What it’s like to live on a giant oil tanker: Natural Wonders and PlayStation

“Pirates of the Caribbean” is a seafaring stereotype familiar to DSA Dixon of Hafnia, who has been a captain for five years. Dixon – who sails so-called product ships, which transport both refined and unrefined petroleum products around the world – had to convince his wife’s parents that his role was not the same as in the movies, he told CNBC by phone.

“Many people have a very different picture of seafarers when they watch Pirates of the Caribbean,” he said.

Dixon may be in command of a ship such as the giant Hafnia Rhine, about 230 meters long, 33 meters wide, with a capacity of more than 76,000 tons of tonnage — a measure that includes oil cargo, along with fuel, food and fuel. food, water and crew members, but not the weight of the ship itself.

He said where the ship goes depends on where the demand for oil is and that Dixon has traveled to every continent except Antarctica.

Dixon aims to maintain a schedule of three months at sea, followed by three months at home in Mumbai, India, he said, and he embarked on his most recent trip on the Mississippi River in the US, traveling to Brazil and continued on to Saudi Arabia via Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, before returning to Brazil.

Compared to an office worker, Dixon said he spends more time with his wife and 6-year-old son, because when he’s at home, he’s “completely” there. “I love this part of my life, because when I get home, I’m Santa,” he said. “It didn’t stall at any point – when it was about to stall, I went back to the sea.”

Aside from navigation, Dixon said the most important part of his job is keeping the crew in good spirits, as they spend months at sea together.

“There were times when we had 20, 25 people on board, they were of different nationalities, different cultures, different languages… our ship was just as good as the people on it,” says Dixon.

There is no fixed daily routine, Dixon added. “There’s no way to describe life on board. Of course it’s challenging, but challenges keep you motivated,” he said.

As well as navigating and managing the crew, Dixon may be talking to boarding officials when the ship docks or devising ways to celebrate a religious festival.

“Regardless of nationality, or religion, people celebrate each other’s events or festivals,” says Dixon. “I even invented something like a treasure hunt on a ship. The ship was so massive, I shared it. [crew] teams… and let them find their own way,” Dixon added.

These games may sound “childish,” but they serve an important purpose, says Dixon. “These are grown men, some maybe 50 years old and they’re doing this, but it’s a way to bond… we need to socialize and a happy ship is always a ship,” Dixon said. Great”.

Dixon made sure that the crew got Sundays off, using that time as they pleased: be it playing PlayStation, chatting, or sleeping. “I guarantee a great lunch,” Dixon added.

Traveling across the oceans means experiencing some of the world’s natural sights, Dixon saw the aurora borealis – also known as the aurora borealis – while sailing near Norway.

“My only regret is what I see I can’t share it, I want my family to see it [things] at that point, at that point, a picture wouldn’t capture it,” Dixon said. How does he feel when he sees the light? “You feel complete, I would say. You feel rich,” he said.

“The biggest part of my job is that I see things that the average person might not see,” he added.

Besides enjoying the wondrous sights, life as a beachgoer can be tough.

Hafnia chief engineer Dmytro Lifarenko is from Ukraine and was at home when Russia invaded the country in February 2022, fleeing across Europe with his wife and children to Valencia in Spain.

“I don’t know how I’m going to handle it… knowing there’s a bomb there and I’m on the ship,” he told CNBC by phone, speculating about how he’d feel if he were at sea during the war. break out .

While his most recent trip lasted five months — traveling from Singapore to France and then Australia — he recently took a long-term leave to settle in their new home with his family.

“I missed my family a lot during the trip,” says Lifarenko – he and his wife have three children: a six-month-old daughter, a six-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

“As a parent of three, this is okay. [effectively] Being a single mom to our kids, it’s been tough… to be honest, this is the worst part of the job.”

Here’s what Juhl empathizes with: “It’s been a big ‘discomfort’ for many beachgoers, that they are now so concerned with their families [while at sea]even though they couldn’t do anything about it,” he said.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Lifarenko spent about six months on board, longer than his usual journey. He says the guided meditations sent to him by Hafnia are helpful for dealing with an uncertain situation.

“You keep thinking about things that you can’t really change, and that’s pretty close to depression, but this [was] like a helpful hand,” he said.

However, despite some of the downsides, Lifarenko said he loves his work for its diversity. “You can’t say what your habit is, because the habit portion is pretty small. Most of the time, you’re dealing with some situation that requires you to use your brain and you’re thinking how to fix it. this … or how can we maintain this in a better way,” he said.

He also enjoys seeing the natural world while on board, including whale spotting and boating near the Canary Volcanic Islands.

Juhl spent more than a decade as a seafarer, starting at the age of 16 and sailing to places like Honduras and South Korea, and served as a pilot on chemical tankers before serving as a ferry captain. He went ashore in 1997 and is now responsible for Hafnia’s engineering operations. He described those on board as “working their best.”

“They never go ashore again, there are berths far from the city, etc. So the romantic and dramatic life about these beachgoers, it’s pretty much gone. It’s hard work,” he said. speak.

This means attracting the next generation of crew is potentially more difficult. “Sometimes it’s a lonely life. And today you can’t give young people loneliness,” he said.

Juhl wants to encourage more women to become seafarers and Hafnia is running a pilot program operating two ships in which half the crew is female, to understand how the culture on board can change. , both positive and negative, and how to deal with that.

However, problems remained: Authorities in countries where women were discriminated against, for example, might not be able to handle female captains, so Hafnia had to temporarily appoint a male sailor. reside in such places, says Juhl.

Internet access on tankers is only a few years old, Juhl adds, and he wants to be creative about what could be possible when it comes to technology.

He especially wanted sailors to be able to communicate with their families at home, he said.

“Hopefully we can soon create a hologram in which the captain can enter his cabin with his dinner, then he can open his hologram and he can sit eating with my wife… we have to think that way,” Juhl said. And new technology means beachgoers need different skills. “The man in the boiler suit with the big wrench – that’s not the sailor we’ll need in the future,” he said.