Shipping page since 1991. He is currently enroute to McMurdo Station in the Antarctica aboard the container ship Green Wave . The following is an account of the demands of loading a ship at Norfolk, Virginia. He is married to a Bermudian.

*** It took seven days to load the Green Wave for her annual trip to Antarctica this year.

In the past, commercial stevedores had been used for this operation but budget considerations of the National Science Foundation dictated that the Naval Cargo Handling and Training Battalion out of Virginia was to be used for the job this time.

The group consisted of instructors, reservists and regular Navy personnel backed up by Marines handling the cargo on the pier. The idea was to give some real world experience to individuals who would scatter back to hometowns across the country and to a few who would meet us for the ship off-load at MacMurdo Station 700 miles from the South Pole.

Just when you thought the draft was extinct you get tapped to act as a training instructor. And all this time I thought I was a chief mate loading a freighter for the Southern Ocean.

The military likes to run their operations around the clock, and with two new ship's mates to break in as well, finding time to get some sleep during this operation was largely dictated by how long I could stay awake and/or stand up.

With this kind of situation, you have to be constantly on guard to prevent something being loaded or lashed in a way totally unacceptable for the conditions we expected to run into on the way to Antarctica.

The other fun twist in this modern age where computers routinely pre-stow an entire ship before a single load comes over the rail into the hold was the fact that no one really knew what the cargo would be. Some containers were still being packed as we started and cargo would continue to arrive daily almost until the very end.

I would often go for a walk to see what general cargo was sitting in the back staging areas to get a preview of those things I might have to save space for.

The object of this three dimensional game is to have all the holds completely full before the hatches are covered, and at the same time to keep some 40-odd would-be longshoremen (and women) busy while you wait for various bits and pieces to arrive beneath the ship's cranes.

The hours, nights and days rolled into one long blur with continuous cargo operations, Coast Guard inspections and routine maintenance and repairs -- all at the same time.

Midnight one night found me explaining to four Navy Chiefs, a Lieutenant and a Lieutenant Commander how we really needed to have a five-ton forklift in No. 3 hold to place the pre-cast cement barriers and also in No. 2 hold to move an awkward four-ton cement slab. Because one gasoline forklift had been filled with diesel, we would have to "baseball'' the working one between the two hatches. Meanwhile, they were to keep the gang in No. 3 working for the next 45 minutes until the slab was hoisted aboard and the forklift moved from the pier into No. 2 hatch.

At 5.30 a.m., I called the six members in my deck gang so we could load three tons of sand into the port lifeboat. This request came from the company port engineer for the Coast Guard weight test that he assured me would occur promptly at eight o'clock after breakfast. One of the cargo cranes was available so we lowered the lifeboat to the water and pulled it far enough forward so the sand could be loaded by slings directly into the boat.

Meanwhile, the cement slab in No. 2 hatch had finally come aboard, but the timber base it was to sit on hadn't been placed properly. More instruction.

Breakfast was a quick 15-minute break before scampering back to No. 2 to make sure the crane operator didn't drift four tons of cement into one of the four-wheel drive vans stowed on either side of the slab's spot for the three-week voyage.

The Coast Guard arrived around 10:30 so out came the lifejackets and into the boat I went with two of my sailors. When we were almost to the water's edge I threw the lever that drops the boat free to simulate a launch. The inspector was happy. But then he didn't like the look of a previous hull repair, so once we had the sand unloaded a repair gang went to work on that. The sand, which by now had more crane time than a lot of our cargo, went back to the dock to be loaded in the starboard boat for a similar test the next day.

The Navy broke for lunch at noon, but since they wanted to start loading 40-foot containers that were over our 21-ton limit I spent what was left of my break time rigging a tandem lift. We can combine two of our cranes on a single hook for loads up to 42 tons, but it takes time to set up...there wasn't much for lunch that day anyway.

The first couple hours of the afternoon was spent training the Navy how to drive the tandem rig. Normally the ship's crew will drive all the tandem and quad (four cranes combined) lifts, but the cranes were running well so things were pretty straight forward. Having that tandem rig up in the air is like having one foot nailed down, as I couldn't go anywhere while they were operating it. Eventually I did leave them on their own a little as the gang in No. 2 hold couldn't get the containers to stack properly. That took several hours to straighten out with sledge hammers, chain falls and, my favourite, a loaded six to seven ton container used as a pile drive. It is not a subtle process.

At 5 p.m., when the troops left for their evening meal, the deck gang and I had to move the gangway with a borrowed forklift so we could lower the starboard lifeboat down to the dock.

This would be the only chance to get the sand (remember the sand?) in place for tomorrow's Coast Guard test. Before the insanity resumed the Captain needed to borrow a blazer for a dinner he had to attend with a couple admirals -- a task he relished about as much as I enjoyed moving sand around.

An old sailing buddy of mine, whom I had trained with on 12-metre yachts in Bermuda eight years ago, had been hanging around for several hours so I got to spend 20 minutes with him before going back out on deck to make sure the chaos proceeded in an orderly fashion.

By 9 p.m. they had finished loading the heavy 40-footers so a couple of my guys came out to help me split the tandem rig back down to two single cranes.

The rest of the night went uneventfully, although the rain, gusty winds and temperatures in the low 50s added to the experience.

Every day was like this. As I sat in a lifeboat next morning full of very wet sand (remember the sand?), with the rain coming down and a broken releasing lever in my hand, I had to wonder if Shackleton or Scott had these kind of days as they prepared for their voyages to Antarctica. I couldn't wait to get out to sea and on our way south.

GETTING READY -- The container ship Green Wave as she appeared at her Virginia port while being loaded for her voyage to Antarctica.