are
far more effective than sprays. Try to keep visitors away from the living quarters as much as
possible. Where this is unavoidable, put notices up reminding shore personnel that this is your
home. Ample door mats are essential and not the cheap bristle kind that sheds the bristles to
block scuppers! Make sure they are rubber backed to avoid slipping. For some odd reason,

many modern ships have scuppers in the accommodation many decks up, maybe the naval
architects' 'how to build a ship' books have yet to be updated! Of course, what happens is that
no one puts water down them and they smell. To prevent this I suggest sealing them up,
unless you want to implement a strict regime of pouring disinfectant down them every week.
It is not always the shore people who dirty the accommodation and you might have to educate
the ship's personnel as well. One of the perennial problems on a
ship is that of officers and crew keeping their dirty boilersuits in their cabins. Most ships have
lockers for working clothing to be stored in and I advise that you insist they are used. Oily
boilersuits not only cause dirt on the cabin bulkheads but also cause bad smell through the
accommodation, so there is justification that they should not be kept in cabins.

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A weekly essential.

Ensure that the weekly issue of soap and towels is rigidly kept to and that the bed linen is
changed at the same time. If there is steward service in the officers' cabins ensure that this is
completed properly. Having said that, it is not easy for a steward to clean a cabin if the
occupant is dirty and untidy in his habits. There could well be times when the steward is
perfectly justified in not coping with a particular cabin.

20.3 Bedding
This is possibly the most neglected area on merchant ships today. Thousands of ships are
sailing around with mattresses 20 years old or more. Stained and torn sheets are often the
norm and laundry discipline non-existent. While SOLAS deals with all other aspects of safety,
and Port State Control and Coastguard officials visit and inspect the ship, no one bothers with
the accommodation.
If you find a poor situation, you must immediately indent for new mattresses and bedding
linen. If the Master does not do this, you must ensure that a strict inspection regime is in place

and that the crew regularly wash their bedding. Watch out at inspection times for a
counterpane being pulled over dirty bedding.

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New mattress?
I once joined a ship that we were taking back from a company after a long bareboat
charter. The mattresses were teeming with lice and had not been changed since the ship
was built 15 years before. The port where we were situated had to send down a special

20.4 The Messrooms
fumigation team to take them ashore and burn them.

The crew messroom tends to be used as the general lounge area as well as for meals, even if the
crew have a separate lounge. There is nothing wrong with this, particularly if the lounge area is

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clean, as crew wearing their working clothes throughout the day are not going to change to sit
down for a cup of tea. If the catering department does not clean this area, the Bosun should
determine who does. Owing to the different departments using the messrooms and other crew
public areas, it is usually a fairer system to establish a rota so that each crew member and
department shares the responsibility.
The crew public rooms are for crew use and are not a canteen for the shore labour, who will
gravitate towards these areas if they can get away with it. Keep all shore personnel out of the
accommodation unless they have an official reason to be there. Prior to arrival, post notices
on all the entrance doors stating that only ship's crew are allowed in the accommodation area
without official permission. This will at least cut down the traffic.

20.5 The Galley

A place to be wary of as it is the lair of the Cook who is, for all intents and purposes, the most
important person on the ship, and knows it.
The galley is the one place where cleanliness and hygiene have to prevail. Most cooks do
realise this and each evening have the galley washed down. It is an area that requires your
attention, even if just to pass through, letting all know it is being watched. Clean clothing is
essential as is hand washing and towels, preferably paper towels from a dispenser. Once
again, you may have to indent for aprons, trousers, shoes and hats.

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Accommodation and Catoring

I have only been on one ship without cockroaches and that was a ship that had never been
east of Gibraltar. Almost every ship, including tramps, bulkers, tankers, container ships or
cruise ships, has cockroaches. Once they have established themselves the only way to
remove them is to do a complete fumigation of the accommodation which, because of the
need to remove the crew and all stores, is something very few owners will consider.

Sometimes just keeping control will be all that can be achieved.

You can generally get local fumigation onboard, if you push hard enough, and this might just
keep them under control if done regularly and properly.
Doing this, while maintaining excellent hygiene in the galley, messrooms and food stores,
leaving no food out there or in the cabins and carrying out standard onboard spraying, should
keep them within acceptable limits. As they inhabit spaces behind the bulkheads, particularly

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in the galley, you will need to have holes drilled in the bulkheads at regular intervals to get the
chemicals inside. Ensure that you have a proper spray system as the cans of spray are only
effective for cabin use.

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