#OFFSHORE CREW MANNING

[oceanicstarshipping]

Efficient Offshore Crew Management Solutions

When it comes to offshore operations, efficientcrew management is the compass that guides a successful voyage. In the demanding worlds of maritime, oil & gas, and renewable energy, the management of offshore personnel is a complex and critical task. To ensure smooth sailing and boost productivity, it's imperative to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies in offshore crew management. In this blog, we'll explore the key strategies and innovations that are transforming the offshore crew management landscape.

 Understanding Offshore Crew Management

Offshore crew management involves the selection, training, scheduling, and overall supervision of the workforce that operates and maintains offshore installations such as oil rigs, drilling platforms, wind farms, and vessels. It's a multifaceted task that demands meticulous planning, safety protocols, and a keen eye for efficiency.

 The Key Elements of Successful Crew Management

 1. Recruitment and Onboarding

The foundation of offshore crew management is selecting the right personnel. It begins with a thorough recruitment process to identify individuals with the necessary skills, experience, and qualifications. Once selected, a robust onboarding program ensures that new crew members are well-prepared for their roles and responsibilities.

 2. Training and Certification

Continuous training and certification are vital to maintaining a skilled and safety-conscious crew. Industry-specific training programs, emergency response drills, and the acquisition of relevant certifications are essential components of offshore crew management.

 3. Scheduling and Rotation

Efficient scheduling and rotation systems balance the need for continuous operations with crew well-being. Implementing well-thought-out shift schedules, including leave rotations, reduces fatigue and enhances performance.

 4. Safety and Compliance

Safety is paramount in offshore operations. Compliance with industry regulations, rigorous safety procedures, and regular safety drills are essential for offshore crew management.

 Embracing Technology

The digital age has brought forth a wave of innovations in offshore crew management:

 1. Crew Management Software

Specialized software solutions have streamlined the administrative aspects of crew management. They help with crew scheduling, training tracking, and compliance monitoring, making it easier to manage a large workforce across multiple locations.

 2. Communication Technology

Efficient communication is crucial in offshore environments. High-tech communication systems enable real-time connectivity between onshore and offshore personnel, enhancing safety and operational efficiency.

 3. Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics helps in forecasting crew needs, optimizing schedules, and planning for crew training and certification renewal, reducing downtime and costs.

 Embracing Sustainability

As the world shifts towards sustainable energy solutions, offshore crew management in the renewable energy sector is gaining prominence. Managing diverse crews working on wind farms and offshore renewable projects requires specialized approaches that prioritize sustainability and environmental responsibility.

 Conclusion

Offshore crew management is the linchpin of safe, efficient, and productive offshore operations. By embracing the latest technologies, adhering to best practices, and staying attuned to industry trends, organizations can navigate the seas of offshore crew management with confidence. Whether it's in traditional oil and gas or the burgeoning renewable energy sector, a well-managed crew is the key to success in these challenging environments. So, set your course for success by prioritizing the well-being and productivity of your offshore crew.

Remember, in the world of offshore operations, a well-managed crew is your North Star!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Boeing’s deliberately defective fleet of flying sky-wreckage

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is manufactured far from the company's Seattle facility, in a non-union shop in Charleston, South Carolina. At that shop, there is a cage full of defective parts that have been pulled from production because they are not airworthy.

Hundreds of parts from that Material Review Segregation Area (MRSA) were secretly pulled from that cage and installed on aircraft that are currently plying the world's skies. Among them, sections 47/48 of a 787 – the last four rows of the plane, along with its galley and rear toilets. As Moe Tkacik writes in her excellent piece on Boeing's lethally corrupt culture of financialization and whistleblower intimidation, this is a big ass chunk of an airplane, and there's no way it could go missing from the MRSA cage without a lot of people knowing about it:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-30-whistleblower-laws-protect-lawbreakers/

More: MRSA parts are prominently emblazoned with red marks denoting them as defective and unsafe. For a plane to escape Boeing's production line and find its way to a civilian airport near you with these defective parts installed, many people will have to see and ignore this literal red flag.

The MRSA cage was a special concern of John "Swampy" Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who is alleged to have killed himself in March. Tkacik's earlier profile of Swampy paints a picture of a fearless, stubborn engineer who refused to go along to get along, refused to allow himself to become inured to Boeing's growing culture of profits over safety:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Boeing is America's last aviation company and its single largest exporter. After the company was allowed to merge with its rival McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, the combined company came under MDD's notoriously financially oriented management culture. MDD CEO Harry Stonecipher became Boeing's CEO in the early 2000s. Stonecipher was a protege of Jack Welch, the man who destroyed General Electric with cuts to quality and workforce and aggressive union-busting, a classic Mafia-style "bust-out" that devoured the company's seed corn and left it a barren wasteland:

https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis

Post-merger, Boeing became increasingly infected with MDD's culture. The company chased cheap, less-skilled labor to other countries and to America's great onshore-offshore sacrifice zone, the "right-to-work" American south, where bosses can fire uppity workers who balked at criminal orders, without the hassle of a union grievance.

Stonecipher was succeeded by Jim "Prince Jim" McNerney, ex-3M CEO, another Jack Welch protege (Welch spawned a botnet of sociopath looters who seized control of the country's largest, most successful firms, and drove them into the ground). McNerney had a cute name for the company's senior engineers: "phenomenally talented assholes." He created a program to help his managers force these skilled workers – everyone a Boeing who knew how to build a plane – out of the company.

McNerney's big idea was to get rid of "phenomenally talented assholes" and outsource the Dreamliner's design to Boeing's suppliers, who were utterly dependent on the company and could easily be pushed around (McNerney didn't care that most of these companies lacked engineering departments). This resulted in a $80b cost overrun, and a last-minute scramble to save the 787 by shipping a "cleanup crew" from Seattle to South Carolina, in the hopes that those "phenomenally talented assholes" could save McNerney's ass.

Swampy was part of the cleanup crew. He was terrified by what he saw there. Boeing had convinced the FAA to let them company perform its own inspections, replacing independent government inspectors with Boeing employees. The company would mark its own homework, and it swore that it wouldn't cheat.

Boeing cheated. Swampy dutifully reported the legion of safety violations he witnessed and was banished to babysit the MRSA, an assignment his managers viewed as a punishment that would isolate Swampy from the criminality he refused to stop reporting. Instead, Swampy audited the MRSA, and discovered that at least 420 defective aviation components had gone missing from the cage, presumably to be installed in planes that were behind schedule. Swampy then audited the keys to the MRSA and learned that hundreds of keys were "floating around" the Charleston facility. Virtually anyone could liberate a defective part and install it into an airplane without any paper trail.

Swampy's bosses had a plan for dealing with this. They ordered Swampy to "pencil whip" the investigations of 420 missing defective components and close the cases without actually figuring out what happened to them. Swampy refused.

Instead, Swampy took his concerns to a departmental meeting where 12 managers were present and announced that "if we can’t find them, any that we can’t find, we need to report it to the FAA." The only response came from a supervisor, who said, "We’re not going to report anything to the FAA."

The thing is, Swampy wasn't just protecting the lives of the passengers in those defective aircraft – he was also protecting Boeing employees. Under Sec 38 of the US Criminal Code, it's a 15-year felony to make any "materially false writing, entry, certification, document, record, data plate, label, or electronic communication concerning any aircraft or space vehicle part."

(When Swampy told a meeting that he took this seriously because "the paperwork is just as important as the aircraft" the room erupted in laughter.)

Swampy sent his own inspectors to the factory floor, and they discovered "dozens of red-painted defective parts installed on planes."

Swampy blew the whistle. How did the 787 – and the rest of Boeing's defective flying turkeys – escape the hangar and find their way into commercial airlines' fleets? Tkacik blames a 2000 whistleblower law called AIR21 that:

creates such byzantine procedures, locates adjudication power in such an outgunned federal agency, and gives whistleblowers such a narrow chance of success that it effectively immunizes airplane manufacturers, of which there is one in the United States, from suffering any legal repercussions from the testimony of their own workers.

By his own estimation, Swampy was ordered to commit two felonies per week for six years. Tkacik explains that this kind of operation relies on a culture of ignorance – managers must not document their orders, and workers must not be made aware of the law. Whistleblowers like Swampy, who spoke the unspeakable, were sidelined (an assessment by one of Swampy's managers called him "one of the best" and finished that "leadership would give hugs and high fives all around at his departure").

Multiple whistleblowers were singled out for retaliation and forced departure. William Hobek, a quality manager who refused to "pencil whip" the missing, massive 47-48 assembly that had wandered away from the MRSA cage, was given a "weak" performance review and fired despite an HR manager admitting that it was bogus.

Another quality manager, Cynthia Kitchens, filed an ethics complaint against manager Elton Wright who responded to her persistent reporting of defects on the line by shoving her against a wall and shouting that Boeing was "a good ol’ boys’ club and you need to get on board." Kitchens was fired in 2016. She had cancer at the time.

John Woods, yet another quality engineer, was fired after he refused to sign off on a corner-cutting process to repair a fuselage – the FAA later backed up his judgment.

Then there's Sam Salehpour, the 787 quality engineer whose tearful Congressional testimony described more corner-cutting on fuselage repairs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP0xhIe1LFE

Salehpour's boss followed the Boeing playbook to the letter: Salehpour was constantly harangued and bullied, and he was isolated from colleagues who might concur with his assessment. When Salehpour announced that he would give Congressional testimony, his car was sabotaged under mysterious circumstances.

