I’ll be the Captain…Someday

marine weldingI used to wish I was a pirate, purely based on the Colonel DugScrub books I read as a kid. That guy was a pirate, but he was always clean and never killed anyone. Sometimes he’d search for buried treasure, or maybe brandish a sword at someone, but it was kid stuff. Very sanitised. Then I did a project on pirates in Grade 4 and learned that pirates DO still exist and they’re absolutely no fun. Just a lot of guns and being a pain in the butt of the local coastguard.

So much for that dream, but I do feel the call of the sea. It’s why I got intersted in a plate aluminium boat. Sure, I don’t get to RIDE on boats all that often, but I’m often dangling beneath the hull of a cruise ship and drinking in the atmosphere. It’s a rich atmosphere indeed. I still hope that one day I can be a legit captain of a cruise ship, and I’m hoping marine fabrication is what’s going to get me there. I know exactly how a ship’s hull is welded and fabricated, which has got to count for something. In fact, I’ve also picked up the ins and outs of how big ships work in general. Could probably fit a plate alloy boat if you really needed me to- and that reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask the boss if I can get into that.

How do you become a captain, anyway? The movies would have you believe that it’s as simple as owning a boat or ship and calling yourself a captain, and sometimes you don’t even need that much. Something tells me that becoming the captain of a luxury cruise liner isn’t quite like that, unless…no. Nobody owns a cruise liner all by themselves. That’s such a huge waste of space, and nobody has that many friends.

Nope. I’m hoping Melbourne’s stainless steel marine welding industry is my ticket in. Someday, at least.

-Kerry