Into a Gale’s Full Fury: Stories and Reflections on My Years Sailing in the US Merchant Marine in the 1970s and 1980s

By Christopher J. McMahon

Since humans first traded upon the sea, seafaring has been a lonely and dangerous business, sometimes fraught with such diverse challenges as unhinged crew members, unsafe ships, power-crazed captains, and a violent ocean. This was true in the twentieth century as well.

In a fascinating narrative, seasoned master mariner Christopher McMahon offers true depictions of life aboard some of the more than twenty merchant ships he sailed on that were engaged in worldwide trade during the 1970s and 1980s. With candid detail, McMahon paints a vivid picture of life at sea while sharing tales about the ships and crews supporting the growth of a global economy. His stories, sometimes shocking but always entertaining, reflect the reality of seafaring in decades past while also pointing to the magic and mystery of the sea and to the enchantment that has always drawn humans to sailing the oceans of the world. Throughout his accounts, McMahon shines an important light on the critical role the merchant marine plays in the strategic and economic health of America.

Into a Gale’s Full Fury shares a glimpse into life at sea on merchant ships in the later part of the 20th century with tales of raging storms, bizarre captains and crews, piracy, and the magic of the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665745932

Christopher J. McMahon

Christopher J. McMahon is a master mariner who sailed on merchant ships, primarily in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor and sailing master at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, a rear admiral (upper half), US Maritime Service, while he served in several senior executive (SES) positions with the US Department of Transportation. McMahon is a graduate of the US Merchant Marine Academy and has graduate degrees from several universities.

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Copyright © 2023 Christopher J. McMahon, Master Mariner.

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and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-4591-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4592-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-4593-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911524

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/22/2023

To all those merchant mariners

past and present who have quietly, and without glory or recognition, served America in peacetime and in war. To my uncle, Captain Alfred Boerum, who introduced me to the ways of seafaring, and to my lovely wife, Virginia, who understands my love of the sea.

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1    Seafaring in the 20th Century—The Background

Chapter 2    A Call to the Sea

Chapter 3    The M Ship

Chapter 4    The New Third Mate

Chapter 5    The Third Mate Meets the Gambling Captain

Chapter 6    At Last, a Second Mate

Chapter 7    In Search of Lows and a Captain Finds a Big One

Chapter 8    The Story of the Radio Operator in Harm’s Way on the SS Export Contender

Chapter 9    The New Chief Mate and then Another (Miserable) Ship

Chapter 10   Chief Mate on Two Ships and a Permanent Job

Chapter 11   The Sailing Master

Epilogue

Glossary of Nautical Terms

PREFACE

I wrote this book to share my experiences on some of the ships I sailed on in the US Merchant Marine. I did this because few people understand what the merchant marine is and the critical role it plays in the strategic and economic health of America. There are too few resources out there that tell the story of life aboard a merchant ship in the latter half of the 20th century.

For history’s sake, it is important to honor those who helped make the global economy possible and who served our nation so well in all America’s overseas conflicts. The stories presented here are all true, although, in most cases, the names of the ships and the people serving on them have been changed, as has the order of some of the stories. Most dates have been removed. The reader is warned that the language and actions in many of the stories are crude, but this reflects the realities of seafaring during these years.

I focused on the 1970s and 1980s because these were the years when I went to sea. In all the chapters, I have endeavored to not only tell some interesting stories about crew members but also to describe the ships and places I sailed and some of the unusual happenings aboard ship from a seafaring perspective. Although my memory served me well in writing this book, my voyage logs helped substantially. On most of the ships I sailed on, I kept logs (journals) of events, and these helped immensely in refreshing my memories.

I suspect these stories, particularly those about crew members, are also representative of decades prior to the 1970s and 1980s but not the decades of the 21st century. To be sure, seafaring today is still a dangerous and lonely business. It can still present times of boredom punctuated by times of sheer terror, but ships today, thanks to the work of the International Maritime Organization, governments around the world, and maritime unions, are, for the most part, safer and more secure than at any time in decades past. Similarly, seafarers are better recruited, trained, and certified. Drug and alcohol testing has largely eliminated the abuses of the past.

