c



   

The merchant seaman is a professional. Beyond a profession, it is your way of life. You

will leave hearth and home behind while you stand united with your shipmates in a life-and-

death struggle against the physical world, making the oceans your playground while other, lesser

mortals, can only shake their heads in wonder at one of the Princes of the Earth.

The professional sailor makes his ship his home. The hardships and insanitary conditions

of the early sailing ships reflected the squalor and lack of comfort ashore. Add to this the hazards

of months of privation, wars, piracy, storm, and shipwreck and there was little romance left for

the average seaman as often as not at sea against his will. A seaman, whose wide knowledge and

experience of the sea presents a factual picture as only a medical man could. His style is simple,

forceful, and salty. It is a pleasure to read an account of what was undoubtedly a tough and

adventurous time in man's history presented with both compassion and humor. Their shapes,

rigging, and sailing qualities had to be balanced with their fighting power or cargo-carrying

potential.

The confined and stark conditions on board ship often created a good sense of friendship

and sailors enjoyed each others¶ company off duty. Seamen made the best of their cramped

living quarters, enjoying games of dice and cards, telling tales, playing musical instruments,

carving, drawing, practicing knots or model making. Sometimes sailors sang sea shanties. These

were rhythmic work songs sung on board to help repetitive tasks such as hauling on ropes.

The problem of finding and storing food was a large one on a man-o-war. There was no

refrigeration or tinned food. What was called fresh meat had to be packed into wooden barrels

with salt. Cooking would help kill some of the putrid meat and on journeys to the cold arctic

meat would sometimes last longer than on journeys to the tropics. The same applied to water.
|resh water kept in wooden barrels soon turned green and slimy. Ships put into port as often as

possible to ³wood and water´. The wood was for the cooking stove. Coal stocks did not last long.

|resh meat in the form of live animals was carried.

What must be remembered is that the sailor afloat was usually considered better off than

his counterpart ashore in spite of all the hardships. He ate with his messmates at a narrow table

hooked up between the guns. He had beef or pork stew, but the meat was salted and often so hard

as to be almost inedible, even after being boiled for hours. Instead of bread he had ship¶s biscuit,

and instead of water, which did not keep well at sea, he had a gallon of beer a day. We drink

wine, which is exactly like bullock¶s blood and sawdust mixed together.´ Midshipmen may have

found the food worse than on land but many of the seamen were glad of the opportunity to eat

regularly. If fact the lure of three square meals a day, coined because of the square wooden plates

they ate from, was appealing.

Ship life bred disease. The worst killers were yellow fever, spread in tropical climates by

infected mosquitoes, and typhus, spread by body lice. The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables often

led to another serious disease, scurvy. A seaman on a ship of the line was finished at the age of

forty-five. In fact the seaman¶s daily routine was far more dangerous than the occasional combat:

during the |rench wars, thirteen times as many seamen died of disease and accident as were

killed in battle.

A seaman could be flogged and given as many as thirty-six lashes for drunkenness,

quarrelling, insolence or neglect of duty. Such behavior was often as offensive to a man¶s own

shipmates as to the officers.

When an enemy ship was sighted the men had to prepare the whole ship for action in a

few minutes. They hooked up the hinged bulkheads, stowed the officers¶ furniture in the hold
and cleared the lower decks. They secured sails and hung safety nets below them to catch falling

men or debris. To reduce the fire risk, they poured water over the sails, booms, boats and

hammock rolls and set the ship¶s fire engine up on the poop. They filled fire buckets, laid hoses

and sprinkled wet sand over the decks. Wet cloths were nailed over the hatches of the magazines

and unrolled along the decks. Then the gun-captains collected their flintlocks and powder quills

from the storerooms. The gun crews unlashed the guns, opened the gun-ports and laid out stacks

of wads and rope rings of shot. The men and boys who carried the powder went to the magazines

to collect their cartridge cases. The cook put the galley fire out and lit candles in the light rooms

beside the magazines. Meanwhile the seamen stripped to the waist and tied handkerchiefs over

their ears to muffle the roar of the guns. When they were all at their stations, marines closed the

hatches and stood guard over them to stop men on the upper deck running below.

What will come out from your mind when we talk about the life of the |ilipino Seaman

on board? Do you really know the life of the |ilipino Seaman abroad? Do you really intend to be

like him? Well, let¶s take a round about the life of the |ilipino Seaman on board?

The |ilipino Seaman on board is considered as one of the overseas workers abroad or the

O|W. Regardless of your job for as long as you work abroad, you belong to the O|W. However,

not all have the same life experience in life. The only experience every life of the |ilipino

Seaman has in common is that every one remits money towards the country, the Philippines.

In order to achieve what you want to be in life is that you need something. As to the life

of the |ilipino Seaman abroad, it requires knowledge, effort, patience and perseverance. The life

of the |ilipino Seaman abroad should be equipped with these values. Otherwise, it will be a lot

of questions whether or not one blend towards the life of the |ilipino Seaman abroad as each

value holds its importance. Wherever you may be outside the country, the knowledge helps a lot.
It serves as your weapon to deal with other nationalities. See how the effort pays? It is your

effort that keeps you strong to compete with other seaman across the nation.

But being strong is not enough. |or you also need protection, that is patience. It is your

patience that serves as your shield. It keeps you away from harm from whatever it is thrown to

you. But what about the perseverance? How does it help towards the life of the |ilipino Seaman

abroad? Well, it moulds you to become the real you as it makes you courageous no matter how

long and how much it takes.

One might ask, are these all enough that a |ilipino Seaman abroad should have? No,

there are things that a |ilipino Seaman working abroad should have to consider, for the life of the

|ilipino Seaman abroad is susceptible to experience some things which are beyond his

knowledge or expectation. Those things beyond the control of the |ilipino Seaman working

abroad, those things he doesn¶t want to happen but it simply happen.

The life of the |ilipino Seaman abroad is not a piece of cake. It is accompanied with tests

and trials. But despite of those, the |ilipino Seaman abroad doesn¶t simply give up. He doesn¶t

care though how far he may go. He dares to venture the seas. The angry waves and the stormy

days don¶t threaten him. Even the sleepless nights and boredom don¶t weaken him. He does

nothing but just keep working. The |ilipino Seaman abroad does it for no other reason than to

provide the goodness for his family. This is the only thing where the strength of the |ilipino

Seaman abroad originates. Nothing can shatter him except to have a problem on his health- as it

is his health that matters most, to continue working.

The |ilipino Seaman abroad is looking after for the happiness of his family. It is his

pleasure to provide his family¶s needs. But sometimes, the family goes beyond the limit. The

family comes out of bounds and ends up with high expenditures. So the |ilipino Seaman abroad
takes vacation and ends up in chaos financially. He has nothing but debt that forces him to go

back to work abroad again. The worse thing that comes secondly with the health problem is that

if this scene comes again and again each year.

This is the life of the |ilipino Seaman on board. So how do you see him? Does he

deserve this after all, doesn¶t he?