When Tom Mulligan speaks of ”home,” he may be referring to a 60,000-ton iron-ore ship. From early March until his midsummer vacation and again from July to the end of December, he lives on the ship where he works as a Great Lakes merchant marine.
Shore time is seldom more than eight hours at a stretch. Sleep schedules are erratic. Privacy is at a premium. But Mulligan says the job`s ”sense of adventure” makes up for all the apparent drawbacks. ”I suppose I was following a childhood fantasy when my father (a mill worker) helped me get my first job on a ship,” he says.
Mulligan, 32, has worked on fishing boats in Florida, sailing boats and fireboats and, for the last 10 years, on the iron-ore ships that navigate the Great Lakes. He has been a wiper in the engine room, a fireman, an oiler and is also qualified to be a QMED (qualified member of the engine department) and a gate man. Since 1981, he told writer Marya Smith, he has been the conveyorman on the ”Joseph L. Block” in Inland Steel`s Great Lakes fleet, based at Indiana Harbor in East Chicago.
Griffith, Ind., where he graduated from high school in 1971, is still where Mulligan stretches his sea legs during his stays on shore.
I spend my working hours below deck because that`s where my job is. The conveyorman keeps the conveyor-system machinery in good working order for the unloading. Half of the equipment I work on is below water level. When we`re traveling between ports, I might spend my time changing some rollers or repairing the belt. And it seems like I`m always greasing–there are a lot of roller bearings down there.
In nice weather I`m up on deck off-hours, sunbathing, reading, enjoying the fresh air. There`s a lot of that. But we can smell the harbors for miles away. Milwaukee smells like a factory, with sulphur–like rotten eggs–and stack gases. In the summer Chicago smells like hot dogs, from the ballparks, I suppose.
The ship I`m on is 732 feet long with a 60-foot width on her. We can carry 35,000 tons of iron ore. We unload over a million tons a year. Each crew member gets credit for the number of tons we haul. If we`ve hauled all those tons, it means I`ve had no breakdowns, that I`ve really been doing my job. That`s pretty satisfying. In fact, I`ve only had a half hour of breakdown time in the past four years.
Our ship has a crew of 26. Inland has around 60 ships in its iron-ore fleet, and some are larger than ours, with larger crews. Just 10 years ago there were closer to 200 ships. But the whole industry has fallen off. It`s pretty tough getting on these days.
Of course, the job wouldn`t suit everyone. Marriage and the merchant marine life don`t go together very well, for instance. The majority of the men are single, like I am. But I`ve seen kids grow up on guys, not knowing who Daddy was, he was such a stranger.
Still, one of the best parts of this job is being in different ports. I`ll tell you right now sailors don`t have girls in every port. We might have a lot of them but not in every port. I guess my favorite port is Thunder Bay in Canada because it`s a different country and the customs are different. I like getting up there in the wilderness. And you meet some pretty interesting people–goldpanners, homesteaders, hunters.
I make about $30,000 a year, but some of that is overtime. We work a seven-day week. I belong to the United Steelworkers of America. It`s not a 9- to-5 job; you work around the ship`s schedule. If you get to port at 4 in the afternoon, your day might start then. Once we`re out on the water, I might start at 8 a.m. So there`s no pattern to our days except on long trips. But sleep comes easy when you`re on the ship.
The crew eats together, three meals a day. The food is pretty good, and there`s a lot of it. We live two to a room. Sure, sometimes I wish I had more privacy. You work with a guy all day. Then you get off work and he`s still there. But it`s a big ship. When the weather`s too bad to go out on deck, we can go to the recreation room. What does get on my nerves? Just guys who act like junior engineers or junior mates when they`re not, that kind of thing.
The roughest time of year on the ship is October. That`s when we`re starting to get snow and the low pressure comes in, and that seems to make the water act funny. And we start getting our northern winds then. It`s a help when we get a little ice in December because that more or less breaks up the waves. Three- and four-foot-thick ice tends to bog us down. That kind of ice is loud, too. It sounds like jackhammers beating against the boat. But you get used to it. The winds in the spring can get those waves going so you can`t do anything because of the rocking.
We`ve sat out there for days stuck on ice. We`ve never run out of food, but we`ve come close. Sometimes I like sitting there, especially when it`s on the weekend and we`re getting overtime pay. But it`s also calm and peaceful.
Most of the time the engine room and decks above it are so loud you can hardly hear what people are saying. Sometimes someone will agree to do a job, but it turns out he was asked to do something else. That can be pretty funny. It`s the other extreme on the deck. It can be so quiet up there you can hear the water going past.
Once in a while we get visitors–owls, and hawks and things. It seems like they know we`re going someplace and they just land on the boat and grab a ride, maybe on the pilot house or hand railings.
Sure it can get boring and lonely. After a couple of months you can wake up and just about know what you`re going to see out the window. But I read science fiction and engine manuals, play cards, lift weights, run on deck, watch videotaped movies. In the summer we fish off the boat. I suppose the worst part is not having more liberty, not getting off the boat for any length of time. It takes a lot of seniority to get holidays like Thanksgiving off.
There is variety to my work. During ”fit out,” when we`re getting the boats ready to go out again at the end of the winter, I work on the engines. Then on ship we learn the trade of rope and wire splicing, used in netmaking. We also have classes aboard ship on range reading, steering, compass and other aspects of boat survival.
Yes, I suppose it`s a dangerous job. Everything out there is steel, so if you fall any time, you`re going to hurt yourself. Going through breakwaters in rough weather could be dangerous, too, because there`s always a chance of hitting the side. Luckily the captains are pretty good.
I`ve never been seasick, but I guess I will be eventually. They say it hits everybody. When people say somebody ”turned green” from seasickness, they`re not kidding. I`ve seen it happen to guys. Once in a while you get a guy who comes out of the Navy with his merchant marine papers but maybe with no sailing time. We hit some rough weather, and the next thing you know he packs up and gets off at the next port. Not everybody can take it.
No, I`ve never seen any lake monsters. We`ve been looking though. We don`t even see many other boats. We stay in the routes that are shipping lanes, designated compass points. Once in a while a few car ferries cross. One time we came upon a stranded crew from the Mackinac Island race. It was foggy and there was no wind, and they had drifted out with the current into the shipping lanes. We took them aboard and towed their boat in.
I like the fresh air and I like traveling, getting away from everything. I suppose I still think this job has more advantages than any other I can think of.
