eSea EM AGA ZINE FROM M A ERSK TR A INING
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M A R I T I M E /OI L & G A S/ W I N D/C R A N E · NO.24/2015
Fire in the hold! >
Training is vital but how do you train a trainer? >
Putting people So what’s it like to live out there in before politics > the North Sea? >
Training helps knock millions off well cost >
Dubai warms up as a global training hub >
Memories, Winds of change for technician who Misery, Money & Motion-sickness > took a chance >
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Fire in the hold! Chief Officer Darius Zinkevicius has absolutely no doubt that the words and guidance of psychologist Frank Lamberg Nielsen carried him through the most trying and dangerous circumstances he ever had to face. >
Training helps knock millions off well cost
Training is vital but how to you train a trainer?
Dubai warms up as a global training hub
Drilling is an expensive business. So imagine the joy when the longest well ever drilled in the Mediterranean and deepest in Eqypt was achieved in 79% of the allotted spend time. >
When Bjarne Møller steps out in front of his class for the first time he knows he has three minutes to win them over. >
Rain on the windows of Louises hometown Aalborg is not really a novelty, but in current home Dubai it is a real treat. >
22 24 Winds of change for technician who took a chance ’I was working on the crane pad and shouted out “ twins” and the whole crew shouted back. It was a never-to-beforgotten moment ’. >
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Tyred not Tired ‘Sometimes it is an element of competition and sometimes it is their personal style in that they don’t want to be like anyone else ’. It’s the Mid-West’s contribution to the American Dream, the customised pick-up truck. >
26 28 Putting people before politics Party politics were left in the council office when elected members of Esbjerg Commune took part in a one-day First Aid course at Maersk Training in Esbjerg. >
Mud Glory Apart from the length, breadth and depth of the pain barrier, Andy Suthern’s abiding memory of a 12 kilometre run uphill, downhill, across rivers, through pipes and mud and then more Yorkshire mud, is of teamwork. >
18 Island of Steel You can’t find it on Google Earth, but this ‘town’ is home to about 120 men, and women, from up to 25 different nations. It’s an island of steel where there are only two times, daytime and night time. >
30 Memories, Misery, Money & Motion-sickness How well do you know your workmates? Well enough to spend 24 hours bobbing up and down on the edge of the North Sea in an inflatable life raft? >
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A better story experience In journalism it has long been held that today’s news headline story is tomorrow’s wrapping for fish and chips. Fish and chips is a hard concept to convey to most of the world, but even in the UK, beer battered fish and inkstained chips sold in newspapers is a fading memory. The feeling however that a story has a short life span is not. In this e-tech age, we are faster and better informed than ever before – perhaps we don’t gain from the deep insight of a 1500 word article, but when your wife’s phone bleeps and she turns round and says ‘Sepp Blatter’s been suspended’ you realize just how wide and shallow the blanket coverage of today’s news is.
We don’t look for dramatic stories in eSea, just stories that reflect life in our industries. We’ve had 24 issues and we are in the process of marking our quarter century by gathering together some of the best stories to make a coffee table version, something you can wrap your fish and chips in. There are no news hounds making eSea, but here I’d like to thank one colleague who has developed a fine sense for a good human interest story. In two dozen issues there are stories that stand out, and most of these are triggered by one source, Frank Lamberg Nielsen. I think even Frank would agree that his first ‘tip off’ was a little blind. That was when he met the Vietnamese refugee who grew to be a Maersk captain and Frank
recalled his story as if it was a prolonged interruption to a course, but since then he has been the inspiration behind some stories which, like Captain Ngoc have gone beyond this publication. Today he brings us Darius. It’s a rare story because being able to marry a moment in training to a positive result in real life is never easy – it happens a lot, but mostly the realization that ‘what I learnt was actually vital,‘ goes unnoticed. It’s about ultimate stress management, so get yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and slowly, very slowly because that is the secret, join Darius as he puts out a fire. eSea is very much about people and we are so happy to hear from you about the Darius and Ngoc’s of this exciting world.
Richard Lightbody rli039@maersktraining.com
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Fire in the hold!
Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread
Marketing and training share a common plight – the results are not always obvious and staring you in the face. It’s this difficulty to openly attribute any one action to any one result that makes this story significant.
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June 2015 Bridge Resource Management Course at Maersk Training in Svendborg. Safety Instructor, Frank Lamberg Nielsen.