It's a playbook. Salehpour's experience isn't unusual at Boeing. Two other engineers, working on the 787 Organization Designation Authorization, held up production by insisting that the company fix the planes' onboard navigation computers. Their boss gave them a terrible performance review, admitting that top management was furious at the delays and had ordered him to punish the engineers. The engineers' union grievance failed, with Boeing concluding that this conduct – which they admitted to – didn't rise to the level of retaliation.

As Tkacik points out, these engineers and managers that Boeing targeted for intimidation and retaliation are the very same staff who are supposed to be performing inspections of behalf of the FAA. In other words, Boeing has spent years attacking its own regulator, with total impunity.

But it's not just the FAA who've failed to take action – it's also the DOJ, who have consistently declined to bring prosecutions in most cases, and who settled the rare case they did bring with "deferred prosecution agreements." This pattern was true under Trump's DOJ and continued under Biden's tenure. Biden's prosecutors have been so lackluster that a federal judge "publicly rebuked the DOJ for failing to take seriously the reputational damage its conduct throughout the Boeing case was inflicting on the agency."

Meanwhile, there's the AIR21 rule, a "whistleblower" rule that actually protects Boeing from whistleblowers. Under AIR21, an aviation whistleblower who is retaliated against by their employer must first try to resolve their problem internally. If that fails, the whistleblower has only one course of action: file an OSHA complaint within 90 days (if HR takes more than 90 days to resolve your internal complaint, you can no have no further recourse). If you manage to raise a complaint with OSHA, it is heard by a secret tribunal that has no subpoena power and routinely takes five years to rule on cases, and rules against whistleblowers 97% of the time.

Boeing whistleblowers who missed the 90-day cutoff have filled the South Carolina courts with last-ditch attempts to hold the company to account. When they lose these cases – as is routine, given Boeing's enormous legal muscle and AIR21's legal handcuffs – they are often ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs.

Tkacik cites Swampy's lawyer, Rob Turkewitz, who says Swampy was the only one of Boeing's whistleblowers who was "savvy, meticulous, and fast-moving enough to bring an AIR 21 case capable of jumping through all the hoops" to file an AIR21 case, which then took seven years. Turkewitz calls Boeing South Carolina "a criminal enterprise."

That's a conclusion that's hard to argue with. Take Boeing's excuse for not producing the documentation of its slapdash reinstallation of the Alaska Air door plug that fell off its plane in flight: the company says it's not criminally liable for failing to provide the paperwork, because it never documented the repair. Not documenting the repair is also a crime.

You might have heard that there's some accountability coming to the Boeing boardroom, with the ouster of CEO David Calhoun. Calhoun's likely successor is Patrick Shanahan, whom Tkacik describes as "the architect of the ethos that governed the 787 program" and whom her source called "a classic schoolyard bully."

If Shanahan's name rings a bell, it might be because he was almost Trump's Secretary of Defense, but that was derailed by the news that he had "emphatically defended" his 17 year old son after the boy nearly beat his mother to death with a baseball bat. Shanahan is presently CEO of Spirit Aerospace, who made the door-plug that fell out of the Alaska Airlines 737 Max.

Boeing is a company where senior managers only fail up and where whistleblowers are terrorized in and out of the workplace. One of Tkacik's sources noticed his car shimmying. The source, an ex-787 worker who'd been fired after raising safety complaints, had tried to bring an AIR21 complaint, but withdrew it out of fear of being bankrupted if he was ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs. When the whistleblower pulled over, he discovered that two of the lug-nuts had been removed from one of his wheels.

The whistleblower texted Tkcacik to say (not for the first time): "If anything happens, I'm not suicidal."

Boeing is a primary aerospace contractor to the US government. It's clear that its management – and investors – consider it too big to jail. It's also clear that they know it's too big to fail – after all, the company did a $43b stock buyback, then got billions in a publicly funded buyback.

Boeing is, effectively, a government agency that is run for the benefit of its investors. It performs its own safety inspections. It investigates its own criminal violations of safety rules. It loots its own coffers and then refills them at public expense.

Meanwhile, the company has filled our skies with at least 420 airplanes with defective, red-painted parts that were locked up in the MRSA cage, then snuck out and fitted to an airplane that you or someone you love could fly on the next time you take your family on vacation or fly somewhere for work.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Image: Tom Axford 1 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_sky_with_wisps_of_cloud_on_a_clear_summer_morning.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

--

Clemens Vasters (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:N7379E_-_Boeing_737_MAX_9.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[half-oz-eddie]

I am so utterly obsessed with rag-tag team heist movies so I made a Stranger things heist crew AU roster

Steve "Moneybags" Harrington's heist crew used to be a team of 2, the other being Dustin "Phisher" Henderson. Steve was the only person Claudia Henderson trusted to look after her son, and as Dustin grew older, the two of them became close friends.

Steve watched Dustin hack into all sorts of databases, uncover the truth behind town conspiracies and even hack a few of his bullies.

When Mr. harrington cut Steve off financially, he wanted to get back at him, and pull a "prank" with Dustin to empty out an offshore bank account that his father kept hidden from Mrs. Harrington.

The plan went smoothly. A little too smoothly, maybe. Or perhaps Dustin was a natural at this, that's what Steve believed. And since it was that easy for Steve and Dustin to get their hands on $1.5 Million, they decided to take their pranks to another level.

Steve proposed for their next prank, they should clean out one of Mr. Harrington's friends' cryptocurrency. He explains to Dustin how the asshole keeps his assets on a physical drive in his house that they could wipe while he was away on vacation.

Dustin agrees and suggests they bring Eddie "Safecrack" Munson into the fold. He tells Steve Eddie's trustworthy and knows how to pick locks and hotwire cars, y'know, just in case.

Eddie, of course, is thrilled by the idea. Not only does he love a little mischief, he'd love to get his hands on some money and a fast car. "However," Eddie told them "we'll need someone to drive one of those fancy cars outta there. We may be good drivers...but we're not that good. But not to worry, I know a guy."

The guy in question? Billy "Wheels" Hargrove. A California bad boy who knows plenty about fast cars and fast cash, so he's in without question. He also doesn't mind hassling pretty boy Harrington. (there's so much sexual tension between them. Billy's the one who gave Steve his code name. He said 'the hair' didn't quite fit.). But Billy's not doing anything unless his stepsister, Max "Sticky Fingers" Mayfield can come in and swipe whatever isn't nailed down for a cut.

They used to have a complicated relationship, but they bonded by shoplifting whatever Billy's dad wouldn't let them have. Max was a skilled thief. She could get out of any store with anything that she wanted, and Billy would drive away like a bat outta hell. She lifted consoles, games and even a little lipgloss, for Billy.

So their first heist goes without a hitch, and after wiping millions in crypto off some hard drives, swiping some expensive paintings and a 2020 Mclaren, they can't resist the urge to plan bigger heists together.

Billy suggests they call up his coworker Heather "Chameleon" Holloway. "She's got more wigs than personalities" He joked. When they brought Heather onto the team, she showed them her massive walk in closet, full of clothes, wigs, shoes and more. Not to mention, she could use her charm and distract anyone. Heather was bored at home, spending time perfecting her hair and makeup skills. She could change her appearance to look like a completely different person. It was all the fun she had. Her mom was always wine drunk, and her dad was a jerk who ignored her because he wanted a son, so she was happy to be part of a team that didn't treat her like she was invisible.

Under normal circumstances, they'd never spend time together, but now? They're an inseperable friend group.

They've made some friends (and enemies) in their line of work, but everyday is an adventure.

They recently took on a half a billion dollar heist job for a mysterious man by the name of Henry Creel, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead...

Tagging some people: @shieldofiron @adelacreations @dragonflylady77 @harringroveera @bigdumbbambieyes

Because I love your writing and I'd love to hear how y'all would include some other characters/ships in the mix. I just love heist AUs so much~

[wbmc666]

Pretty Boys Don't Belong on Oil Rigs by Andreas!

July's WBMC zine is Andreas L's new 12 page, transmasc monsterf^cking comic! It's gorgeously painted, tenderly written, and is a real treat for the eyes <3 <3 <3

‘Pretty Boys Don’t Belong on Oil Rigs’ is a comic about two men that form the skeletal crew of an offshore oil rig, one of them trans and the other perhaps not a man at all. The comic was born of my fascination with isolation, the ocean & horror elements, but it was also very much an excuse for me to get my inks out and paint trans men getting railed.

~Andreas L. 

Pretty Boys Don't Belong on Oil Rigs is being published as limited run of physical zines, available during July 2023 only!

The WBMC publishes a new zine from trans/queer artists each month and mails them to you! Join at $6/mo to get on our monthly zine mailing list AND a print with your first delivery!

Follow and support Andreas’s work:

IG: @rejka 

Art, transmasc portrait project, & links: https://linktr.ee/rejka 

[scotianostra]

The Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Angus, was first lit on the 1st of February 1811.

Over 200 years after it was first built, the Bell Rock Lighthouse still stands - proudly flashing its warning light. Eleven miles out to sea off the east coast of Scotland, it is a remarkable sight - a white stone tower over 30m (100ft) high, rising seemingly without support out of the North Sea.

In fact, it is precariously poised on a treacherous sandstone reef, which, except at low tides, lies submerged just beneath the waves.

The treacherous reef on which it stands is in the North Sea, between the Firths of Forth and Tay, some 12 miles south of Arbroath and 14 miles south east of St Andrews. The red sandstone outcrop is 435m long and the lighthouse is founded on the main section, 130m long and 70m wide, and only 1.2m above the surface at low water spring tide.

