Jack Tar today...

The other day, a rather extravegant bark came into Stockholm Harbor and moored alongside the quay at Gamla Stan. She was some kind of a luxury cruise ship for the rich and famous and therefore lacked not a single excess. However, for all her elegant rigging, varnished mohogany, and carefuly furled sails, she was a fake. Her modern welded hull and spotless paint job exposed her for what she was, a steel hotel put to sea. The big stern with its imperial restaurant/bar inside, the covered fiberglass shoreparty motor launches common to cruise ships, the 'flag of convenience', and the open air bar on the weather deck revealed her lack of history all too well. Such a ship has no business sporting the rig of the classics...yet I suppose she was more pleasing to look at than the floating casinos that usually frequent the port.

As a chronic maritime history junky, I had to pace along side her all the same. Even if only to scoff at all her unnecessary adornments. It was then that I encountered the modern Jack Tar again, the working stiffs that toil day-in and day-out to keep these floating palaces glittering away as they criss-cross the oceans, tiptoing around unsavory weather chasing white sand beaches and 'Kodak moment' sunsets.
As has become the norm, on this particular encounter Jack Tar was once again a pair of Filipino sailors. The Philippines are the lastest nation to supply the world's merchant fleets with hardworking men willing to endure all kinds of hardship and injustice to make ends meet. The American, British, and Italian sailors have all but vanished from the waves.

The inequity that sailors suffer today was all too obvious when looking at these fellows working onboard (or rather, outboard) the Sea Cloud II. Here she was, one of the most luxurious and striking cruise ships in European waters and these guys, the crew of this magnificent ship, were spending a magical evening in the great, timeless metropolis of Stockholm...painting the hull.

It is the story of so many sailors, especially these days. No longer is there time for 'a girl in every port' or even the legendary sailors' taverns. Now, port visits are all work, be it loading cargo (formerly a duty strictly reserved for the stevedores) or doing vessel maintenance (smaller crews on bigger ships means this can't be accomplished at sea anymore). What's more, none of this work is particularly safe. These fellows were hanging high over a stone quay and balancing on a wobbly, multi-ton anchor that could easily crush a limb against the hull with the slightest shift. Yet they toil on because the money is good...because no one else will take the job.

A sight worthy of reflection.