August 2015 A serious fire on board a container ship in the South China Seas. Chief Officer Darius Zinkevicius.
hief Officer Darius Zinkevicius has absolutely no doubt that the words and guidance of psychologist Frank Lamberg Nielsen in June were what carried him through the most trying and dangerous circumstances he ever had to face.
a container at B level – the fire in the heart of the cargo was a serious threat to the entire vessel, the 332 metre long Caroline Maersk.
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‘Frank had drummed into us on the course the fact that the worst thing you can do in an emergency situation was to rush into it. He even told us not to approach it in the same manner as a nonemergency, but to totally slow down.’ The opportunity to put this contrary to normal reaction into practice came en route to Pelepas in Malaysia. An ‘unlisted’ cargo of 27 tons of hubble-bubble charcoal combusted and set off a fire in
SLOWLY DOES IT ‘When the alarm bells sounded, I knew it was the real thing because heavy smoke was reported from the deck. I did what I’d learnt to do on the course. I went slowly down the stairs, slowly, so slowly, like I don’t normally do, not running and it was very hard to do.’ ‘First I went down to my cabin and I put a coverall on and I zipped it very slowly. It was a big effort and it was very hard to do, but I was concentrating on zipping very slowly,’ Darius recalls.
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‘I went down five or six decks very slowly, I didn’t care if it took an extra minute, it doesn’t matter. When I came from F deck to B deck I arrived in control, I didn’t feel stress in my body. At E deck at the fire station the crew looked at me and didn’t know if it was fire or an unannounced drill. Later on a female 3rd officer said she’d been angry with “this crazy guy” because it was four in the afternoon and it was another unannounced drill.’ Darius incidentally is far from crazy. Born in Lithuania, brought up in Denmark and living in Uruguay he speaks five languages and has been at sea for 15 of his 44 years as a navigator and Chief Officer with Maersk Line. ‘Because of my clear state of mind, all the actions we took over the next 60 hours were down to being in a state where I was calm and rational. If you are stressed you start forgetting and blocking and the crew gets worried, but when they see someone who is calm
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Bridge Resource Management EXTRACT FROM BRIDGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT COURSE DESCRIPTION ‘The very essence of this course is to put focus on and in some extend train the officers to handle dynamically escalating situations in a simulator emphasizing the need to apply this learning to real life situations.’
then they know they are going in the right direction.’
non-nutritious sort, from the crew was positive.
SUPERCREW NOT SUPERMAN The whole crew came together to fight the fire, entering into the dark hold on as many as 30 occasions. They were together, totally focused on the extinguishing the blaze and danger. Darius worked for the first 30 hours without a break. He was not alone, however at one point he had to tell the chief cook to break off fighting the fire and get back to his normal role because they needed food. The feedback, of the
‘I’m proud of myself, proud of the crew. Now I have a lot of confidence, I have done it and I know I can do it again and know that everyone can do it.’ ‘I would like to share this with everyone because it is about Stress Management Tools. I don’t consider myself as a Superman, I think I’m average when it comes to stress management, that’s why during the course I paid a lot of attention to what Frank was saying,’ said Darius. ●
This couldn’t have been more true than on the Caroline Maersk that day. Darius picked up what he needed from the crisis management section and how to confront stress. The three-day course also covers: • Human Factors • Communication, Perception and Assertiveness • Stress, Complacency, Distraction and Fatigue • Planning and Pilot Integration • Resource Management, Decision Making, Leadership and Team Work. • Case studies and simulator exercises as a learning tool to backup/illustrate the theory • Bridge resource management knowledge, understanding and proficiency as recommended in STCW • Observations and feedback given by each of the participant’s own colleagues is processed.
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Drilling is an expensive business. Every minute costs, so every minute counts. Estimating how long it takes to do a job is crucial doing it within that realistic estimation vital. So imagine the joy in the accounts office and the floors above when Atoll, the longest well ever drilled in the Mediterranean and deepest in Egypt, was achieved in 79% of the allotted spend time. It knocked nine weeks off what they call the AFE target – Authority For Expenditures.
Training helps knock millions off well cost
Oh Happy Days
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ixty-two days ahead of schedule means 62 days of huge savings for the oil major BP and gave the crew on Maersk Discoverer the opportunity to reflect on how they did it. There were many factors in the success from highly technical to training. What made this a successful well was probably a combination of lessons learnt
from previous wells Geb and Salamat, the equipment being in premium condition and the ability of the crew to follow a plan.