As a former professor and the Chair of Merchant Marine Affairs at the Naval War College, I felt it was helpful to open the book with an explanation of just what the merchant marine is and to give some background on the US Merchant Marine and American ships and mariners in decades past. I recognize the first chapter is a bit academic, but given most readers’ lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject, I believe it is a critical chapter to begin with because it puts the rest of the chapters in perspective. I hope by reading chapter 1 and those that follow, the reader will gain a greater appreciation of just what the merchant marine is, how life was aboard merchant ships in the latter half of the 20th century, and how important the merchant marine is to the economic well-being of everyone around the world.

Christopher J. McMahon

Master Mariner

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CHAPTER 1

Seafaring in the 20th

Century—The Background

History of the US Merchant Marine

Since human beings first took to the sea for commerce in ancient times, seafaring has been a dangerous business fraught with perils, deprivations, challenges, and loneliness. But it is a crucial profession—one that many, if not most, people simply do not understand. In the 21st century, more than 90 percent of all goods traded around the world travel by sea. It is the efficiency and low cost of merchant shipping that makes the global economy possible, and it is merchant ships that play a key role in enabling those in the United States and other countries to enjoy a high standard of living.

Despite all this, there is a general lack of understanding of what merchant ships are and how they work. When a mariner is asked what they do, and they tell people they are in the merchant marine, a common response is When are you getting out? or So you are in the military? The merchant marine is not the military, although it does play a vital role in moving military supplies and equipment around the world because the armed forces do not possess the organic assets needed to do the job, and commercial merchant ships are chartered for this purpose.

Perhaps the best analogy is a comparison of the merchant marine with the airline industry since more people are familiar with that business. Commercial aircraft are primarily owned and operated by private companies, although in some countries, the government owns the airline. The pilots and flight attendants aboard those planes are not in the military. They are civilians, many of whom belong to unions. The industry is overseen by governments for safety reasons. In the United States, commercial airline pilots are licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), an agency of the Department of Transportation. Aircraft are inspected by the FAA, and accidents are investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), with some assistance from the FAA.

This same arrangement exists for the merchant marine. Merchant ships are primarily owned and operated by private companies, although in some countries, the government owns merchant ships. The ship’s crew are civilians, and in the United States, most are members of a maritime union. Officers and crew are licensed and/or certified by the US Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard also mandates safety standards, inspects ships, and, along with the NTSB, investigates accidents.

As critical as the merchant marine is to America, the history of the US Merchant Marine is one of cyclical prosperity and failure. Prior to the 1860s, America was a commercial maritime power. The nation and its people thought in maritime terms. Most Americans lived near the sea. American merchant ships were cheaper to build than their European counterparts, and American companies thrived. The nation was huge in comparison to the countries of Europe, yet the interior of the country was only sparsely settled, still largely in the hands of native peoples. Roads were poor or nonexistent, and railroads were few and far between. People mostly traded and traveled by sea or on inland waterways. Even the 1840s Gold Rush to California was essentially a maritime event: only a tiny percentage of forty-niners traveled west by wagon train. Instead, the vast majority went by sea on merchant vessels, either transferring overland via Panama from an American ship to another American ship or taking the long voyage around Cape Horn aboard one of the famed American-flag California clipper ships.

After the Civil War, however, America turned its attention inland and seemingly forgot its maritime roots. There was a continent to explore and settle. The explosive growth of railroads crisscrossed the entire country with many new rail lines. Vast numbers of immigrants arrived from inland parts of Europe and from Asia; their only understanding of the maritime world was an often-terrifying North Atlantic or Pacific crossing in steerage aboard an overcrowded sailing ship or a sail-assisted steam vessel. As inland territories, far from the sea, developed into states, their elected representatives brought to Washington a limited understanding of all things maritime.

As a result, public interest in and knowledge of maritime affairs—including the US Merchant Marine—waned, becoming much more limited than in the early decades of the republic. In the latter half of the 19th century, America became an industrial power and a major export nation. The need for merchant ships serving America dramatically increased, but the US Merchant Marine was still allowed to languish as dependence on foreign-flag merchant shipping to carry America’s commerce expanded. Then, as now, Americans and American-owned businesses were confident that inexpensive foreign-flag shipping was sufficiently bountiful that it would be readily available whenever needed.