The reef was known originally as Inchcape Rock or Cape Rock. According to tradition, in the 14th century the Abbot of Aberbrothok (Arbroath) placed a floating bell on it to warn mariners, hence its present name. Legend has it that sometime later a Dutch pirate removed the bell but he was later shipwrecked and perished on the same reef. The rocks were dangerous to ships sailing along the east coast of Scotland and by the end of the 18th century the need for a lighthouse was clear.

A severe storm in December 1799, in which about 70 vessels were wrecked, prompted Stevenson to propose a beacon-style lighthouse on six cast iron pillars.

Stevenson submitted a scale model of his idea to the Northern Lighthouse Board in summer 1800 — accurate physical modelling was to become something he often employed subsequently on important projects.

Stevenson drew the inspiration for his lighthouse design from the Eddystone Lighthouse, off the coast of Cornwall.

Built 50 years earlier by John Smeaton, this was a milestone in lighthouse design. Shaped with the now classic wide base, tapering to a narrow tower (Smeaton had modelled it on an oak tree he had witnessed defying a storm), it was the only off-shore structure that had until then managed to survive for any length of time against the constant battering of the seas.

Stevenson elaborated on this design. His lighthouse would have to be higher, over 30m (100ft), if it was to survive the cruel waves of the North Sea. He also incorporated more efficient reflectors, using the latest oil lighting technology, which would make his beacon the brightest yet seen.

But the Northern Lighthouse Board rejected the plan outright; in their eyes Stevenson was attempting the impossible, and besides, it was going to cost the huge sum of £42,685 and 8 shillings.

The rock had to claim another victim before the Board revisited Stevenson's plans. In 1804 the huge 64-gun HMS York was ripped apart on the rock, with the loss of all 491 crew. The NLB could delay no longer. Britain's most eminent engineer, John Rennie, was invited to give his advice.

Rennie had never actually built a lighthouse, but the Board was so impressed by his record that he was given the job of chief engineer. Robert Stevenson was to work as his resident engineer.

History does not record Stevenson's reaction to the news, but it must have come as a bitter blow to this ambitious young man. What history does record is that the structure on Bell Rock came to be known not as Rennie's but as Stevenson's Lighthouse.

Work started in 1807 and what followed was a four-year epic, with work severely restricted by tides that on occasion submerged the rock’s surface to twelve feet. The offshore activity only proceed during the summer months, and even then only with difficulty. Poor weather in the summer of 1808 allowed only 80 hours of work were completed.

To avoid time lost in shuttling workers to and fro Stevenson built a temporary wooden “Beacon House” on the rock and this served as both a base of operations and living quarters for fifteen men. As this structure (see illustrations) was also exposed to storms during the construction period, residence on it must have in itself have been a nightmare. During the winter months Stevenson kept his crews busy ashore, dressing the individual granite blocks needed for the tower. The total number required was some 2500 and all were drawn to the dockside by one of the unsung heroes of the project, a horse called Bassey.

The lighthouse came into service in 1810 and was to fulfil its purpose very effectively. Between then and 1914 only a single ship was lost on the rock, a steamer called the Rosecraig that ran aground during a fog in 1908, fortunately without loss of life.

The light has now operated for 212 years and has undergone many significant and ingenious upgrades and changes, some of them even being undertaken by non-Stevenson engineers. It was a manned light for 177 years, the lives of those keepers on their temporary Alcatraz being a source of equal fascination

The lighthouse was manned until 1988, when the station turned automatic and the last men were withdrawn.

[chasingmidnights]

An Offshore Love - Part Two

Title: Delicate 

Summary: While on the job, you made yourself one rule: no dating. But when you meet Ari, you consider throwing that rule out the window. But will you? 

Warnings: First things first, this is 18+, minors DNI!! Things to look out for in this part would include: Lee being a bit of a jerk; Ari Levinson (yes, he’s a warning); some implied sexual content; minor cursing; and I think that’s everything. I apologize if I missed anything but you are responsible for what you read and your own media consumption. I do not claim to be a professional writer, any and all mistakes are my own; nothing is beta read. 

Wordcount: 3,941

You stood off to the side with Jake as Lee gave the next crew their briefing and their assignments for the day. You listened to how he spoke to the men and you cringed internally with the way he talked to his crew. No wonder this rig was in rough shape, they had a manager who thought they were disposable and easily replaced. Lee’s southern drawl barked out orders and as you glanced out to the men, you could see the life being sucked out of them the longer Lee talked. This isn’t the first time that you’ve seen this and you made several mental notes about Lee and his behavior, you would be discussing with him at a later time. As you stood off to the side, you could feel the crew’s curiosity as you caught several of the men glancing your way. You looked down at your watch and found yourself wondering how much longer Lee was going to talk before he finally mentioned you and why you were here at The Jupiter. Lee was in the middle of handing out orders when one of the crew members interrupted him. 

“Who’s the skirt and her lap dog?” 

You had to keep a straight face as Jake stifled a laugh and Lee rolled his eyes at the interruption. 

“Well, if you had waited a few more minutes for me to finish my briefing Curtis, you would’ve been introduced.” Lee snapped back, narrowing his gaze. 

You wanted to slap Lee for the way he talked to his men. Sure the guy had interrupted, but Lee could’ve been the better man and not have been so rude to him. You didn’t blame them for being so curious, you had been standing off to the side for nearly twenty minutes. You hoped that the other rig drillers weren't as uncompassionate as Lee, a bad manager can be the sole cause alone for a crew not to care and to not give their one hundred percent. 

“But since you’re asking, these two are here from Baizen Oil Industries, hopefully to get your asses whipped back into shape.” Lee introduced before he motioned for you and Jake to come over. 

“Thank you, Mr. Bodecker, although I’m not sure I would’ve exactly phrased it like that.” You said as you took front and center. You introduced yourself before you introduced Jake as your assistant. “Mr. Baizen informed us that this is one of the more problematic offshore oil rigs that the company owns and my assistant and I are here to find out why. Jake and I are here to check on quality of life, to make sure safety protocols are up to date and possibly rearrange crew and management if we feel it necessary.” 

“My quality of life just got better with you being here, sweetheart!” One of the crew members shouted, causing a few of the others to chuckle. 

You were about to put that man in his place when his comment was quickly followed by a groan as another crew member slapped him on the back of the head. 

“Show the lady some respect, Lloyd,” The other man growled. He then gave you a small nod for you to continue. 

As the two of you made eye contact, you almost forgot where you were for a moment. Sure, you had seen blue eyes before but his were different. His reminded you of the ocean, that deep blue color and you had a hard time looking away from the man. You cleared your throat before you started talking again, bringing your attention back to the whole group. 

“Right, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, there are a few things that I won’t allow. I won’t allow any form of disrespect.” You paused for a moment as you shot the man, Lloyd, a look before you continued. “I will also not tolerate laziness or tardiness. At the end of my time here, I hope to turn this whole rig around and make it less problematic for everyone’s benefits.” 

“And what makes you so qualified?” The man with the ocean eyes asked, crossing his strong arms across his chest. You couldn’t help but notice that as he did that, the material of his shirt bulged from his muscular arms. 

“Well, Mr.?” You started.

“Levinson. Ari Levinson.” Blue eyes introduced himself. 

“Mr. Levinson, that’s an excellent question. I've been working for Baizen Oil Industries for the last ten years and the last five years going around to different rigs and doing exactly this kind of work.” You did your best to sound as confident as possible but with the way Ari was staring at you, it was hard.

The small, barely noticeable smirk on the corner of his mouth to his piercing stare caused a warmth to form in your body. You hoped that as you stared back at him, he couldn’t tell that he was having an affect on you. 

“Alright you lazy lot, time to get back to work.” Lee finally said, interrupting the moment you and Ari were having. 

The group of men then dispersed and headed off to do their jobs for the day. You let out a small sigh as you broke eye contact from Arri as he turned to leave, however the feeling that he had given you lingered. Your thoughts started to wander but you were quickly pulled out of them when Lee spoke up again. 

“Ready for a day filled with meetings and training?” 

You internally groaned at having to be in meetings all day, but since this was your job, you knew you had to suck it up. Besides, it was either this or being stuck at a desk back at the main office. But after meeting Ari, you would much rather be daydreaming about him, but since that wasn’t an option, you forced a smile and answered. 

“Lead the way, Mr. Bodecker.” 

After a long day of meetings and a few different safety training sessions, you were glad to get a moment to yourself. Well, almost a moment to yourself, Jake’s typing reminded you that you weren’t alone just yet. You had just finished up your last meeting and wanted nothing more than to take off your shoes and put your feet up. As you pinched the bridge of your nose, you tried to disassociate for a moment, but when Jake spoke up, you were brought back to reality. 

“You alright there, boss?” 

You let out a small sigh as you released the bridge of your nose. “Yeah, just been a long day.” 

Jake nodded, seemingly accepting your answer. “It’s definitely been a long day, I don’t think we even breaked for lunch.” 

As you thought about what Jake said, you knew he was right, especially when your stomach started to growl. A small laugh escaped you and you couldn’t believe you worked through lunch. 

“Well, why don’t you go ahead and head to dinner while I clean up here? I’ll join you shortly.” You suggested as you started to organize and clean up. 

“You sure boss? I can stay and help.” Jake offered as he watched you. 

You had just started making different piles as you sorted through each piece of paper, you had gone through a good chunk of the rig’s books during some of these meetings. “I’m positive. Besides, you don’t know my system.” 