Rig leader Allan McColl also highlighted the focus on actively using observation studies to optimize operational performance as a key factor in improving procedures. ‘The
strong performance is a result of the dedicated use of the ‘Plan Do Study Act’ methodology in the planning and execution of the work,’ says Allan who added that the crew had moved on from the
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‘The strong performance is a result of the dedicated use of the ‘Plan Do Study Act’ methodology in the planning and execution of the work,
Discoverer performance was greatly improved by the “one team” approach and some excellent planning sessions from all involved. It did help to cement the idea that BP could only be successful if Maersk was successful and vice versa,’ says Brian.
HPHT complex wells into what is termed batch drilling and have drilled nine further wells. Much of what the drilling process was practiced in a ‘dry run’ on
simulators at Maersk Training in Svendborg, but from feedback, what went on in terms of teambuilding was a major factor and that was put down to a week of identifying and developing
soft skills by a former OIM on Discoverer, Brian Train. ‘The session (in Svendborg) was a step in a very important direction and the whole
The marrying of ‘soft’ people skills to technical ability has been an approach followed by Maersk Training since they established performance enhancement courses two years ago. These all-embracive weeklong programmes, developed in conjunction with Maersk Drilling, have since been tailored to individual rigs and targeted wells for oil majors. ●
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Training is vital but how do you train a trainer?
Houston Gets A Pair of Trainers
When Bjarne Møller steps out in front of his class for the first time he knows he has three minutes to win them over – 180 precious seconds to grab their attention, their interest and their loyalty.
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n front of him are no more than four people who he will assess, coach and then watch as they bloom into the vital role of being tomorrow’s educators. In the time it takes to boil a soft egg he has to establish a relationship which will last long beyond the seven
days that he has at his disposal to train-the-trainer. Bjarne’s students are uniquely different to the type of teachers we had at school – often people who went from school to university and then back to school. His charges come from different worlds and it is that uniqueness that is so precious
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” Author Unknown
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
my eyes to different ways of teaching a class instead of the normal ways that you see. I’m good to go, I’ve learned a lot.’
Albert Einstein
when they step up in front of their first class. NASA CONNECTION Jeff Davis, formerly a Chief Office on supply vessels in the Gulf of Mexico explained, ‘I’m a virgin soldier I’ve never taught beyond elementary school substitute teaching. Bjarne definitely opened
Also Houston-based, but with the People Skills Department is Evelyn Baldwin who was certainly not a first timer. In fact
“Don’t try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.” Marva Collins
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“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.� William Arthur Ward
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THE LEARNING PYRAMID AND AVERAGE LEARNING RETENTION RATES
Lecture 5%
Reading 10%
Audio-visual 20%
Demonstration 30%
Discussion 50%
Practicing 75%
Teaching others 90%
“There are three things to remember when teaching: know your stuff; know whom you are stuffing; and then stuff them elegantly.” Lola May
some of her training has been out of this world – at NASA she trained astronauts and flight controllers for the International Space Station program before coming to the oil & gas industry and using her physics background as a technical instructor for the BOP Control System with GE Oil & Gas for two years. Regardless of the quality of her training CV she felt Bjarne really challenged her to find new techniques, push ideas and try new things. ‘It was a great experience and I think I’m going to be a better instructor because of the course.
I love it that Maersk Training requires all instructors to do it.’ 42 YEARS AND STILL LEARNING Train-the-Trainer has two principal purposes. Firstly to qualify the student to be a trainer and secondly that the student gains an attitude that development in the trainer role is a never-ending process. ‘I’ve been a trainer for 42 years and I’m not finished yet. Sometimes I think I’m close to 100, but then I realise that I’m down on 85%,’ says Bjarne practicing his selfassessment. The course is divided into two. A pre and a main course. The pre-course lasts two long days, eight to eight. There is a lot of theory and I’m trying not to be too
“We can teach from our experience, but we cannot teach experience.”
“The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity.”
Sasha Azevedo
Robert Brault
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“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. Mark van Doren
heavy on theory but letting them discover it through exercises. With exercises the new trainers realise that student activity is essential if you want them to reach understanding. PowerPoint, lecture, this is not training, this is listening. Training is when you work with and solve problems.
