After rereading the chapters that follow, I felt it incumbent upon me to provide some context regarding the time of the events and some of the places that are discussed therein. More specifically, the era in which these events transpired, coincides with the dawn of the container-ship as the principle mode of conveyance for ship-borne freight.1
Container-ships transformed the world of sea-going men and the ports at which they called. Perhaps a word about the nature of freight is in order. Previously freight was loaded on large pallets and loaded into deep holds within the body of the vessel. Containers put an end to this. A shipping container is little more than the large box-like receptacle familiar to anyone who drives on highways along with eighteen-wheel semis. 2
These are conveniently stacked aboard ship eliminating the need for the elaborate packing of numerous pallets of loose cargo. One can readily recognize the efficiencies inherent in such an arrangement. Savings in time and labor (and by extension, money) are rife so it does not require a stretch of the imagination to understand why shipping companies wholeheartedly embraced the concept. Seamen, on the other hand, were not so enamored.3
For one thing, the time necessary for off-loading of cargo is greatly reduced. The men onboard ships have little to do with the moving freight off and on a ship. These duties are left, by and large, to longshoremen or stevedores, as they are sometimes called. Once a ship is in port, unless he is called upon to stand watch, a seaman is free to do as he will. This usually translates into going ashore, the raison d’etre for most sailors.4
I have watched with no small amount of bemusement while cargo was offloaded by hand, using some of the more primitive methodology imaginable. Once, in Chi Lung, Taiwan, a small port city east of Taipei, I witnessed a work-gang offloading grain employing only a wooden ramp, large sacks and their backs. Each member of the group ascended the ramp, loaded his sack and returned to the dock there to dump the contents on an ever-enlarging mound; then, turn, mount the ramp and do it all over again Round and round and up and down, one after the other, they circled like horses trapped on a nightmarish carousel. Talk about your Sisyphean tasks!5
Typically, in the old days (i.e., pre-container) a ship would remain in port for several days, sometimes as long as a fortnight. With the advent of container-ships this was reduced to mere hours, not nearly enough time to go ashore and explore. With reduced shore-time, the life of the seaman was irrevocably transformed. Gone were the languorous stays in one port. Henceforth, it was all business, in and out in record time.6
Ports, too, were transformed. On the West Coast, San Francisco opted out. The city fathers decided not to build the enormous cranes that were a necessary part of the new order. That was left to Oakland-Alameda, across the bay; Oakland needed the business; San Francisco had the luxury of choice and went the tourist route. 7
In San Francisco, the powers that be were loath to mar their precious waterfront views with these behemoths of industry. Again, Oakland did not have the revenues to entertain such niceties so they built them forthwith. In the end it was Oakland’s gain; today it is a thriving port as San Francisco once was. Dating back to Gold Rush days, San Francisco was the pre-eminent port on the West Coast; that designation now falls to Los Angeles, so Oakland-Alameda wasn’t precisely the paladin here. They do, however, control all the shipping in and out of the Bay Area.8
Ports around the globe would bow to the new paradigm. It was the wave of the future. Speed and economy (both of finances and motion) were the order of the day. Soon, computers would take over many tasks on board ships and the seamen’s unions would suffer the consequences. The foot-loose and fancy-free life of the itinerant sailor was coming to a close. While commerce is certainly the better for it, I am not as sure about the adventurous nature of seamen in general.9
© Stephen Alexander 200810
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