“I’m a fast learner.” Jake countered, a bit curious as to what your system was exactly. 

“Really Jake, I’m fine. Maybe I’ll teach you another day, but I really just want to get this done.” You said as you continued to sort. 

“Alright, alright, if you insist. I’ll see you in a bit.” Jake said as he packed up his laptop and started to leave. 

You gave Jake a small smile as he left, you couldn’t help but appreciate his willingness to learn. Honestly though, if you had taken him up on his offer to help, it would’ve taken twice as long to sort through everything. As you sorted, you tried not to think about anything in particular, wanting to give your brain a break after the long day that you just had. However, you didn’t exactly succeed as Ari popped into your mind, which didn’t exactly complain about. Ari was probably the only good thing about this oil rig, even though you barely knew the man. You couldn’t help but find him extremely attractive and exactly your type. The six foot, five inches of a man and he was big and burly as well. His long, shaggy brown hair and full beard suited him well, you especially like the beard. You wondered what it would feel like to have his face in between your legs and his beard rubbing - no, stop that. You quickly scolded yourself for that type of thinking. Years ago, you gave yourself one rule, no dating any of the men you meet while working on these oil rigs. A heavy sigh fell from your lips as you reminded yourself of this, this was going to be an interesting time here on The Jupiter. 

When you were finally done organizing, you collected your things and put them in your bag before locking the door behind you as you left the office. You did your best to memorize your way to the offices so that you could get back to the Hub on your own. However, as you turned a corner and walked down the dimly lit hall, you opened the door when you reached it, but it wasn’t the right door. It opened up to what looked like the stem of the oil rig. You could just barely make out a metal staircase that was attached to the concrete wall and it spiraled down to the bottom. Wind howled through the funnell, giving you goosebumps but you couldn’t help yourself and found yourself peeking further into the concrete leg. After all of these years, you had never actually been inside one of these things, you knew they were hollow but that’s all you knew. You were just about to take a step forward to take another look, when you were suddenly being pulled back, causing you to gasp as you were pinned to the wall, an unhappy Ari glaring at you. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, uh? Do you realize you could’ve gotten hurt going in there?” Ari’s nostrils flared as he tightly held onto you. 

You couldn’t help but feel incredibly small right now as Ari scolded you like a child. 

“Sorry, I got lost.” 

Ari scoffed at your answer as he let go of you. “Where were you trying to get too?” 

“Back to the Hub for dinner. I got turned around.” You explained, watching Ari as h took a step back and ran his fingers through his hair. 

Ari took a deep breath and exhaled it with a huff. “Come on, Rogue, follow me and I’ll take you safely back to the Hub.” 

You scrunched up your face at the nickname that he just gave you before you corrected him and told him your name again. 

“I know, I didn’t forget. I like Rogue better.” Ari replied with a smirk. “Now come on, let’s get going.” 

Butterflies started to form in your stomach, he had given you a nickname. Granted, you had no idea where it came from or the meaning behind it and you made a mental note to ask him, but it was a nickname nonetheless. As Ari led you back to the Hub, you did your best to memorize the path that he took, but he moved so quickly and effortlessly that your main focus was to keep up with him. As the two of you were walking through the rig, you ended up tripping over a raised threshold. However, before you fell on your face, Ari had caught you. 

“Careful, you alright?” Ari asked as he helped you over the threshold. 

“Yeah, just clumsy I guess.” You said as you looked up at him, enjoying the feeling of being in his arms. 

For a moment though, it felt as if time stood still as the two of you looked into each other’s eyes. Your heart began to race and you thought it was going to burst out of your chest with how fast it was racing. You had never felt such a connection or so strongly towards a guy before, at least not in a really long time. Also for a moment, it felt as if the two of you were about to kiss, but instead of that, Ari pulled away and let go of you. A wave of disappointment washed over you and you did your best not to let it show. 

“You’re gonna be trouble, aren’t you Rogue?” Ari asked before he stood tall and combed his fingers through his thick hair. 

You cleared your throat, not knowing how to respond to his question even though you had a feeling it was a rhetorical one. So, you thought it best to change the subject. 

“So, how long have you been working here?” 

A small smirk formed on the corner of his mouth. “This way.” Ari said as he pointed left. “And I’ve been working here for about eleven years.” 

“Do you like it?” You asked, genuinely curious. 

Ari glanced over at you, not expecting you to make this kind of conversation. “It’s not horrible. The job pays well and every couple of weeks I get to go to the mainland to recharge, see family if I want to.” 

You nod your head along to what he was saying. “How do you feel about Mr. Bodecker as your manager?” 

Ari stopped at your question before he spun around to face you. Once you saw the look on his face, you could tell that he was upset. 

“What’s your game here?” He practically growled as his eyes narrowed at you. 

You’re a bit taken aback at his reaction. “M-my game? I was only curious. If you ask me, he seems like a complete ass.” 

Ari chuckled at your comment. “You’re not wrong about that, but around here, if you know what’s best for ya, you keep your mouth shut.” 

The situation was a lot worse than you thought. 

“Right, got it.” You said with a nod, dropping the matter almost instantly. 

The rest of the way to the Hub was quiet. You thought about what Ari had said and pondered how to move forward, it was clear that Lee Bodecker was the problem. 

The passion and pleasure that you were feeling almost felt too good to be true as you and Ari kissed each other hungrily. The feeling of his large hands roaming your body, squeezing you here and there, causing your body to heat up with every touch. Ari had you pinned against the door of his sleeping quarters and you were loving every minute of it, you didn’t want it to end. You let out a squeal as he picked you up and you instinctively wrapped your legs around his waist. You weren’t sure why or when you decided to throw out your rule but at this exact moment, you really didn’t care as Ari gently laid you down on the mattress. The two of you pulled apart for a brief moment and as the two of you looked longingly at each other, it felt as if time ceased to exist. You knew things would be delicate after this but frankly, you just didn’t care. As things were about to continue, an annoying alarm started to go off. You squinted at Ari confused as to why there was an alarm going off. You leaned into his touch as he cupped your cheek, he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead before he spoke up, his voice deep and raspy. 

“It’s time to wake up, sweetheart.” 

“What if I don’t wanna?” You questioned as you tried to steady your breathing. 

Ari smirked, letting out a small chuckle before placing another kiss to your forehead. “You don’t really have a choice, sweetheart.” 

You groaned as your dream started to fade and your eyes were met with a dimly lit room. You immediately felt cold as you were no longer in Ari’s embrace, even if it was just a dream. The alarm was still going off and you wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. A heavy sigh left your lips before you reached over to finally shut it off, slamming it a little harder than you meant too. 

“God, was wondering when you were going to shut that awful thing off.” Jake commented as you saw already ready for the day. 

“How long have you been up?” You asked as you sat up, stretching as you did. 

Jake shrugged his shoulders. “About half an hour.” 

“Early riser?” You questioned as you started to get up and ready yourself. 

“Kinda. But honestly, I just don’t sleep well outside of my own bed.” Jake answered. He then stood up, grabbing his backpack as he did before continuing. “Room’s yours, I’ll see you down at breakfast.” 

You gave Jake a nod of the head as he left the room before you laid back on your bed. You let out a groan as you ran a hand down your face once Jake had closed the door. 

“Maybe a cold shower this morning.” You mumbled to yourself as you sat up again and started to get ready for the long day ahead. 

Later that day, you and Jake found yourselves being shown some of the training that the men have to go through. As you walked in on one of the training sessions, you found Ari instructing a course and you found yourself staring at the man, remembering your dream from that morning. For a moment, you had almost forgotten where you were and you had to pull yourself out of that headspace. As you watched Ari giving the instructions, you could tell that the men that he was teaching were following his every word. You made several notes and scribbled a few of them down on your notepad. While you were writing down your notes, you could feel a pair of eyes on you. You did your best to be as subtle as possible as you glanced up and you were met with Ari’s beautiful blue eyes looking at you. You quickly tore your gaze away from him to finish your notes, but that didn’t stop the butterflies from forming. How in the world did this man have such a powerful grip on you? You were usually pretty level headed about this sort of thing but for some reason, Ari was different. You wanted to throw all caution to the wind and not care how complicated or delicate things might become afterwards. 

You hadn’t realized how lost in your thoughts you’d been until Jake nudged you in your side. The small class that Ari had been teaching a safety training was being dismissed and the supervisor who had been showing you and Jake around was now talking to Ari. You couldn’t help but feel as if the two men were talking about you and Jake as they whispered and glanced your way every so often. 

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Jake leaned over and whispered into your ear. 

“Shush, they’re coming back.” You answered quickly, nudging him in the side, like he did you moments ago. 

The original supervisor walked right by you and Jake and you were about to say something when Ari stopped in front of the two of you. 

“So, I guess I’m taking over for Mr. Humphrey, so you better keep up, don’t get lost, and don’t get hurt.” Ari said as he then pushed past the two of you. 

Throughout the morning, Ari showed you various stations and talked about the importance of each one. You even witnessed a few of the men jumping off of the rig in full scuba equipment to work on something below. When you watched them jump, a shiver crawled down your spine, sure you could visit offshore oil rigs and even stay on them, but you couldn’t do half of what these men do on a daily basis. Every now and then, Jak would make small comments of wonderment and even asked Ari a few questions. As Ari went through the basic day-to-day with you and Jake, you made several notes, both mentally as well as short-handing some notes on your notepad.You also did your best not to stare at Ari’s ass as you walked behind him, though it was hard, especially since he had a masterpiece of an ass. 

