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

Hypocrisy

From time to time, I checked what's happening across the digital causeway, very "luan" - our own politicians must be laughing heartily at the quality of the politicians there. Sigh!

Nevertheless, across the causeway, the politicians, they are nothing if not colourful - I check out the Malaysian blog scene regularly, interesting blogs, among them, Rantings by MM whose recent posting has an article on hypocrisy:

"Deep Down, We Can’t Fool Even Ourselves" By JOHN TIERNEY, New York Times

.....Politicians are hypocritical for the same reason the rest of us are: to gain the social benefits of appearing virtuous without incurring the personal costs of virtuous behavior. If you can deceive even yourself into believing that you’re acting for the common good, you’ll have more energy and confidence to further your own interests — and your self-halo can persuade others to help you along.

But as useful as hypocrisy can be, it’s apparently not quite as basic as the human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Your mind can justify double standards, it seems, but in your heart you know you’re wrong.

I have make a comment on this posting and hope she will accept my comment.

It's quite interesting the Western MSM published some thoughtful articles espousing the truth, debunking hypocrisy etc. Very effectively, you get the impression that they are very credible, you then tends to readily endorse and accept other news being published by them.

It may be too much to ask them to research and examine their own personal or own media's example of hypocrisy at the same time, instead of bashing the politicians and other personalities we all loves to hate. But of course, we all have the rights not to implicate ourselves.

I have make several postings recently about seeking reasons and truth, it's a long way from home.

Flowers from friends

Our New Office Address WEF 28th June 08

Our new office, this morning

Gracious society

Just the other day, I was having a conversation with my son, PC and among other things I expressed my sentiment, Singapore has become too commercial and perhaps intentionally agressively competitive to the extent we lost our graciousness which was second nature to us during the time when I was young. This is especially regretful as then we were poor and living from hand to mouth. I remember we were happy, we look out for each others.

The government has some years back given some lip service about promoting a gracious society of which not too much have been hear from since. The rich are getting richer, the guys in charge want more and more money while the old and disadvantaged languish in the urban heartland. It is every man for himself, grab what you can.

There are growing voices on the internet, especially people of my age who share similiar sentiments concerning the lack of graciousness in our society as compare to what we experience in say Taiwan, Malaysia, The Philippines, Myanmar or in developed countries such as Norway, Australia.

Perhaps not by coincidence, many Singaporeans, read Mr Tan Kin Lian among many others, feel strongly enough to frequently lament and registering such similiar feeling on the net, on their blogs etc.

It seems like the policy in Singapore is to achieve even more economics objectives first then we may in some remote future, get around to be gracious, perhaps by order or by some acts of parliament to be implemented. I think this is not how it works, our poorer neighbours manage to retain their graciousness, those developed countries such as Australia did not lost their graciousness, they have time for each other, they take care of their elderly and poor while we in Singapore find excuses and reason why we are not there yet. Perhaps in our society, the ethos has become "Graciousness are for Losers", Even so...

If not now, when? Let it start with us even if I felt our government is not providing the basic framework for it to happen as they should.

Settling in our new office

It is getting better and better - I can sense our staff happiness with our completely new office environment - thanks to the good effort of Capt Lee who has firstly found this nice building and secondly, worked very hard to ensure the details are taken care of so we move on schedule without any disruption to our services. The boxes of documents etc are mostly cleared now, aircon, lightings and keyphone system, internet broadband humming along nicely.

We put up the signboard yesterday, it looks very nice - there is a small signboard on the main door and upon opening the front door, our old faithful signboard are beautifully lighted up so it gives a very professional first impression to anyone entering our premises.

One more thing I like is that we are taking off our shoes in order to keep the carpet clean, this is like some Japanese and Korean offices I had visited - we take off our shoes - just as we also do at home in Singapore - so treat our office like our home. Feel at home.

We have invested quite a tidy sum now in renovating our offices and equipment such as laptop. With this new move, all our three offices, Singapore, Manila and Yangon are well done up, ensure a safe, conducive working environment for our staff.

We are ready for the future.