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” Plutarch
Theory takes in how to make an objective, how to structure, which method to use and what training aids and how to handle the training aids. Then there is training technique, body language, voice control.
Bjarne – A case study That’s followed almost immediately by the five-day main course where Bjarne can relax a bit as it is now the new trainers turn to work and to train each other. Each has to do four lessons and each of these is evaluated using video recording. OPEN EYES, OPEN MINDS Whilst training Bjarne is looking out for reactions and commitment, failure is a possibility for if Bjarne doesn’t think you are up to the mark, he won’t let you loose on an unsuspecting class. He then goes into repair the damage by using a process which he sees as fundamental in training, the ability to open eyes by spreading the responsibility
“A good trainer is selfreflecting and analyses their own performance through asking what I got right or wrong” Bjarne Møller
and cooperating to finding the solution. In other words he puts any failure back on himself. For example to someone who is not engaged he’ll ask ‘I’m sorry but is it because the way I do this? Is it boring or are you reflecting on how I’m doing this because I’m not clear, because I want to do the best for you.’ It wasn’t a technique he needed on this occasion, all four participants, including the Houston duo, were cleared for take-off. ●
‘There was this Indian guy who admitted he was an introvert – didn’t have a social gene. ”I live out in the country, I’ve just got married to a professor,” he said and he just wanted to go step by step. But you have to have a social gene and to involve yourself in training because you have a responsibility. He talked to his wife who was used to standing in front of students and he put her on the phone to me. She said I think we have found the tools and they had – in his last lesson I have never seen anyone put so much energy into it. He was so tired afterwards he virtually crawled out of the room.’
BJARNE’S FOUR GOLDEN RULES • Proper planning prevents poor performance • Involve students • Don’t make it complicated • Try to create motivational energetic environment
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Dubai warms up as a global training hub
Quick Look Out the Window - it’s raining!
There was a time when Louise would look out of the window and be excited by the sight of snow – now the thrill is the four or five times a year it rains. Rain on the windows of hometown Aalborg is not really a novelty, but in current home Dubai it is a real treat.
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he Middle East has been Louise Lund’s base for the past four years and that has given her a chance to really draw lines of demarcation between living in the moist green grass of northern
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Jutland and in the dry sand of Dubal. ‘Dubai planners seem to have one rule, if we are going to have something, it must be bigger and better than anywhere else,’ says Louise. It is a leading world tourist attraction; more people visit Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping centre each year than visit the whole of Denmark. In fact Denmark celebrated a record number of visitors in 2014, 47 million, but that is still 28 million fewer than went shopping at the Mall. AALBORG IN REVERSE Dubai is a visitors’ stopover and many of those who stop, stay with the large number of foreign nationals for whom the emirate state is a tax-free workers paradise. Having somewhere for friends and family to stay is a plus/minus for those who live there. ‘Most weekends we have visitors. For the first two years it was
tiring and expensive, we went to the top of the Burj Khalifa five times in less than two months,’ she says pointing out that their guests now have moved on in terms of how they entertain themselves, ‘they now enjoy the things we enjoy, it is easier.’ Seeking relief from the sun and heat by staying inside, life in Dubai is a reversal of Aalborg where you are kept indoors by the cold. Being inside has turned Louise and her husband into film buffs – there’s little Hollywood has turned out in the past three years that they haven’t seen. ‘The funny thing is that in Aalborg I never went to the cinema, it’s just something you do here and of course being here the cinemas are a bit different.’ Different means deep comfy seats, waiter service and Hollywood movies still wet from the cutting room. Dubai is a very serviceconscious society; that along with the drive to make it a world commercial centre makes it
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a vibrant living environment which has attracted thousands of expats, particularly those in the post university pre-family and two dogs group. Louise is a sales executive with the new Maersk Training complex that opened its doors at the end of September. 99% HAPPY In business she sees little difference in being a woman executive in this part of the world. ‘Lots of people think of the Middle East and say “but you can’t drive there as a woman or go out alone” but Dubai isn’t like that, I can freely do what I would in Aalborg,’ says Louise. It’s an environment that pulsates, but how does it hold up to life in Aalborg? Louise was surprised, but delighted, to hear that her hometown recently came top of a European Commission survey into how inhabitants viewed the quality of life in their city. People in 79 cities were asked 30 questions including those about public spaces, cleanliness and