When lunch time came around, Ari said we could take a break but he was going to continue with his work. You couldn’t help but admire that, you could tell he was a hard worker and you could see him being a great leader. Jake had already started to head back to the Hub, when you decided to stay behind and talk to Ari. 

“Ari, can we talk?” You asked as you placed your folder that contained your notepad in front of you, holding it against your chest. 

Ari stopped and turned to face you, placing his hands on his hips. ‘God, he looked amazing,’ you thought to yourself as he did that. 

“Sure, about what? What you’ve been making little notes on, Rogue?” 

It was like he read right through you as he took a step forward. Your words seemed to fail you and all you could do was nod your head. Ari reached for your folder and took it from you, thankfully it only had today’s notes in it. Your heart raced as Ari read through your notes, his face unreadable and you felt like a fish trapped in a net. 

“You really think all of this about me? You barely know me.” Ari said as he finally handed you your folder back. 

You cleared your throat as you finally found your voice again. “I have a pretty good judgment of character, part of what makes me good at my job.” 

Ari nodded his head at your answer as he took another step forward. “You really think I would make a good leader?” 

“I do. The men seem to respect you and you seem to actually care about what you do and that things are done correctly.” You managed to get out, you’re not sure how because it felt like you had peanut butter on the roof of your mouth. 

You’re not quite sure how it happened, and not that you were complaining, but you found yourself in a similar situation from your dream this morning. Ari had you pinned against the back of an office door that wasn’t too far from where you were. The two of you kissed each other hungrily and his tongue easily dominated yours with ease and you gladly let him. Your body was on fire as Ari roamed his hands all over it, eventually stopping on your ass and giving it a firm squeeze. You did your best to block out any irrational thought, or maybe it was rational but your brain was too muddled as Ari lifted you up and carried you over to an empty desk. Right now, all you cared about was enjoying this moment with Ari and nothing else. You knew deep down though just how delicate things between the two of you was going to be, but as Ari started to remove your shirt, you simply didn’t care.

[cidnangarlond]

the most recent development in the case of the missing Titan submersible is that the U.S. Navy has now officially been brought in to assist on the search. earlier it was reported that they were looked at being brought in but are now involved. while the U.S. Coast Guard was focusing mainly on the surface of the water in the search for the sub, the search is now taking place underwater as well. from CNN:

The US Navy is sending subject matter experts and a “Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS)” to assist in the search and rescue of a tour sub that has been missing since Sunday, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

The FADOSS is a “motion compensated lift system designed to provide reliable deep ocean lifting capacity for the recovery of large, bulky, and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels,” the spokesperson said.

A Navy information page on the FADOSS says it can lift up to 60,000 pounds. 

The equipment and personnel are expected to arrive at St. John’s by Tuesday night and will be in support of the US Coast Guard.

the other piece of news: there is only about 40 hours of breathable air left. also per CNN:

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that the search has not yielded anything so far, but it is continuing to look both on the surface and underwater for the missing submersible. Officials estimated that the crew onboard has "about 40 hours of breathable air left."

for those curious as to how something like this could even be ok'ed, know that others had doubts about what OceanGate was doing, too.

as reported by The New York Times, in 2018 Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, by the Marine Technology Society's Manned Underwater Vehicles committee. the group itself is a 60-year old trade group that, according to their website, "promotes awareness, understanding, and the advancement and application of marine technology."

the letter itself was signed by more than three dozen people, which comprised of "oceanographers, submersible company executives and deep-sea explorers", had stated their "unanimous concern" in regards to the Titan submersible. today, Tuesday, chairman of the committee Wil Kohnen said the letter was written because of fears that presumably he and the others had about what could happen if a company is not held to industry standards. quote from Kohnen in the Times:

“The submersible industry had significant concerns over the strategy of building a deep sea expedition submersible without following existing classification safety guidelines,” Mr. Kohnen said.

according to the letter, they said that OceanGate's marketing of the Titan sub as claiming it would "meet or exceed the safety standards" of the DNV - by their website they are "the world’s leading classification society and a recognized advisor for the maritime industry"; they are to maritime vessels, vehicles, and offshore units what the DMV is to cars, trucks, etc., more or less - as "misleading." indeed, OceanGate had no plans to have the Titan assessed by the DNV.

Stockton Rush called Kohnen after receiving and reading the letter, and stated that "industry regulations were stifling innovation." they would later reiterate this stance in a 2019 blog post about why the Titan wasn't classed (which can be found here, for now).

OceanGate said in the post that because its Titan craft was so innovative, it could take years to get it certified by leading assessment agencies. “Bringing an outside entity up to speed on every innovation before it is put into real-world testing is anathema to rapid innovation,” the company wrote.

the company was aware, however, that the Titan had issues. once again, per the NYT:

More recently, OceanGate referenced some technical issues with the Titan in a court filing.

“On the first dive to the Titanic, the submersible encountered a battery issue and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform,” the company’s legal and operational adviser, David Concannon, wrote in 2022 in a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which oversees matters having to do with the Titanic. The submersible sustained modest damage to its exterior, he wrote, leading OceanGate to cancel the mission so it could make repairs.

Still, Mr. Concannon wrote in the filing, 28 individuals had been able to visit the Titanic wreckage on the craft in 2022.

despite these issues with the Titan being brought up and essentially brushed away by OceanGate, issues having been brought up for years now, in retrospect it seems something like this happening was simply inevitable.

[siremasterlawrence]

Lawrence’s Puppets 3

Part 1

During a hot summer day on a football field Henry Cavill poses for a photoshoot that will never see the light of day accept in my sole private collection.

Unbeknownst to him my four slaves hid in the plain sight dress as crew men for the photoshoot they prepare and set him up for the fight.

He stands in the middle of the field taking

a sip from the water bottle the sunlight is glaring on him as he wipes the sweat away from his brow.

The light rains down on the clean suspicious near perfect clear glass shield starts to hit the four corners of the wall culminating in a blast to his eyes.

Henry is frozen stiff his body unable to move except to blink I jump up telling all four men to get going they land hands on him posing him.

The camera flashes away continuously his mind melts in to a bubble floating off in to the endless expanse of what was his mighty brain.

After the initial reprogramming all four of my bois vanish into the background leaving me amble time to condition him well with a trigger.

My body embraces him with a hug from the back tightly I kiss his cheeks letting my lips do the walking from his neck to his ear I whisper something.

His body shivers mindlessly following me to my van he joins me we drive off in to the city streets of the world we race off once more to the laboratory.

The ride back to my make shift laboratory in the abandoned hotel chain in the offshore part of Long Island far from and prying eyes that might wreck my plans.

Nothing can be ruined while my four team up for tonight’s performance which blows the roof off the theatre for hours of none stop fun.

The anticipation for the next six days of hot, sexy and tireless marathon dancing speaks a excitement in the entertainment world like

never seen before.

While they are at Henry is connected to my mind wiping apparatus strapping him to the device a switch is flicked upward chasing an outage in town.

The electricity surges through the electrical charges passing in to my outage box signal goes off powering the machine as the screen pops on.

His visors light up blasting brightly an image of me projecting in to his psyche forcing his mind to accept me and my place in it for a lifetime.

My body slumps over where I appear in front of a silver door, I grab hold of the small key hole placing it in the key hole and turning the knob.

The door slid open giving me access to his mind finally it shuts behind me leaving me privacy to copulate his mind to my whims for all time.

A spiral staircase is a daunting task for me as I descend in to a dimly lit strait well one step at a time slowly arousing all his senses stimulating.

I can hear a slight moan in his voice so deep is voice becoming it’s hits a new crescendo so high with sultry timber nothing like his actual English voice.

“Who are you? Aaaaahhhhhh!” I can hear a hollow voice ask.

“The one who conquer your mind and body.” I reply.

“Nnnnnooooooo!” A voice shouts.

“You’re subconscious you fool.” I yell back.

“Release me! I beg you “ he please.

“A mountain of a man like you begs me.” I ask.

I can snark in his voice one of anger become rage but his weakness is becoming more and more apparent to me it’s so obvious to us all.

“Mwahahahahaha “ My laughter bellowing so loud reverberating on the wall bouncing back and forth causing a quake.

“One more door in to your inner mind and you will be mine.”

“Fuck you! God! I hate you “

“No! You love me”

“You are stimulating easily by my words”

“Your mind is succumbing “

“Your will is broken”

“Sir Yes Sir”

“Why sir? Nooooooo”

“I - I - I accept it”

Part 2

Finishing off the outfit I pat Henry Cavill is totally ready for my next mission sending him off to court Jensen Ackles.

He smiles walking closer to the mirror taking a spin he holds the two collars a side he feels so sexy.

He winks at himself blowing a kiss to me his lips embracing mine and then his body hugs mine.

Henry retrieves his cellphone texting his new found friend with a hidden embedded spiral in the message.

I have him a special bottle of a wine multiple color concoction his cockiness takes control of him.

He has swagger in his movement his hips and ass are absolute magnetic no eyes are able to pull away.

“Henry buddy?”

“Jensen take a drink”

“What’s this?”

“A special mix”

“My own concoction “

“Oh…I see”

“Drink “

“Ok ok”

“Mwahahahahaha! You fell for it”

“What do you mean?”

“The Hypno wine”

“It’s bringing you down”

“Ugh!”

“I feel weird”

“Everything is spin”

“My eyes are crazy”

“What the fuck?”

“Uuuuggggghhhhh!”

“Fffffuuuuucccxkkkkk!”

