My name is Tedi, and i'm a sophomore member of the Vessel Operations here at New York Harbor School. For the past 9 months here being apart of the Vessel Ops team, i have learned a lot of maritime related topics that i've never even heard of before which is really good to have some background knowledge on things that you might take with you in the future and might come in handy when pursuing a maritime job. We’ve also done work on the piers where our boats are located at, its taught me how to work together with my classmates to achieve tasks and to be more efficient.
One of my own personal experiences so far were when we got this metal platform donated to us and we had loaded it on Privateer. A huge task was to raise it on the cranes and secure it. But we learned from our instructor how to make hand signals to the crane operator to let them know how to maneuver. Now these hand signals are very important especially when you're working on a boat that has a crane or a construction related job because communication thru radios isn't always a go to option since it's so loud and you can't hear what the person is trying to say.
While with these hand signals, the workers have an easier time understanding each other and relaying that message to the operative of the crane lets say, and it's also easy for them to understand what they're supposed to do next instead of them having a hard time trying to figure out what the next move is. This can also pose a risk to a worker on the boat or even damage the vessel itself. So it's good to always learn things that might help out if you decide to work on a boat that has construction involved in it.
-Tedi Koci