financial security. Aalborg came top with a whacking 99% happy rate. ‘When we have children we will probably return to Denmark because that is the better place to bring them up,’ she says. But until that happens, Louise says she will continue to enjoy the 360 days of sunshine. And it’s about enjoying Dubai that Louise thinks is a major plus in her role of getting participants to Fly-Stay-Learn. The new centre is just next to the new Al Maktoum airport, is in the hub of what is a hub city – the area is called Dubai World Central (DWC), which says it all. Most of the world’s capital cities are within an eight hour flight of Dubai. This assess, competitive accommodation and the new purpose-built centre are three majors in her sales toolbox. ●
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f it had a mayor, a judge, a priest, for two or three weeks at a time it would be one man. On this shift it is David Lodhi. His charge is what most of us would call a drilling rig and a growing number of people refer to it as an offshore installation. It’s a new title which makes David, as the manager, the OIM of Maersk Resolute. The Resolute is a jackup rig currently in 60 metres of water in the Danish sector’s, South Arne field*; that’s about 280kms west of where Denmark becomes somewhere you can actually stand on and keep your feet dry. REAL LIFE ARTIFICIAL COMMUNITY So what is life like for an artificial community which is just about as inaccessible as the orbiting space station? One image to immediately get out of your mind is that of the goldrush mentality, of tough-talking men searching for riches and in the process succumbing to the
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testosterone-driven desire to bar brawl their way to the top of the heap. Nothing could be further from the truth – alcohol, like land, is at least 280km to the east, or 330 to the west. On board is a team of professional people for whom care, safety and teamwork are as much a triangular stabilising factor as the Resolute’s three giant legs. David sees the first impression for those arriving on board as being the crucial moment in establishing how the entire stay will be, regardless if it is for a day or the usual work-shift of three weeks.
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‘We welcome people on board and explain to them what we are experiencing in the operation, safety-wise and whatnot. We tell them if there is anything they are concerned about they should always come and see us first thing rather than walk around and be uncertain. That welcome is the first step to having a successful stay out here,’ says David, who along with the Safety Officer and medic take everyone through an induction. The induction is the same for everyone, whether as a first timer or an experienced hand. For some it is an update, for others an introduction of what
exactly is expected of them when on board. WELL CONTROL – TEAM CONTROL What David looks for in those arriving is a certain sense of nervousness – in it he sees people in touch with their new surroundings and believes that, like sportspeople, you need the edge that nerves give you in order to do a really good job. Doing a good job involves management, in the doghouse there is well control, in the OIM’s office, team control. So what do
you do when there’s a threat of a personnel blow out? With 120 people living in a pressure cooker you’d expect some friction, but according to David it is because they are so isolated that the pressure is immediately confronted. ‘We respect each another, we don’t judge one another and we see how to compensate for each other’s positives and negatives out here, and it works really well,’ he says. ‘It’s like when you notice somebody’s not get getting
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Getting there Visiting a rig is a matter of time, commitment and achievement. Maersk Drilling require an on-line elearning program to have been successfully completed, a valid Danish Maritime medical document (the Blue Book) and a certificate from the three-day BOSIET and HUET courses and naturally, a reason and invite. To make it easier for you click here for a quick rig visit.
See the video ď‚š
*The North Sea is shallow basin with an average depth of 100 metres. This shallowness increases the potential for sudden storms and wind driven turbulent conditions. The Resolute operates over what was once Doggerland, glacial debris so vast that it joined East Anglia in England to Holland, Germany and the expanded southern part of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. Fishing trawlers working the Dogger Bank to the south have dredged up large amounts of moor peat, remains of mammoth and rhinoceros and occasionally Paleolithic hunting artefacts.