This proved to be a false assumption. By 1914, the US Merchant Marine was carrying less than 8 percent of the nation’s commerce. With the outbreak of war in 1914, the American economy, dependent on international trade, suddenly faced a lack of available ships. The European nations that had previously provided the commercial sealift for the American economy withdrew their vessels from international trade for wartime purposes. This caused widespread disruption in trade; manufactured products piled up on American docks, in railcars, and in warehouses, and agricultural goods spoiled because they could not be conveyed to overseas markets.

The American economy suffered greatly owing to a lack of commercial shipping. With the advent of World War I, Congress acted, and a federal Emergency Fleet Corporation was created, which eventually contracted for over 1,700 merchant vessels, an unprecedented effort. But American participation in the war was so short that only 107 ships were delivered before the armistice in November 1918. Most of the remaining vessels were completed by 1922 and sold to foreign interests.

The period 1920–1936 saw the US Merchant Marine decline again. By the mid-1930s, the condition of the US Merchant Marine was dire. The Great Depression had wreaked havoc on US trade. Nearly all US-flag ships in international trade were old and obsolete. The numbers and types of vessels were totally inadequate to handle even a tiny portion of US trade, let alone sustain the nation or its military in a national emergency.

The Roosevelt administration and leaders in Congress instinctively knew this, and with war clouds looming on the horizon in Europe and Asia, they decided to take decisive action. The result was watershed legislation—the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. This act recognized that it was more expensive to construct vessels in a US shipyard and that operating costs of US-flag ships were higher than those of many foreign-flag operators. Accordingly, the act authorized both construction subsidies and operating subsidies for shipping companies. The law also established or expanded existing cargo preference programs, requiring that all military cargoes and a portion of other government cargoes be carried aboard US-flag vessels. The law also created the Maritime Commission, the predecessor to the current Maritime Administration (MARAD).

The effects of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 were both immediate and profound. By the time America entered World War II, new US shipyards were building an ever-increasing number of commercially viable merchant ships. After America entered the war, shipyards were building merchant ships in record numbers. In total, more than 5,500 merchant ships were built to support the war effort. These ships were all crewed by civilian merchant mariners. More than 700 of these ships were sunk by Axis powers.

It is little known that merchant mariners in World War II suffered a greater percentage of personnel killed than any of the armed services. In the Marine Corps, which had the second-highest rate, one in 34 marines lost their life. In the US Merchant Marine, it was one in 26. Shamefully, many in the public and even in the press accused merchant mariners of being draft dodgers. They claimed merchant seamen were paid exorbitant wages as compared to military personnel. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Despite their service in all theaters of World War II and the highest percentage of casualties, merchant mariners never received the veteran benefits awarded to those in other services, including those members of the armed forces who never saw combat and those who never even ventured outside the United States.

By the end of World War II, the United States controlled 70 percent of the existing merchant shipping tonnage in the world. Once again, however, the United States did not capitalize on this investment or its potential for the US Merchant Marine. In 1946, Congress passed the Ship Sales Act, and the majority of commercial vessels built during the war were sold to foreign companies. Many companies and individuals began registering their ships in so-called flag of convenience countries (FOCs). Ships registered in FOC countries, such as Liberia and Panama, had many advantages US-flag ships did not enjoy. Profits from vessels were tax-exempt, crew wages were kept extremely low, and vessel inspection, safety, and maintenance standards were minimized.

Federal aid to US-flag shipping continued as outlined in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, but this was insufficient to prevent the dramatic and sustained rise of FOC shipping. Slowly but surely, the majority of the world’s merchant ships became flagged in FOC nations or states whose national fleets were government owned. During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, hundreds of mothballed merchant ships that were left from World War II in a US government reserve fleet were activated to carry military troops, supplies, and equipment. During these years, there were more than 1,000 US merchant ships in service. As in World War II, they were crewed by civilian merchant mariners, and, as in World War II, these mariners received no veteran benefits.

Through the 1970s and the 1980s, the US Merchant Marine in international trade continued to decline because of the lack of public and government support, as the number of US merchant ships dropped from over 1,000 to less than 500. By the end of the century, the number had fallen below less than 200. At the same time, the worldwide fleet of merchant ships was dramatically increasing because of the surge in global trade. From a national security perspective, military planners became concerned about the continuing decline of the US Merchant Marine because the armed forces have always depended on the merchant marine for military sealift.