“Idiot”

“Master will pleased”

“He is ready for pic”

“Excellent Henry”

“Sorry Jensen…you are mine now”

“Undress for me show me that bod”

“Pose”

“Freeze!”

“Excellent! Perfect”

“A few pics now”

“There we go “

“Put these clothes on”

“Very fetching”

“Stand still don’t move”

“Good you feel so good”

“Those lips “

“I can’t wait to fuck you”

“I mean hard and raw”

“Split you open”

FFFFLLLLAAAASSSSHHHH a brand of light erupts covering him in white leaving the room empty.

“Woah!”

“Private show”

“Oooohhhhh! I am hot”

“Feel hot”

“God I am sexy”

“Can I get naked?”

“These clothes are stuffy”

“Go ahead”

“Much better”

“You see this tist”

“Oh I see them alright”

“This ass”

“I can bounce a quarter “

“Oh God! I am hard”

The end

[ashton-slashton]

Passing out soon as it's 8am and I haven't slept at all but um... idk.

AU where Lily is a "retired" captain, not because of age, but because he's been let go. He was caught with another man, and some of his crew mutinied, threw him overboard and tried to make it look like an accident. Lily was dashed against the rocks, scarred his face up pretty badly, took one of his eyes. The men were charged, of course, but Lily couldn't go back. His reputation was ruined and now his eyesight wasn't good enough for the Navy.

So he takes charge of a lighthouse. It's offshore, but not by much. Just enough for a bridge to connect the little island to the mainland, though, the high tide drowns it every time it comes in. Lily is alone there, and lonely, but he's safe.

Anyway... yeah. Imagine someone being assigned there. Having to work with this man who is desperately trying to prove that this old lighthouse is worth keeping around. Someone who knows his livelihood is at stake if things don't go exactly as they have always gone. This rugged man who is so, so scared.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.4 (after 1900)

1901 – McKinley inaugurated president for second time; Theodore Roosevelt is vice president. 1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people. 1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State. 1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later. 1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed. 1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives. 1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President of the United States. He was the last president to be inaugurated on March 4. 1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet. 1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree. 1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena. 1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin. 1946 – Field Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim, the 6th president of Finland, resigns from his position for health reasons. 1955 – An order to protect the endangered Saimaa ringed seal (Pusa hispida saimensis) is legalized. 1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90. 1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba, killing 100. 1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7. 1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people. 1966 – In an interview in the London Evening Standard, The Beatles' John Lennon declares that the band is "more popular than Jesus now". 1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew. 1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament. 1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500, mostly in Bucharest, Romania. 1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister. 1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States. 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus. 1990 – American basketball player Hank Gathers dies after collapsing during the semifinals of a West Coast Conference tournament game. 1990 – Lennox Sebe, President for life of the South African Bantustan of Ciskei, is ousted from power in a bloodless military coup led by Brigadier Oupa Gqozo. 1994 – Space Shuttle program: the Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-62. 1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days. 1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex. 2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA.

[castershellwrites]

Day 5 of EnHoEn Shark Week

@enhoenbigbang Day 5 of Shark Week gets all four prompts used! Tropical seas, hammerhead sharks, a shipwreck, and "come on in the water's fine". What will pirate captain Enji Todoroki do when the Endeavor sinks and he gets washed up on a deserted island? Full fic below the cut

Pirate captain Enji Todoroki had been shipwrecked. A run in with his son and rival captain Touya had left his sails in tatters. Then The Commission had been sighted on the horizon and driven their debilitated ship into a storm. Enji and his crew knew it was better to die free at sea than in chains and a hangman's noose on land. They’d been scuttled on some rocks and Enji forced his crew to take the longboats ashore. He’d stayed behind, to guard the ship. Which would have worked out just fine to ride out the storm thank-you-very-much, until a sneaker wave overturned her and his choices were: dive into the brine or drown in the grand coffin once known as The Endeavor.

The current and the storm washed him through the channel between the islands and back out to sea. He barely managed to keep afloat, losing his boots and coat in the process. The only thing that kept him above water was using his own shirt to lash himself to a floating board. Dying, freezing in a tropical sea, and on the verge of drowning: his only thought was of the family he’d let down and left behind; that of his blood and his crew.

Somehow, because fate could not be kind to him, Enji awoke washed up on dry land. He was battered, bruised, sunburnt, and dehydrated. He cracked his eyes slowly, to keep the sun and sand from hurting him. He staggered to his feet, fell, and crawled to the shade and grass deeper inland. If he wasn’t dead, he had to endeavor to survive.

He found a stream first, and drank slowly of the cool fresh waters. Then he found some fallen coconuts; he didn’t have the strength to climb for more. A passing coconut crab helped with that. His stomach full of meat, water, and coconut, Enji next set about building a shelter. He knew his crew would come looking for him. He also knew that it would be a while as they had nothing but longboats following The Endeavor’s demise.

A while meant he had to shave with a sharpened flint. He had time to fashion a spear, an axe, and make a whetstone for his cutlass. Time to familiarize himself with the entirety of the small island, the best fishing grounds in the shallows, and the shark infested waters beyond. They were odd sharks. They had broad flat heads and sometimes gathered in great numbers. If a ship appeared offshore Enji wouldn’t be able to swim out to it without losing a limb.

It was a solitary existence, but he’d endured worse in his long life.

One morning it became a lot less solitary.

“Ah! There you are! I’d been wondering where you were living.” A very lithe, very naked, blond man picked his way through the underbrush to Enji’s fortified shelter.

Enji greeted him in a reasonable manner, with a sword to the throat. Thankfully, the strange man was unarmed. “Who sent you?”

“Hawks. Which is me, by the way. I sent myself.” He pushed the sword away from his neck as if it was a child’s toy. His grin was sharp, mostly because his teeth were identically triangular and inhuman.

“What are you?” Enji refused to step back. As captain, albeit a captain of one, he could not show weakness to anyone.

Hawks stepped closer to him and ran a hand down the scar on his face. “Would you believe me if I said I was a shark? Intrigued by your beauty—”

Enji jerked his head away with a snort.

“—I asked the ocean goddess to give me a form appealing to you. So I could walk in your world and learn more about the handsome being with hair like blood.” Hawks continued as if he hadn’t been rudely interrupted.

Enji knew then and there the boy wasn’t lying. No human would think him fair.

“Come! Let me show you my island.” Hawks beckoned Enji and began walking towards the beach, certain he’d be followed.

Enji couldn’t help but stare at the muscular backside retreating before him. Either this man was telling the truth, or this was a very strange dying hallucination. Neither option was particularly comforting. With nothing better to do, the ocean had been particularly bountiful of late and his rations were well stocked, Enji followed Hawks’ nude backside to the beach.

Hawks ran into the waves, kicking at them so water splashed up around his shins, and walking quite a distance out before the depth started to slow him. Finally he knee deep water he turned. His smile was as dazzling as the sun and the ocean spray glittered in his hair like pearls. He looked so bright and alive. Enji would be very disappointed if this was all a dying fantasy.

His thoughts, and the danger of those lurking sharks, kept him frozen on land despite the tropical heat.

“Come on in! The water’s fine!” Hawks called, waving to him. He bent down and splashed water towards Enji even though it’d never reach.

“There’s sharks,” he yelled back. Speaking of sharks … a gray fin cut through the water, approaching Hawks at speed. Enji tried to warn him, “Look out!” 

Hawks glanced in the direction Enji was pointing. He shrugged and turned back to Enji with his teeth bared. “Did you forget? I’m a shark.” He pointed both hands at his mouth and snapped his jaws together for emphasis.

Enji still hesitated on the shore. He took a few hesitant steps forward but stopped before the water even reached his ankles.

“They won’t hurt you,” Hawks reassured, “they listen to me.” He walked back to the shore to take Enji by the hands.

Enji let himself be led away from land. The ocean was calm today, the sea lapping in gentle ripples. The soft sand beneath his feet undulated in rolling waves. He wanted to look down where he was walking to avoid stones or sharp shells, but his eyes were on Hawks the entire time. The young man walked backwards with complete assurance that no harm would come to them.

They were a great distance away from land when the water finally reached their knees. Then they reached a sunken sandbar and it was as if they were standing on the water’s surface.

Sharks circled on either side of the sandbar, the water was so shallow their backs sometimes broke the surface in addition to their fins. Enji was, effectively, trapped. He feared the answer, but had to know “Why did you bring me out here?”

“To show you my island.” Hawks’ face showed nothing but confusion and innocence.

“Why?”

“You’re beautiful,” Hawks whispered and dropped Enji’s hands to cup his face.

Enji blushed and decided he’d blame it on the sun if Hawks asked. “You don’t even know my name …”

“Is that important to humans? I know your smell, and your taste, I know you as well as my kind can.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I want to.”

Enji shivered. How did a shark get to know someone? Hawks had mentioned scent and taste, and Enji didn’t want to think about what that meant. “How?”

Hawks grinned and the world rippled around them, as if the air itself were made of water. “Swim with me. Ask the ocean goddess and she will make it so no creature of the sea can hurt you.”

Enji looked around them, he didn’t see anyone. But any superstitious sailor worth his salt knew never to turn down a boon, especially one that would grant an advantage at sea. “I accept. Please.”

Enji’s clothes floated in the water. He didn’t need them anymore. An impressively large hammerhead and a scarred great white shark swam away from the empty sandbar to circle their island.

[mechanicalinertia]

Bubblegum Black: For A World Without Gold - Chapter 3 & Author's commentary

This is the longest chapter I've written for this fic, despite it being mostly characters talking to one another. 11k words of this shit, man. That's either great or terrible, depending on who you ask. Anyway, here we go!