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The phone rings, ‘It’s Jonny’ The banter is an instant updating of a crowded life, slightly numbed by the sounds of travel from outside. Jonny Chung is in the car again. It was like the first time we talked. Then he was on speakerphone saying he’d just sold his car to pay for some training – a life-turning gamble which paid off for the likable Geordie. Now 312 days later he was in another life-changing situation and as a consequence was thinking about changing cars again – he’d just become a dad, twice over. He needs something bigger, more sensible. He’d just spent two days in hospital The twin’s weren’t a surprise, their arrival date was since they chose to see the world four
weeks ahead of schedule. The real surprise had come some weeks previously when Jonny was working on erecting the last of a series of forty wind turbines in Cornwall. HIDE AND SEEK ‘The phone rang and it was my girlfriend Gaynor, I wasn’t expecting anything other than an update because we’d had the all clear for a scan the previous week, the baby was healthy,’ he said. ‘The second baby must have been hiding behind, I was working on the crane pad and shouted out “ twins” and the whole crew shouted back. It was a never-tobe-forgotten moment.’ Jonny appeared in eSea 18 when he took the gamble of selling his pride and joy, ‘his wheel’ to downsize and he used the surplus cash to pay for some specialist training in an entirely new field for him, wind turbines. He’s an ideal barometer for the wind turbine industry. He works
for Global Wind Service on a fulltime contract. This means working 6/2 weeks rotations and traveling around the UK to fast erect EWT Direct Drive turbines, on land. ‘I think I was put on the project as part of my learning curve and I still have a lot to learn but fell I have come a long way,’ says Jonny. Jonny would like to work offshore, even although the winter season is by necessity quieter. ‘Hopefully one day I get to work on the famous Brave Tern & Bold Tern Offshore Wind Carriers which are owned by the Fred. Olsen Group and Global Wind Service. These vessels are used on Global Wind Service offshore installations,’ he says. THAT CROSS- OVER MOMENT The life of an installer is pretty busy at this point of the industry’s history, but there’s a downside. You have to take the work when it comes and where it is. The shift pattern is tolerable for a bachelor
but for a young father of identical twin boys there are other priorities which now need to be taken into account. ‘I’ll have to see what can be arranged. There’s a huge offshore project coming up and I’d love to be involved, but I also have to see what works best for the family,’ he says. The early arrival of Jaxon and Jonah already disrupted his work commitment and in the freelance world, leave is often at a cost to the individual. Meanwhile the third J, Jonny, continued to drive home, thinking of how much life had changed since the day he decided to gamble his much loved car as a trade-in against a lesser model and some specialist training. ‘I think I’ll have to go for something bigger this time,’ he ruefully remarked. ●
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It’s the Mid-West’s contribution to the American Dream, the customised pickup truck.
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ne of its latest carnations is the Super Duty, designed and built by Ford at great expense to tackle the toughest jobs, but for some that simply isn’t enough. They take a car out of the showroom for $30,000 and immediately take it round to Paul Dishaw’s offroad/performance workshop and spend up to $25,000 on it. When it comes out of Paul’s place after its make-over there is no need for a number plate to find it in the parking lot. Customizing, or to me more accurate individualizing, is a strangely American phenomena
Tyred not Tired Instructor’s other life supplies the American Dream
‘Sometimes it is an element of competition and sometimes it is their personal style in that they don’t want to be like anyone else
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and Paul couldn’t put his finger on just why it is such a part of the Texan psych. ‘Sometimes it is an element of competition and sometimes it is their personal style in that they don’t want to be like anyone else’ THAT CROSS- OVER MOMENT There are basically three types of customization. The paint job, body job and the performance job. Many of Paul’s customers opt for all three. The first part is done on a computer where Paul and his team try to come up with something to match the customer’s desired requirements. It’s a process called rendering and is not just a matter of PhotoShopping the original vehicle. Many hours are spent trying to create a like-for-like experience so that the vehicle owner can accurately see what they are going to get. It is a classic case of expectation management. ‘Rendering helps make your dream come true,’ says Paul who
‘I’ve been working on trucks since before I could drive, so I’m just living the dream,’
added that by seeing it on a screen any errors in taste can be easily adjusted before the expensive part of the process starts. ‘It’s a pretty tedious task and costs hundreds of dollars but the aim is to make it look as real as possible. In the end it pays of itself.’ There are guidelines of taste largely driven by sponsorship. There are shows where the cars come together and the supplying companies for paint, wheels, tires, suspension, brakes, engine parts, interior, audio . . . all cut deals so that their products feature. It is here where there are unwritten guidelines of what is acceptable or not.
individual can make it hard to sell. ‘Sometimes you have to hold on to it longer than you first anticipated, but there are other times when you might find people who want something different, but don’t want to put the money into it up front and they are happy with what you’ve done.’
