Maritime Art By BobbyR

Seafarers are people who go to sea to earn a living. Their ranks include ship captains, mates, engineers, deck hands, oilers, cruise ship personnel, commercial fishermen and a host of other job titles. Seafarers may spend months, sometimes even years at sea away from their families and friends. When they do call at ports, they usually get only a few hours on shore to replenish their personal supplies and contact their families.

As the sea can be a dangerous work place, seafarers often find themselves working in high risk conditions. Is there a more terrifying experience than sailing through a tropical storm hundreds of miles away from land, facing 70 mile an hour winds, bobbing up and down on 40 ft. seas for hours on end under a pitch black sky, while listening to the deafening roar of endless waves crashing over your ship?

Along with bad weather, seafarers also face the ever present danger of collision with ship or floating debre that fill the crowded sea lanes of world commerce. There is also the constant danger of accident while moving the huge containers and tanks that carry most of the worlds trade off and onto their ships. Many seafarers also work under the risk of piracy and abuse when their ships visit the underdeveloped and lawless ports of the world.

Seafaring is a tough but important job. Seafarers bring us the goods that make our lifestyles possible. They are the life's blood of international commerce.

Sea trade which provides us with most of the products we use is as dependent on dockside port operations as it is on ships and seafarers. Ships have to be tied and untied to a dock and then have to be loaded or unloaded if goods are to keep flowing. The folks who direct traffic in the port, assign ships to berths, and maintain port storage facilities are usually called harbor masters. The people who tie and untie ships when they dock are often called line handlers and the folks on land who help load and unload the ships are known as longshoremen. Since the goods that are loaded and unloaded from big ships are usually stored in large heavy containers, cranes are usually used to move cargo on and off ships. The huge cranes that are often seen in ports are called gantry cranes and they are run by crane operators. Sometimes cargo is loaded and unloaded from ships by trucks that drive right onto the ships (i.e., Ro-Ro ships) which means that truck drivers also play an important role seaports.

In the loading and unloading of petroleum products, oil, gas, ethanol, and jet fuel are usually pumped on and off the ships and then pumped to large storage tanks often called farms. This process involves a whole other set of skilled workers who can handle the pumps and operate the storage farms.

In addition to the many people who load and unload ships, there are a great many people in ports who are employed to make sure that landside cargo operations are safe, secure and meet all of the laws and legal requirements that govern seatrade in the world's ports.

Because seatrade involves big ships, big containers, big machines, and big security risks, the work that dockside workers do everyday to keep the world's commerce moving is important work that is also dangerous work. Petroleum products are flamable and toxic; cargo cantainers and the chains and ropes used to move them are potential bone crushers, and smugglers can often be armed and dangerous. Given the tough and dangerous demands of dockside work, it is important to recognize the important contributions that dockside workers make to our american lifestyle and the seatrade that keeps it going.

In appreciation of the important work that harbormasters, lineman, longshoreman, crane operators, petroleum transfer and storage workers, and port security personnel contribute to world trade and our way of life, this gallery of digital paintings is dedicated to the folks that work the docks.

In recognition of the tough but important work that seafarers do, many of the major ports around the world house charitable organizations that provide a safe haven and support to seafarers when their ships call at port. These seamen's centers represent a 200 year old tradition of providing both spiritual and material help to seafarers who spend most of their time a long way away from home, family and country. To learn more about this seafaring tradition visit the Seafarers' House at Port Everglades, www.seafarershouse.org

Enjoy our gallery of seafarers and we hope that our paintings give you a greater appreciation of the people who do this important and difficult work.