To address this concern, the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) was established in 1976. The RRF program was initiated by the US Maritime Administration, through a program that maintains several dozen ships in a standby status. An additional program, the Maritime Security Program (MSP), was created in 1996 to provide subsidies for 60 commercial US-flag ships in international trade. MSP has continued through the decades of the 21st century.

According to the United Nations Council on Trade and Development, Review of Maritime Transport, as of 2022, there were some 102,899 commercial deep-sea ships in the world over 100 gross tons, over 55,000 of which were commercial merchant ships. (This does not include the hundreds of thousands of inland vessels.) The United States has only about 80 US-flag ships in international trade today, which includes the MSP ships. These commercial ships carry only a very tiny portion of US trade, and nearly all of these ships are owned by US subsidiaries of foreign shipping companies. In other words, the United States can no longer be called a maritime nation but a maritime-dependent nation that relies almost completely on the merchant ships of other nations.*

American Ships and Mariners

As noted earlier, America in the first half of the 19th century was a leading maritime nation. American clipper ships and whalers roamed the seas. American shipyards built high-quality, cost-effective ships in large numbers and offered plenty of jobs to aspiring mariners. Most of these seafarers came from New England coastal communities like Cape Cod. Life aboard ship was a tough business, often involving hard-bitten captains and mates who had no hesitation overworking their sailors, often with the encouragement of fists and belaying pins. The food was terrible, consisting of stale water, dried and salted beef, which often had the consistency of leather, and hardtack biscuits swarming with maggots. To be sure, there were some ships and captains who treated their crews fairly, but, in any case, seafaring was a hard life. Crew sizes on large sailing ships, such as clippers, varied from a few dozen to four dozen or even sometimes more. Captains and mates lived aft or in a deckhouse, usually in small private cabins, while the crew slept together in the fo’c’sle (forecastle) in cramped and stuffy quarters that could be unbearable in hot and cold climates.

After voyages that could last one or two years or even longer, crews were flush with cash. Once departing their ship in homeport, those who had no homes or family often headed directly for a waterfront bar, which frequently doubled as a house of prostitution. They were often met by sleazy bartenders and prostitutes who had great talent in relieving a gullible sailor of his hard-earned wages. In all too many cases, within days, homeless sailors were penniless and in need of another ship. Ships and captains who had bad reputations often had a hard time recruiting a crew, in which case they hired crimps who found unsuspecting sailors in waterfront bars and plied them with alcohol and drugs until they passed out. The crimp then sold the sailors to captains who needed crew. Once sober, these unfortunate mariners often found themselves outward bound on another multiyear voyage. In short, in the 19th century, seafaring was often dangerous, lonely, and a hard way of life.

With few exceptions, there was no formal schooling for seafarers—including mates and masters—until the late 19th century and early 20th century. Mariners learned on the job, starting as deckhands, perhaps becoming a bosun (boatswain), mate, or master. Young men and boys were often brought aboard to serve as cabin boys, with some going on to become sailors, mates, and even masters. With the advent of steam vessels, laws were gradually passed in the 19th century that, over decades, increased the safety and inspection standards of vessels, the licensing of masters, mates, and engineers, and eventually the certification of all crew members. The Bureau of Steamboat Inspection was established for this purpose in the 1870s. This agency changed names over the years and was subsumed by the US Coast Guard in the 1940s.

As the 20th century dawned, life for seafarers slowly improved, but wages remained relatively poor, and living conditions became only marginally better. Unlicensed crews on American ships were often comprised of immigrants from many nations around the world. Seafaring was still a hard life. One can imagine the life and work of a coal passer, for example, a position in the engine room that required shoveling coal from a storage bunker in the depths of a ship to the boilers in the engine room. Air-conditioning had yet to be invented, and in hot climates, engine rooms could reach 140 degrees or more. Life was brutal and often short, as a coal passer spent many hours a day breathing coal dust and engine fumes.

In the late and early 20th centuries, the plight of merchant mariners, especially ordinary crew, became a cause célèbre in major American ports, such as New York. It became fashionable for notable Gilded Age millionaires to support seafarer charities. Two such charities were the Seaman’s Church Institute, founded in 1834, and the Sailors Snug Harbor seaman’s retirement home on Staten Island, established in the 1830s. The Catholic and Anglican Churches formed seaman’s missions in port cities in the United States and around the world. These organizations provided a safe place for seafarers to go for a simple meal, to send letters home, and to seek spiritual counseling. They also provided resources for mariners who were left on a ship in port that was abandoned by unscrupulous ship owners.

