Welcome to p
art three of my series, How to Survive at Sea: A Stage Crew’s Guide. Click here to see last week’s post, or click here to jump to the first in the series.
Glossary: Sea Terminology
Part of being immersed in any new environment is learning how to talk like your coworkers. My first day at one new job, my boss asked me if I could put together a draft for a RFP for a project we were working on. I said ‘of course!,’ went back to my desk, had a moment of panic, and then remembered I had the internet. A little Googling and the crisis was averted.
Every new career comes with moments where someone will use a short-hand that you’re unfamiliar with, but rarely are you so totally immersed in not just a new career, but also a new environment. Most of the terms at sea are pretty easy to pick up, and honestly half of them we never really used because we were all landlubbers at heart and no one gave two flying you-know-whats if you said left instead of port.
But, I know you’ll be curious, and also most of these are hilarious, so here they are: a glossary of maritime terminology to make you feel like you, too, are the captain of your own floating island. Err, cruise ship.
Crew: There are three levels of hierarchy onboard a cruise ship. While on land, every employee of a ship is one of its crew (ships like this are rarely referred to as “her”). Signs that direct employees onto the ship, for instance, will say “Crew This Way.” But once the “crew” have boarded the vessel, some crew members cease to be crew. They become Staff, Officers, or Non-Revenue Passengers. Staff (like myself) have privileges, but no power. Officers have privileges and power. Crew have… white rice. There is a lot of white rice.
Example: We all go and drink at the crew bar, but officers and staff are also welcome to drink at the Wardroom, where crew members are not allowed to go.
Fore and Aft: Front and back. These maritime terms are really just common English words that have fallen out of common usage, which is no doubt true of much maritime terminology. Fore and Front both start with F, which should be an obvious correlation, but as most of the people who work at sea don’t speak English, this mnemonic trick doesn’t work very well.
Example: My cabin is fore and the mess is aft, and I’m not wearing any pants. Guess I’m not having dinner tonight.
Laminex: A small piece of plastic with your photograph on it, and a barcode. This piece of identification is used to log you on and off the ship. Without one, you can’t go ashore; and if you lose it, it costs two hundred and fifty dollars to replace.
Example: I can’t go to Honolulu tomorrow because I lost my Laminex in Nawiliwili yesterday.
Listing vs pitching: When you’re throwing up in the bathroom, it’s nice to know why you’re throwing up, so conquer these terms quickly. Listing means that the ship is moving from side to side, like a hammock being pushed by your hyper-active ten-year old cousin. Pitching means that the ship is moving from fore to aft, like a boat that’s rocking from front to back. There are also gradations of pitching and listing, including rocking (listing slightly), rolling (listing and pitching), and capsizing (listing one last time). If you jump at just the right time during bad weather, you can almost achieve weightlessness. If you do this during a disco, while drunk, you achieve enlightenment.
Example: The Staff Captain issued a weather warning. We’d better make sure to tie down all of our props and scenery, because if we’re listing and pitching tonight, we’ll come in tomorrow morning to find a car in the audience.
Maritime Humour: A joke that relies on obscure knowledge of maritime trivia, and thus isn’t really funny, even if you do know what the person is talking about.
Example: Q: What colour is the sky? A: Blue. Q: That’s starboard! Hahaha.
Mess: This is where people eat. There is an Officer’s Mess, a Staff Mess, and a Crew Mess. Each designation can eat in their own mess, plus those of the lower orders. Staff and Officers are also allowed to eat in the passenger food court. However, eating times at Horizon Court are restricted, so sometimes you have to suck it up and eat cold white rice and unidentifiable soup.
Example: If Horizon Court is a euphemism for sex, and the Staff Mess is a euphemism for masturbation, what would that make the Crew Mess? (yes, this was a real conversation we had)
Port and Starboard: Left and right. Often remembered by the length of the words, as port and left both have four letters; thus, mnemonically, you would think they would be the correlating words. You would be right. Or starboard. That is an example of maritime humour (see above).
Example: It’s easy to remember where the galley is, because you know it’s on the port side of the ship. Of course, that doesn’t help you if you don’t know which direction of the ship is forward, since right and left are subjective terms based on where you happen to be standing, whereas port and starboard are objective terms based on where the captain is standing (ie the bridge).
Ship vs Boat: While interchangeable on land, at sea these terms have very different meanings. Some people describe a ship as a large boat. Technically, the definition of a ship is a vessel that contains boats, while the definition of a boat is something akin to: a floating vessel. As a cruise ship contains many life boats, this means that a cruise ship is never correctly identified as a boat. However, the only person who will correct you on your error will be your father, who while technically correct, has about as much maritime knowledge as you have military flight training. Unless you are trained in military flight, in which case you will have to use your no-doubt highly developed mental muscles to insert a more appropriate metaphor.
Example: If my child brings their toy cruise ship onto the lifeboat, does the lifeboat then become a lifeship?
Who’s Who
The other important part of the terminology on a ship is figuring out who fits where in the hierarchy. Being on a cruise ship is half like being in the military, and half like returning to an older era… one that heavily employs sexism, racism, and the class system. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the multiculturalism which is so fantastic on board ships.
Ranks on cruise ships are very much like those in the navy iIt is, after all, a sea-going vessel). There is a Captain, and there are Cadets, and these distinctions are important and adhered to. Many services on board are reserved for those with officer status. You’ll remember from the glossary that ships have officers, staff, and crew. Officers are almost exclusively white (in fact, I never did see a non-white officer on either ship). They are also mostly Italian, though there are a large number of British officers, and I have met one or two from other places (Canada, Australia, etc.)
First officers have three stripes. Second officers have two, and third officers have one. Cadets have half a stripe, and Captains have four. Officers have certain privileges – they’re allowed to eat in passenger areas, sit on bar stools (yeah, that’s a real rule. staff can go to the passenger bars, but aren’t allowed to sit), dance with passengers, and they have their own laundry.
Next you have staff. Staff have a slightly more even distribution of race, though the majority are still white. In our department, there are many Filipino staff members. Staff are allowed in the Wardroom, may eat in Horizon Court and other passenger areas (but only during off hours), and may sit in the bars, but not on the bar stools. There is a lot of racism towards non-white staff members, leading them to avoid places like the Wardroom, which is full of Officers.
Finally you have the crew, who are almost exclusively from India and the Philippines, with a few thrown in from all over the world (Mexico, South America, etc.) The crew do not have “deck privileges”, which means they are not allowed in any passenger area except in the course of their duties. On some cruise lines, stage crew are considered crew and not staff. It is a very different life – sleeping four to a room, only ever eating in the Crew Mess, and not being allowed to take part in the entertainment on board.
Join us again next week as we delve into the complicated world of co-existing on cruise ships.