Doctor Hartland: Relatively obscure character, the guy who provided Roberta with her murder-meds during the Blood Trail / El Baile De Muerte IIRC. He, like many such characters Cyberpunk 2020 would call 'ripperdocs', is what I assume is the front line of medicine in a city like Roanapur. I imagine a city where hospitals are either for syndicate soldiers or extremely rich people, and everyone else can rely on doctors who import or print any medicine they can get their hands on. Presumably 'Traditional Chinese Medicine' is pretty popular, too (did you know that the Chinese government, at least in Hong Kong, prescribed traditional remedies for COVID awhile ago? It did not, of course, help, but it was an alternative to Decadent Western Pig-Dog Medicine I guess. Eugh.)

Revy's Custom Ammo: Delayed-fuse HESH rounds, truly terrible fleshripping monstrosities, are actually something I got from Masamune Shirow's work. You know how in the original manga and in the 1995 movie, Motoko goes "Oh, is that so", shoots up the one guy, and then it takes a second before his cyborg body is blown to bits? That's the effect I'm going for. The tungsten tip is to penetrate body armor and dig into a target's vitals, although that doesn't work 100% of the time with heavier armor. Still, even if there's no penetration, damage can still be done. HESH rounds were originally designed to kill a tank crew through spalling, hitting the armor with shockwaves such that slivers of metal inside the tank would break off and kill the crew. This is something one can easily mitigate with composite armor and a Kevlar inner lining in the tank, but to translate that back to body armor is probably a little more difficult. One can imagine shockwaves and slivers of armor lining pulverizing human or light Boomer innards even without penetration.

Seburo M-057: A completely fictional Seburo handgun. For those readers who don't slobber over Shirow's non-porn work the way I do, Seburo is a Japanese gun company built up after around World War Three (in the 1990's in Shirow's timeline). Apparently it might also be a subsidiary company of Poseidon Industrial, the megacorp that becomes the entirety of Japan by the time Appleseed rolls around. Either way, it's a famous Japanese arms company, which makes one wonder: Are handguns legal in Japan in Shirow's world, where they are not in ours? For the sake of lore, let's say that Japan allows organizations like GENOM to possess and manufacture weapons for security purposes, but not individuals. Remember how in BGC2032 there was that whole subplot about how military-grade Boomers in Japan were technically illegal and ideally should only be manufactured offshore? And GENOM just ignored that law for the most part? Well, fuck that game. In the 2060's GENOM happily supplies the JSDF with whatever Boomers they want, the better to defend against China. Anyway, yeah, the M-057 is a caseless pistol, ammo stored in the gun's handle like normal, but a whole lot more of it, we're talking 18+1 per magazine. In the 2060's, caseless weapons are juuuust starting to make a comeback as a concept, aided by new chemical configurations with higher ignition temperatures and better structural integrity. Revy's handguns are the equivalent of a high-performance electric car compared to everyone else's Toyota Corollas, is probably the best way to think about it.

Second-Highest Boomer Per Capita City: First is Anchorpoint.

Lightning Hawk: A silly Resident Evil reference.

The Master: Okay, this is going to take some explaining. Or at least a picture:

Yeah, okay, you see that gun Priss has? Sure looks like a laser magnum to me, doesn't it? And, hey, look closer, that's definitely its name on the side alongside the name of the sight! So, since no one has never done anything with this information, I have decided to do it my goddamn self. Now, as I've said before in the Hardsuit Tech document, laser weapons are actually pretty viable so long as you dial down the pulse train to femtoseconds and thereby jack up the pulsed power to the gigawatt or terawatt range. I do not know what the effective overall damage of a tactical-vehicle mounted terawatt laser would be, so in the end I settled on measuring the gun’s stopping power in joules, easy enough to compare to ballistic weapons. For the record, that max power level, 5KJ, is more stopping power than even 7.62 NATO. Which might be overkill even for futuristic high-density capacitors, but what the hell.

Chiborgs: Abbreviation of Chinaborgs. In this particular iteration of the future, following World War Three between the US and China's respective power blocs (and all the ruination that has brought upon the earth), Cold War 2 has been going on ever since neither side could claim absolute victory due to climate change-induced mass crop failures starving their armies out. So GENOM has one big rival in the 'Sinobloc': The China World Prosperity Corporation, a conglomerate of old State Owned Enterprises that privatized themselves following the war, rolled themselves up into a separate power structure, about as independent from the CCP as one can get, and resumed Chinese imperial efforts in the old Belt and Road bloc. But - but but but - they've never quite managed to emulate the entirety of Boomer technology. Oh sure, they've got robots, but Boomers are biomimicry nanotech down to the cellular level, a common platform for alternative life. WPC doesn't have that, so they've aligned with the turbo-Leninists in the Party, arguing that GENOM's Boomers alienate the proletariat from their labor on a societally toxic scale, and simply continued the use of prosthetics and augmentations coupled with inferior robotics to an absurd degree. A Chiborg, then, is a WPC-produced set of augmentations designed for relatively specialized labor, turning a human into a near-machine relying on constant maintenance and subject to constant surveillance. It’s not like these ‘shells’ are expensive, or cheap but low-quality. The WPC is more than happy to sell, as per Party directives, at an ever-so-slight-loss even in economically turbulent times. The insidious part, besides the addiction to maintenance and the monitoring of every micro-movement the brain orders the body to make, is who ends up with these things permanently grafted into themselves. Migrant workers in the bottom tier of the hukou system; ethnic minorities treated as culturally and mentally inferior to the Han majority; Taiwanese or Koreans or North Viet treated as near-slaves, the ‘curse’ of their WW3-era resistance against the benevolence of True Socialist Xi Jinping Thought with Chinese Characteristics For The Eternal Bright Future having marked entire families with generations of debt only payable by concentration camp labor. Voluntary, of course, but, y’know, not really.

Mycoplastic Packaging: Fungus-derived materials that have replaced most petrochemical-based plastics by 2060. In the case of easily-biodegradable packaging like what the Master comes in, it's more akin to a sort of micromesh made from hymenophore tubes. Check out this Vice article about more high-performance materials that fungi could help make. It's not really the same principle, but I imagine it's... plausible, to grow the right materials with some funky bioengineering.

Singto Phumici: Proud Lion in Thai. Note how some districts have English names and others have Thai. You could, I imagine, track the economic bracket of a given district, or perhaps who it relies on for authority, by the language used in a name. Might throw a Cantonese name or two in there later. We'll see.

Sawyer's Bloody Business: Yes, most of the meat in the 2060's is lab-cultured tissue or an imitation thereof, 3D printed into a meal. And yes, Sawyer feeds human corpses to flesh-eating bacteria which are supposed to build up a nice big blob of biomass that can then be fed to meat cultures. One meat becomes another, just with more extra steps and less maintenance than feeding human remains to pigs as one might do in the old days. You know, they've managed to print lab-grown Wagyu. How much longer before Mickey-D's is marketing luxury synthmeats in its products? I wonder.

Sawyer In General: The idea of Sawyer being an obsessive Priss fangirl has been a fairly crucial part of this crossover ever since I started thinking about it in early April. Perhaps it runs against her canon characterization as a stone-cold killer in Gore Gore Girl, but all we have to go off of for G3 so far is chapter summaries on the wiki, and it strikes me as a somewhat sillier spinoff than mainline Lagoon. Which is fine, but then what the hell, I have license to fuck around with what we're given in terms of Sawyer, because It Is Fanfiction. I guess I find her at once intimidating but kind of pathetic? I mean, those scars on her arms definitely aren't something someone else did to her, if Hiroe's claim that she was based of a friend with depression is to be believed. Without spoiling anything, suffice to say that in earlier drafts of this chapter Sawyer was even more of a mentally unwell gore fiend than she is here. My beta took issue with it, said that there was no way that what I want to do with the character in the long run made sense if she was like that. And you know what, he was right. We haven't seen the last of the Gore Gore Girl, not by a long shot. I didn't write that scene to set a big ol' nothingburger up. You'll see.

Priss vs. Revy: Okay, could Priss actually beat Revy in a shootout, even by one point or whatever? Hard to say. Priss's skill as a marksman is more up in the air just because we've seen less of her overall, and less emphasis is placed on her ability to shoot well. But I think that she's got some skill, at least, from her time as a bosozoku and from having to make crucial railgun shots as a Saber. Also... she kind of cheated. A little. Not a lot, but enough to win. Those who have read Anatomy of a Lovedoll, or remember a little side bit from Chapter 2, will recognize how.

Fediverse: Mastodon is the most famous of these platforms, but the fediverse is more than just 'the open-source Twitter replacement', it's more... federated networks are disconnected communications networks that can still talk to each other over a common platform, so the idea behind the fediverse is a galaxy of 'instances', small servers run by a person or organization that can all share common accounts with differing rules of operation and moderators and stuff. No one company owns the protocols used, and so it's a lot more of a wild west - plenty of people who were kicked off Twitter for good reason (Nazis) have taken root on fedi instances - but the idea in mentioning fediverse-like platforms in the noosphere of the future is that they're sort of the alt-internet, the cyberpunk-y version of the internet that has otherwise been carved up by big platforms and those Everything Apps I was talking about in the Chapter 2 notes (even more prescient now that Twitter-cum-X is being set up by Elon to be Explicitly That). Forums that run the gamut from respectable to shady; software and 3D printing libraries of varying quality and trustworthiness; piracy and crime and all the corrosive forces that eat away at the respectable foundations of the Noose - these are the kind of networks Benny and Jane love to hang out on. In other words, the only ways to use the internet of the future are Facebook, Amazon, and 4chan. God, don't you miss the days of nonplatformed webpages? Let's bring Geocities back, guys. Let's do that to save the internet.