LIVIN’ THE DREAM Having your own style on four large wheels is wonderful, whilst the car is ‘the apple of your eye’, but as Paul pointed out being
Twenty-eight year old Paul’s life is split in two, he works fulltime as a crane instructor in the new Houston operation of Maersk Training and then does 40 plus
hours a week in the workshop. He’s been running the workshop for just over a year. When you are young and doing something you love, you don’t tire – ‘I’ve been working on trucks since before I could drive, so I’m just living the dream,’ he says. ●
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Putting people before politics
Electing to Help Not to stereotype, but put a group of politicians into a room in a crisis situation and they might be tempted to draw up an agenda, have a meeting, argue and then delegate, and then meet again to discuss what went wrong.
felt that it was a good lesson well learnt and fellow party member Jakob Lose, a veteran of several First Aid courses put it in the top bracket for new knowledge and the enthusiastic way it was delivered. Alex wanted to take the benefit of the course outside of the council offices, ‘I think every citizen in the community should learn how to give First Aid.’
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ot the elected members of Esbjerg Commune – they opted out of a normal family weekend to insure that when an incident happens they will not be on-lookers with their hands in their pockets. Party politics were left in the council office as they took part in a one-day First Aid course at Maersk Training in Esbjerg. For some, like Venstre’s Alex Sørensen, the day was more than
a memory jogger. ‘I was glad to take part in First Aid training for the second time in my life. The last time was 28 years ago, so I needed to freshen up – I recognise that a lot has changed over that period.’
Bente Bendix of the Liberal Alliance was a little surprised at how demanding it was to give heart massage. ‘Now I know I am much more certain I will be able to help someone in despair.’ Henrik Andersen of Venstre also
It’s a party policy Maersk Training would be happy to help implement, but with the ideal course being a day long with eight participants and the city having 71,618 people, if instructor Henrik Jensen were to start tomorrow he’d finish in late July 2039. ●
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‘Heart massage is very physically demanding’
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‘This is so important’
‘Everyone should do this’
Left to right Henrik Jensen (instructor), Alex Sørensen (Venstre), Bente Bendix (Lib Alliance), Annemette Knudsen (Venstre), Jakob Lose (Venstre) Søren Abildtrup (Kommune Chief) & Hendrik Andersen (Venstre).
‘He’s very enthusiastic’
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Mud Glory
Apart from the length, breadth and depth of the pain barrier, Andy Suthern’s abiding memory of a 12 kilometre run uphill, downhill, across rivers, through pipes and mud and then more Yorkshire mud, is of teamwork.
H
e took part in one of the Total Warrior exercises, billed as the ultimate challenge to mind, soul and body. You’ve got your marathons and your triathlons, but the Warrior experience, although considerably shorter, is more intense and because it is difficult to gain a rhythm, perhaps more demanding.
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‘You can start off as an individual but unless you are aiming for a personal best against the clock, you will find yourself drawn into stopping and helping others. That’s what happened to me,’ says Andy. ‘The mud was the worst and after you’ve been helped out by a stranger you find yourself doing it for others. It was hard but there was tremendous camaraderie.’
Andy and five mates were part of a team, but the challenge to him started one morning on the bathroom scales. ‘In my last job I was a fireman and pretty active,’ says 39 year-old Andy, ‘now, training people in rescue and emergency response, I was staying in hotels, eating the wrong things at the wrong times
and putting on weight. I just had to do something.’ For most signing on to a gym, going seven times in three weeks and then three times in seven months, is enough to satisfy the conscience. Not Andy. He trained for the 12km, 30 obstacle challenge and went down from 16½ to 13½ stone; for those
who don’t speak pounds, that’s a reduction of 14½ kilos. He lost almost two kilos during the race alone. After a beer and the pain subsiding, it was time to reflect and make the only decision that seemed sensible – ‘it was good, I’m going to do it again.’ ●
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Memories, Misery, Money & Motion-sickness
7 Up – and down, up and down How well do you know your workmates? Well enough to spend 24 hours bobbing up and down on the edge of the North Sea in an inflatable life raft?
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hat’s what seven men from Maersk Training in Newcastle did in order to raise funds for those who volunteer to risk their lives to save those in peril in the waters around the UK.
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‘I’ve known some of the guys a long time, some hardly at all, but all those hours together we got down close and personal,’
The Royal National Lifeboat Association we’re being called out to save this seven, they too were volunteers. The one stipulation they stuck to was to enter the life raft in an ‘abandon ship’ mode – no sweets, treats, iPads or hip flasks, just what was available in the survival pack on board. It was to be as realistic as possible. Luckily it contained a pack of water-proof playing cards.
