Our New IT guy in Manila - Romeo

Romeo came onboard when his friend Teng who was with us as IT was co-opt and given the opportunity to work onboard one of our seismic ship. He take care of our network and was very quick in helping me sort out my laptop and got me into the manila network.

We used our own in house developed software using access, excel etc for payroll and other admin work in all our offices. This is good as it is customised to our own need and can be changed and upgraded when required. I commended our staff for helping in developing our softwares and also ask them to always ensure that data entries are timely and accurate. This is not easily achieveable and require a strong quality commitment from all of us, but I think we have for most practical purpose achieve this objective.

Here is a photo of Romeo...

Monsooners of Manila

I just return from a visit to my Manila office, it is good to see our team again especially the new staff. You can see that most of our staff are young and very enthusiastic. They worked hard and are available almost 24/7 - our customers has been giving rave review on their services.

Last saturday was All saints day when all Filipino will return to their province and pay respect to their departed family elders - its like the Chinese Ching Ming. So, some of our staff took the opportunity to take a well deserved break to be with their families.

I held a staff meeting and brief them on the current world financial and shipping crisis. We had a good informal chat together. Here is a group photo of our staff today - the Monsooners of Manila....

Handbook for Junior Nautical officers

Captain Moe Kyaw sailed with Monsoon, now he is working ashore in Yangon. Like many senior officers, they take upon themselves to help young and upcoming officers through teaching during their free time and by writing handbooks which they sell at very low cost.

When he got the handbook published, he came around personally to give some complimentary copies to U Than Win as a form of respect.

MMU Cadets

We have here, 4 of 5 MMU cadets selected by one of our long term principals for joining their ships. These are some of the best upcoming young officers coming through the system.

Our principals are very supportive for our training programs of which a major feature since we started has been the training of cadets. So these new batch will be our future captains perhaps in 6 to 8 years time. We will make sure they get the best of Monsoon training.

Setsuyo, Eagle & Monsoon Crew Party

When the going get tough, the tough get dancing..

Our principal Eagle Maritime of Tokyo represented by its president Shirazawa san and Yamauchi san and the shipowner, Kashiwagi san of Setsuyo came by Yangon to host the second crew and family dinner and dance on 6th July.

They came forth to encourage the crew and to shown their care for the families after Cyclone Nargis. Both companies donated generously to the crew as well as to our relief effort.

It is a touching sight that goes beyond business to see us all , shipowners, managers, agents, crew and families all having a jolly good time, drinking, dancing, singing and letting our hair loose (for some of us - whatever hair that's left anyway :-) )

Training and business model for crew manning

What is PID control? Well, Than Win never stop learning, he never stop teaching.

Apparently these are controls system or concept that applies to many systems onboard ships, such as for steering motors, of which you can see here the model being built by our boys under training by Than Win.

Many crew or management companies boast of multi thousands of dollars spent on training, here what we have is a cheap home grown in house training facilities which I believe is a better alternative to those high tech and fancy simulators which until we are ready and have the necessary capacity, we will leave to the bigger boys.

Than Win has personally trained up hundreds of electrical and marine engineers since we first started 1991. Many of these engineers now form the backbone of our core pool of well qualified engineers for the fleet.

Being in the business for around 20 years now, Monsoon must continue to develop its own manning and training system, we learn from others in the industry, we share best practices. We are not afraid to take our own path such as what we did with our internal training in Yangon.

Capt. Lee joining us will strengthen the development of our training and business models.

Call of the Sea

Sea FeverBy John Masefield

I must go down to the seas againto the lonely sea and sky
And all I ask is a tall shipand a star to steer her by
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking
And a gray mist on the sea’s face,
and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again
for the call of the running tideIs a wild call
and a clear callThat may not be denied
And all I ask is a windy daywith the white clouds flying
And the flung spray and the blown spume
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy lifeTo the gull’s way
and the whale’s waywhere the wind’s like a whetted knife
And all I ask is a merry yarnfrom a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.

The Datin is not sleeping

Whats is it that bloggers almost always never sleep? When I make comments to Tan Kin Lian's blog, it get posted very shortly after, the vetting and acceptance is very fast. Ditto, Datin - These are our local modern intellectuals residing the blogsphere, no ivory towers - you could almost reach out and touch them, they are real people you can virtually talk to :-) .....


Monsoon said...
Dear Datin - I too questions a lot about human motivation and actions, including myself. It is probably important to start with ourselves.

In this instance, with due respect - by making such a posting, does it implies a consciousness only or does it in anyway imply that we who highlight hypocricy are ourselves above such human follibles?

Perhaps it will be too much to expect of us when we write of such follibles that we examine ourselves first?

"Let those who have not sinned throw the first stone"

July 4, 2008 12:11 AM
MarinaM said...
Dear Monsoon, I like to post interesting articles I find in the hope that they make us think about how we and others behave. We only take action once we become conscious about something, no?
July 4, 2008 12:45 AM