Tewwowizm: Are the Knight Sabers terrorists? In the eyes of many, they probably are, a menace against the prosperous GENOM-lead global order that... you get the idea. The hope is that enough people can recognize that the Sabers mostly kill GENOM execs and blow up GENOM assets like industrial facilities and Boomers, and avoid killing innocents for the most part. To make them superheroes and not supervillains in the eyes of the body public. This was something I wanted to play around with in this conversation as it organically unfolded. At least, I think I did. This conversation textually pulling double-duty as a way to lead Eda off the trail of the Sabers working with the Lagoon Company and also letting Dutch get all weird and philosophical... I'm happy with it, but it's weird all the same. Either way, it does get to the desired outcome, highlighting how easy it is to needle Rock now after... well, have you Lagoon manga readers figured out who died yet? Yeah, I bet you have.

Eda's Pet Naming: Not in the manga, but I think it's funny and kind of mean-spirited on Eda's part, so in it goes. Okay, what else to put in here...

What I'm Stealing From: You may have noticed, dear reader, that I'm writing a lot of Rock. Hell, the next chapter is mostly his perspective again. This is probably not a good thing, because even if I find him super interesting as a character, most people are probably here for the girls, not him. Too much Rock, too much of the Lagoon cast in general and the Sabers risk being only bit players in a larger drama, which they should not be. So that's a balancing act I haven't quite gotten the hang of. Anyway, there's one Lagoon fic I want to bring up real quickly that has had a major impact on how I think about the franchise. It's called Apotheosis, which is, in my opinion, perfect in every conceivable way. While it lacks the balls-to-the-wall super-action of Lagoon as we know it, it makes up for that by having really interesting prose, heartfelt character development, firm grounding in late 90's history, and really getting inside Rock's head, both his best impulses and his worst ones. It almost made me cry at the end, and the only reason I haven't reread it extensively is because I'm afraid I'll either succumb to Fic Envy and start kicking myself, or I'll just rip off chunks of characterization and plot wholesale. Which is kind of what I'm doing now to navigate the Lagoon cast as people, but to a lesser degree. The Sabers have to provide a catalyst, a reactant, stuff like that - that means the plot can't be the same thing beat-for-beat. It better not be. Are there other fics that have made me think about this franchise deeply? Yep. Sure are. But I don't think any are going to be as radically influential on this fic as Apotheosis. We'll see. I have high hopes for this project.

Anyway, rough draft of Chapter 4 is already done, it just has to get edited but it's pretty short. Next time, a deal will be made that will change the way you think about Roanapur forever...

[quasar1967]

The Intruder Within (1981)

TERROR AND DEATH STRIKE AS MONSTER PREYS UPON TRAPPED VICTIMS!

When drillers on an offshore oil rig dredge up several prehistoric eggs, one man is attacked by what appears to be an unidentified deep-sea creature protecting them. Soon, strange symptoms and behaviors become apparent among the crew and one of the creatures grows to adult-size.

[welcometowinstanleyslighthouse]

Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse

The Fourteen Foot Bank Light is an active lighthouse in the Delaware Bay near Bowers Beach, Delaware.

The light was officially lit in 1886 to aid in the navigation of ships through the channel between Joe Flogger Shoal and Miah Maull Shoal, which was about 1¼ miles wide. For one year while still under construction its assigned keepers would man a temporary beacon as work had been postponed with the coming of winter.

Fourteen Foot Bank served in its role as a manned light station until 1973 when the final Coast Guard crew left the station, which would then be automated. As of 2007 the light is under private ownership and its owner has plans to use the offshore lighthouse as a brewery and summer home. Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse also serves as a base for the Delaware Bay Observing System run by the University of Delaware’s College of Marine Studies.

LighthouseFriends.com

Wikipedia

[fishrpg]

2024-05-23: Isle Zone 16 (Tropical, Very Humid)

A crescent-shaped forested island is the only land for miles around.

Black Arch Key (Medium Island, Uninhabited, NLM)

This picture perfect tropical island has broad, sandy beaches that lead to inland forests. The waves have eroded an archway into the black bedrock of a narrow isthmus that connects the two sections of forest, giving the island its name. A colossal catamaran that would rival a dreadnought in size is currently anchored just offshore.

Vigilance (Colossal Catamaran, Independent)

The ship has no name markings, but is called Vigilance and belongs to a hermetic cult. Embroidered on the sails is a reddish brown image of a bearded hermit holding the symbol of a sun. The ship is transporting something that's almost as tall as the ship's mainmast, but it's covered in sailcloth and stored upright. The mysterious object is a statue that depicts the cult's leader, who is also the man depicted on the sails. The crew are all fanatically loyal members of the cult and are on a mission to transport the statue to Black Arch Key and erect it on the island.

However, the tenets of this cult dictate that the statue must never be horizontal because that would be an affront to the leader's constant reaching for the sun. In addition to the statue, the ship is transporting a full hold of prisoners who will have the hard and unglamorous job of getting the statue from the Vigilance to its resting spot on the island while keeping it upright the whole time. The statue is made of brass and is hollow, but still weighs several tons. No one knows what will happen if the statue falls over, but it will definitely be bad.

[scotianostra]

On July 16th 1882 thirty-one Shetland "sixerns", with a total of 105 crewmen were lost in a storm. The event is still remembered as "The Bad Day".

This post covers three Shetland fishing tragedies over a 68 year period, it ended the centuries old tradition of Haff fishing in small six manned bots in the open waters of the North Atlantic around Shetland. Two of these tragedies happened in July, the third in December, however I have decided to post about the three in the one post.

There were between 300 and 500 sixareens or sixerns in Shetland. The Haaf fishing proved to be a hard life for these boats and they only tended to last 5 or 6 years. When they finished their lives as a fishing vessel some ended up being used as a flit boat for moving livestock, peats and other goods between islands or from ship to shore. The sixareens may eventually have ended up as the roof of shed or outbuilding. Nothing was ever wasted in Shetland, especially if it was wooden!

The men would travel up between 20 and 40 miles offshore. As the men were dealing with a prevailing wind, they could usually only sail in one direction. They were always happier if they could row out with a relatively light boat and sail back with a heavy load of fish!

When they reached the fishing grounds, the fishermen would barely be in sight of the highest hills in Shetland. They would have sea all around them.

Haaf fishing was very dangerous due to the unpredictable nature of the weather far out at sea. However, when you look at the numbers of men that fished and the length of time that they fished for, the actual disasters are relatively few.

On 16th July 1832 31 Shetland “sixareens” and a total of 105 crewmen were lost in a storm. The event is still remembered as “The Bad Day”. A London Distress Fund was set up and raised the sum of £3000. The money was raised for the dependants of the crofter-fishermen lost. The crew of one boat in 1832, did manage a lucky escape from the storm as they were picked up by a passing American sloop. However, the Captain of the American vessel refused to alter his course to Philadelphia and so, despite passing close to Orkney, the survivors had to cross the Atlantic and endure a further six months away from home before returning.

During another storm on 20th July 1881, hurricane force winds caught the fishermen by surprise. The boats that tried to come home were mostly capsized or swamped, but those that stayed at their lines for the most part survived. In all ten boats foundered and 58 Haaf fishermen lost their lives. They left behind 34 widows and 85 orphans. Six of these boats and 36 of the men were from the fishing station at Gloup in North Yell. It was a tragic loss for a small community.

On the morning of 21st December 1900, boats from Firth, Mossbank and Toft set off for the winter haddock fishing. They were some 32 kilometres (20 miles) away, between the Horse of Burravpoe and  Snap, when they were caught in a sudden and severe gale from the north-west. Many were lost during the storm which came on in the space of five minutes. The fleet were scattered. One made it to Whalsay, Skerries and Lunning but the rest were lost.

22 men were drowned, leaving 15 widows (5 of whom were pregnant), and 51 children. Firth was hit the hardest. Many of the men were great fishermen and the disaster devastated the Delting fishing industry, which never recovered. The women continued to work the crofts. Children grew up and moved away, leading to a rapid decline in population.

The plight of the families left destitute led to a lot of publicity in local and national press. The Delting Disaster Fund was set up to help those affected and it was one of Queen Victoria’s last public acts to appeal for support.

These major fishing disasters signalled the beginning of the end for Haaf fishing. The herring fishery in the 1880s and the Crofter’s Act of 1886, which put an end to the truck system, were two more nails in its coffin.

Larger safer boats were introduced and undecked sixareens were replaced by fully decked smacks. Fishermen could finally install a few home comforts. However, when the steam trawler was introduced, longlining in large sailing boats couldn’t compete economically. Haaf fishing stopped quite quickly at this point.

There are few sixareens left in Shetland. There are a couple of replicas and bits and pieces lying around here and there. At the Shetland Museum and Archives there’s a replica sixareen called the Vaila Mae. She sails regularly in Lerwick Harbour and you can even get a trip on her during Shetland Boat Week!

One of the only surviving sixareens from the past can be seen in the Shetland Museum, see pic teo, . She was built as the Foula mail boat, which fished for a little while and then ended up as a flit boat for shifting peats. She didn’t spend much of her life as a fishing sixareen.

You can find memorials all over Shetland to those lost at sea.