On one of the boats that I worked on, I had a helper who was somewhat below par. He was far more interested in his phone than he was in the workings of the engine room, and I don't think that he ever saw the various piping systems of the boat as complete systems, but just as a collection of random pipes and valves.
Anyway, at noon watch change on the day in question, I had a few small jobs lined out for him, the primary one being to change the filters in the potable water system. We had a great filter setup on the water system by then, it delivered first-rate water quality and required little maintenance, mostly just changing the four 20 inch particle and carbon filters monthly, and that took about half an hour to forty five minutes, tops.
Changing the filters was a straightforward job. First, you opened the system bypass valve so that the supply to the boat was uninterrupted while you were doing the filter change, and then you closed the inlet and outlet valves to isolate the filters from pressure so that you could remove the filter housings and change the filters.
I went over it with him and didn't think too much about it, as I had done an OJT training on this with him in the past for doing the complete job, including the bypass and isolation valves. A leisurely lunch was next, and then six hours off watch for me. This included a shower and a nap, and the shower was first.
We had a communal shower on that boat. Jeffboat, the builder, must have believed that towboat crews had enlisted in the navy as they only built boats with navy style communal showers. You didn't linger in there, you scrubbed yourself and moved on as other people had to use the shower stall or the toilet.
I gathered up my kit and went forward, got undressed, and the water temperature adjusted, and stepped in the shower. I got myself wetted down, and started soaping up my hair with the shampoo, and I had just got to the point of rinsing out my hair when the shower head let out a sigh, and the flow dribbled off to...nothing.
WTAF?
I had a good idea of what had just happened, and I knew it would be a half hour wait if I did nothing, but right then, a wet hen had nothing on me in the mad department. Groping around, I found my towel and wiped as much of the lather out of my hair and eyes as I could manage, wrapped the towel around my middle, and stomped off to rectify the situation so I could finish my shower.
This involved going aft through the quarters companionway, through the upper engine room, and then forward on the port main deck to the deck locker and then down the stairs to the forward hold, where the water system bits were located.
All three of the deck crew were in the deck locker when I stomped in, in bare feet with my hair still soaped up and the towel around my middle, and no glasses. They took one look at me and fled, figuring that it was going to be a bloodbath that they did not want to be witness to down below when I made it to the foot of the stairs.
I made the 180 degree turn at the foot of the stairs, and when my helper saw me, he turned grey. I didn't say a word, just motioned him out of the way, stepped around him and set the valves for bypass, turned the pump back on, and went back to the shower.
Not a word was said about the whole incident at evening watch change, and the problem was never repeated.
I found out that it's hard to stomp on a steel deck in your bare feet and get any effect to speak of, and this illustration sums up the whole situation nicely. :-)
(Thanx and a tip of the hat to Bill Watterson.)