Formal training of mates and engineers began in the latter half of the 19th century with the establishment of the New York Nautical School (later the State University of New York Maritime College) in 1874 and Massachusetts Maritime Academy in 1891. In the 20th century, Maine, Texas, and California also established maritime colleges. Congress established the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, in 1943 as the fourth federal service academy (the fifth being the US Air Force Academy, established in 1954). It is still theoretically possible today, however, to rise through the merchant mariner ranks and obtain a US Coast Guard master’s, mate’s, or engineer’s license without attending a maritime college by obtaining the required sea-time, training, and certifications, and by passing a series of exams given by the US Coast Guard, although this is now very rare.

The building of thousands of merchant ships before and during World War II necessitated the need for hundreds of thousands of new American seafarers. To meet this requirement, many temporary seafarer training centers were established, and the training and sea-time requirements for obtaining higher certifications and licenses were temporarily relaxed. During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as hundreds of mothballed World War II merchant ships were activated, the US Coast Guard again relaxed the certification and licensing requirements.

Until the 1970s, master, mate, and engineer license exams and crew certification tests were given individually by an inspector in US Coast Guard offices located in ports around the country. Exam questions were selected by the inspector. There was no consistent national exam system. As a result, certain Coast Guard port offices developed a reputation for offering easier exams, and these became popular with many mariners seeking to obtain or raise their license or certification in as easy a manner as possible. During World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, when there were severe shortages of license officers and certified deck and engine department crew, it was simply easier for mariners to obtain licenses and certifications or to raise the ones they had. This problem only slowly changed when the Coast Guard began creating and requiring uniform exams throughout the country in the 1970s.

The result was the knowledge and competence, particularly of mates, masters, and engineers examined and tested during the 1940s to the 1970s, was sometimes lacking, and this manifested itself aboard US merchant ships through a large portion of the latter half of the 20th century until older mariners retired. Globally, licensing and inspection requirements of merchant ships in many countries, particularly FOC countries, were often very poor. In some FOC countries, it was even possible to buy a license or certification with little or no training and experience. All of this radically changed in the late 20th century as the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) began to develop and require global safety, training, and experience guidelines, which have been largely implemented by all maritime nations. Today, each maritime nation implements IMO standards as it sees appropriate, and although there is not complete uniformity, it can be said that merchant ships around the world, in the 21st century, are much safer and the officers and crews much better trained and certified than ever before.

The crews of merchant ships are generally organized within three departments, with billets in each department dependent on the type of ship. The three departments include the deck department, the engine department, and the steward’s department. In overall command of the ship is the master or captain. The deck department is headed by the chief mate (chief officer), who is also second in command of the ship. The second mate is the navigation officer and stands the four-to-eight watch morning and night. The third mate generally stands the twelve-to-four watch, and if the ship has two third mates, one third mate stands the eight-to-twelve watch. (If the ship has only one third mate, the chief mate also stands a bridge watch, usually the eight-to-twelve watch morning and night.)

The boatswain, or bosun, is the senior unlicensed member of the crew. He or she is a day worker and does not stand a watch. Unlicensed watch standers include two able seamen (ABs) on each deck and bridge watch and, on some ships, an additional ordinary seaman (OS) on each watch. Additional day workers may also be part of the deck gang, such as a dayman or carpenter.

Heading the engine department is the chief engineer, who is in overall charge of all engineering operations. Assisting the chief is a first assistant engineer, a second assistant engineer, and either one or two third assistant engineers. On older merchant ships that were powered by steam engines, watch standers were required in the engine room around the clock to manage engine room operations, and the second engineer and two third engineers stood these watches.

On modern slow-speed diesel ships, all the engineers are day workers, and they have elaborate monitoring and alarm systems in their cabins that alert them of a machinery issue or emergency at night. Unlicensed members of the engine department include a variety of billets, depending upon the type of ship. These include qualified members of the engine department (QMEDs), firemen, oilers, wipers, electricians, pumpmen, and others.

The steward’s department is headed by the chief steward, and the department includes cooks and assistant cooks, bedrooms stewards, galley utilities, messmen, and sometimes other related billets.