‘I’m not sure I could have stuck it out for days at sea,’ survivor Sam Nicholson admitted. In that scenario Sam said that he would probably be first course on the ultimate survival menu – ‘well, I was the largest,’ he said.
The experience started sweetly enough, but after an hour it rained and continued to rain for the next six or seven and the water on board made things a bit miserable.
‘I’m not sure I could have stuck it out for days at sea’
‘I’ve known some of the guys a long time, some hardly at all, but all those hours together we got down close and personal,’ said Sam. Considering the most common ailment in the world affects one in three of us, motion sickness, the seven got off light, only one person fed the fish. ●
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Whale Meat Again – don’t know where, don’t know when
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his is a particularly hard topic to put into words, yet it is all about words – basically it ain’t what you say, it is the way that you say it. To get you in the mood, have you seen the classic language school video of the German coastguard radio operator? He responds to the ‘mayday screaming’ yachtsman,
with ‘so vad are you sinking?’ You see it doesn’t work in words. The inspiration for this look at the joys of mispronunciation came from the group of guys at Maersk Training’s Delight restaurant in Svendborg. Food there has never been just normal fare; venison and deer that have broken free of the
forest occasionally appear on the menu. So there’s this one night, an orderly queue by the craved meat section and someone asking the assistant chef . . . . I’ll get back to it, let it savour. There are numerous incidents where a slip of the tongue, or mind, has sent out flutters of
concern. Like recently on live television when the presenter picked up the pecorino cheese and told the demonstrating Italian chef how much she loved it. Only problem was she said ‘pecorina’. The chef blushed; she carried on in innocence with every Italian watching wondering why she should admit on national
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television to enjoying a particular sexual activity.
the load-side, larboard. And where do you do this loading, in port.
The swapping of one vowel for another was embarrassing, but not disastrous, especially if you don’t like Italian cheese. The Royal Navy could sense that someday something would go wrong if they continued navigating with Starboard and Larboard. In 1844 with creditable foresight, long before crackly radios, they changed the left side of a ship to port to avoid confusion.
When it comes to geographical names the mispronunciation game becomes mega. My elder brother loves winding my sister up with the way he says things. Recently he visited Skagen in northern Denmark. Locally, and beyond, the ‘g’ is as silent as nun in a bodega, but he loves saying it Ska-GAN. He then mentioned that he was going on a cruise, stopping in Nice, N-EEce he said, not N-Ice. How might he, and you, get on with these? Can you recognise ee-ROCK, Du-BAY, and the one most Americans struggle with Wusta-sheer. This is the official pronunciation, honestly. Answers but no prizes at bottom.
CONFUSED? READ ON . . . Starboard and Larboard incidentally have a long history. From the beginnings of time man has preferred his right hand, it’s basically why the Brits drive on the left; most primitive seafarers in their first canoes paddled on the right hand side, that practice was developed by the Vikings, who placed their permanent steering paddle on the side they called the side of the stars. All boats consequently protected the steering when loading, loading on
YOU SAY IXTOMATI Much of how we say things depends on the ear of the first person who came across it. It took 35 centuries to shape the isolated community on Viti, but only a moment for some tone-deaf Englishman to decide the locals
World Pronunciation Test WRONG
RIGHT
WHERE
BANG-kok
Bahng-Gawk
Bangkok
Bay-zhhhing
Bey-Jing
Beijing
Wor-chester-shyr
Wusta-sheer
Worcestershire
Co-LUM-bee-a
Co-LOM-bee-a
Columbia
Doo-BYE
Du-BAY
Dubai
EYE-rack
ee-ROCK
Iraq
RAKE-ja-vik
REY-kya-vik
Reykjavik
Mel-BORN
Melb’n
Melbourne
MON-tree-ALL
MUN-tree-all
Montreal
Des Moines
De Moine
Des Moines
were saying Fiji. The Aztecs where unhappy with the ‘poisonous’ ixtomati before the Spanish realised that it could be eaten and forever enlighten their entire cuisine as a tomato. So all this was triggered by a little mishearing and mispronunciation in the restaurant. We’re back at the buffet. The guys had looked at the main dish and asked what
it was. ‘Veal meat’ was the reply. ‘how exciting, I’ve never had whale meat’ the head of the queue said without the chef picking up the confusion. They party sat down and discussed how whale was different from what they expected, but debated if it was socially acceptable to eat it. Clearly they were not Faroese. ●
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