Aboard US merchant ships built in the 1950s and 1960s, crew sizes generally included upward of 45 mates, engineers, and unlicensed personnel. While mates and engineers had their own cabin, head (toilet) and shower, which were cleaned daily by a bedroom steward, the crew shared cabins—often three or more to a cabin. Heads and showers were sometimes in a common area on the crew deck.

The captain, mates, engineers, and passengers (if any) ate their meals in a dining room, which was often well appointed. Meals, served by a messman, were generally very good, with a wide and varied menu sure to please anyone. The crew ate the same food in their own dining room in the crew quarters, served by a messman. Many cargo ships through the 1950s to 1980s frequently carried 12 passengers, who lived on a separate deck with a passenger lounge and generally ate meals in the officers’ dining room. As crew sizes were reduced in ships built toward the end of the 20th and into the 21st century, passengers were eliminated, dining rooms became more spartan, messmen were eliminated, and cafeteria-style meals were adopted for officers and crew.

Through the 20th century, the majority of mariners in the United States became part of maritime labor unions. The unions played a key role in improving the life of seafarers, including mates, masters, engineers and the crews of the deck, engine and steward’s departments. Slowly, over the decades, wages increased, paid vacation was provided, and medical and retirement benefits initiated. (Prior to that, vacation was very limited, with mariners often spending only weeks or perhaps a month or two during the year at home.)

Standards for food quality greatly improved, as did living conditions aboard ship. On all ships built during the last several decades, all crew members have their own cabin, head, and shower. There are provisions to send and receive email, and all ships offer creature comforts such as a gymnasium, video entertainment systems, and, on some ships, a swimming pool. The maritime unions also adopted the important role of mariner training, and today they provide first-rate instruction to their members in order for them to maintain or raise their licenses and certifications.

For most of the 20th century and into the 21st century, some seafarers stayed with the same company—often permanent crew on the same ship year after year. Others ship out, obtaining their next job from union halls. Often seafarers shipping out from a union hall join a different ship on a different voyage each time they return to sea. In other words, seafarers with permanent jobs are on ships that generally have a regular run, and they continuously go between the same ports on the same ship every voyage, sometimes for their entire seagoing career. Those without permanent jobs join different ships on various runs and may travel throughout the world.

Discipline aboard merchant ships in the first half of the 19th century was often severe, and it frequently included corporal punishment in the form of beating a seafarer or hitting him with a belaying pin or even flogging. Confinement to quarters or to a brig was also common. Corporal punishment was outlawed by Congress in the second half of the 19th century, and by the 20th century, discipline aboard ship consisted mostly of garnishment of wages and, occasionally, confinement to a brig or storage room.

Discipline was accompanied by recording offenses in the official ship’s log maintained by the captain and, very likely, firing and repatriation to the United States, depending on the severity of the offense and the potential for the offending crew member to continue to cause trouble. Official logs are turned over to the US Coast Guard at the completion of a voyage, and crew members guilty of criminal offenses are prosecuted by the Coast Guard with sanctions ranging from fines to suspension, or revocation of seafarer’s documents and licenses, or jail time.

Although by law, possession and consumption of alcohol aboard US merchant ships was prohibited, for most of the 20th century, the rules for alcohol on board a ship really depended on company policies and enforcement. Some companies were technically completely dry, with the logging and firing of a seafarer occurring very promptly if alcohol was discovered in their possession. In other companies, the rules were more relaxed, and logging and firing generally only occurred if a seafarer abused alcohol or was drunk on duty. With still other companies, the rules were even more relaxed. Some ships even sold alcohol on the ship. On these ships, logging and firing only occurred when alcohol was abused.

The grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in March 1989, however, had a profound effect on alcohol consumption aboard ship. Alcohol became strictly banned aboard ship. A mariner could be charged with an alcohol offense if they consumed alcohol within a specified time period prior to going on duty. Seafarers became subject to breathalyzer testing, particularly in the event of an accident or shipboard incident. In the 1990s, alcohol and drug testing of seafarers by the Coast Guard became common practice when a ship entered any US port.

In the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st century, seafaring changed radically. Ships grew much larger. While a 600-foot cargo ship might have carried 18,000 tons of cargo in 800,