Marcstrat his new job!

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[marcstrat]

Greetings to all,
As you know, i 've been most of my life involved with ships of every kind since i was young.Than later i delivered tax-free on the ships in the port of Rotterdam,Antwerp,Ghent,Brussels.
O.K.Now i will closely do the same, but now its the food for the crew and engine-parts for the ship, and this includes some new ports for me to.Which i very much love.Ports like Marseille, Le Havre and Bremerhafen are on the list.
7th of July i do my last test for my CE licence,for trucks,and on the 18th of July,i will start at this company were you can see the pics here below.
So , i am able to take extra pics for the game if needed.
Regards
Marc

[vin_sun]

Hello Marc,

So you are now trying out as a ship chandler. It should be an interesting job to travel around Europe and delivering food and stores to ships in port. Hopefully, you will be meeting seamen of various nationalities. I remember when I used to come to Amsterdam and Rotterdam on tankers, the supplier's truck was not allowed to come close to the ship for safety reasons. The ship's crew had to walk to the truck and bring back the stores little by little on small trolleys. Most of the time we were picking up "sea stock" so the quantity used to be large and it would take a long time to empty the truck. The cook would be checking all the food items and matching it with the invoices. The ships were also not allowed to use the crane so the crew had to carry the stores on their backs and bring it up the gangway.

Maybe you should try and sell some DVDs of SSE on the ships you visit  but please tell them about the System Requirements or you may have to face complaints if you go on board the same ship again. 

All the best for your new venture and I hope you enjoy it.

Regards
vin_sun

[marcstrat]

Hoy Vin_sun,
 Yes,some company's dont allow the trucks next or close to the ship.This is most for tank-depo's like Shell,Vopak a.s.o. Most of the rest give permission to deliver,from next to the ship.Even on container-terminals in Antwerp we get to the gangway.
With this company, i'm sure the delivery itself,will take longer than on my former job,which was named "Sunny Europe",this is a very knowned name by the seaman and crew from all around the world.The goods from their service was like beers,sigarets and presents for the family at home.I took me sometimes just 10 minutes to deliver.Now with the new company i gonna work in a few days from now,the delivery will be allot bigger,and its for the ship itself.Food for the crew,sometimes engine-parts,and i have my licence(ADR)to drive hazardous goods also,when a ship needs a special liquid for example cleaning,degreasing a.s.o.
So delivery time can take some houres,shecking and heaving the goods onboard.That for me will be the greatest change,just the time needed.
The crewmembers well, i already know how they are,and i always liked to work with them to get the good onboard,most of the time i get a free meal onboard to afther the paperwork had finished.
I realy look forward to it, afther the long time of waithing for the cource for truckdriver,the cource itself and the time between the different parts of the cource,it took me from start to finish over a year to get this far.You can imagine how i feel,when it gets to the final day atlast.The cource itself just took 90 day's, all the rest in between was extra tests and waithing.
The only profit i've made by this system, i have my truck driverslicence for free, it is payed by the belgian state.
which is ofcource expensive (take about 4500 to 5000 euro)

Regards
Marc

[vin_sun]

..... my former job,which was named "Sunny Europe",this is a very knowned name by the seaman and crew from all around the world.

Ahhh .... so you were with Sunny Europe ! I remember this store very well. When we used to come to Antwerp, a man (of Indian origin) would come on board and display many electronic items in the Smoke Room. We would place orders through him also. There was another shop on Falcon.... (I think) called 'Nani Ki Dukan' (literally translated in Hindi it meant 'Grandmother's Shop') as it was run by an old Belgian lady and her son. Maybe she had another name before but all Indian seamen would go to her because of reasonable prices and she named her shop as such because of the business it got from Indian seamen. But those were the days when it was difficult to get imported items in India. Today we get everything and seamen do not shop as they used to in the 80s. Nowadays I think she has better business from Russians but her shop is still called 'Nani Ki Dukan'.

Marc, maybe I can suggest a small business for you when you go on ships. If you can identify reasonably priced telephone cards it will sell well, but you also have to provide the handset also. It should be a lot cheaper than the INMARSAT calls. Today seamen get hardly any time in ports to go ashore due to short port stays, receiving stores, inspections, etc and if they are lucky they can go to the Seaman's Club. But here, there is a lot of demand for the phones and some do not get a chance to make the call. So if they are able to talk to their families from the ship for a reasonable price then they will buy the cards. Filipinos in particular will give you good business. But please do a survey first or you will end up having a whole lot of cards that you will not be able to sell. Botlek Stores is very successful in Rotterdam and most do their shopping there.

Well, I am sure you are looking forward to this job. I hope you will find time to continue contributing to the Forum also. Ship Simulator seems to be only popular in Europe and to some extent in the U.S. Maybe you should get some printed information from Vstep and distribute them on the ships you visit !!

Regards
vin_sun

[marcstrat]

Hoy,
I see you know them all(LOL)
I mean Botlek stores,Sunny Europe a.s.o.,and the indian store you mean is indeed on the Falconplein here in     Antwerp.Now its the russian area.
About the cards i know that also,however to get good prices to buy the cards in,is not easy.On the end you want to make a bit of a profit.The prices are on the edge.Some people i know do this,as an extra pocketmoney bussiness.
On what ship were you sailing in the past?
Yes, i allready made some promostuff for the sim, in the past.Even some of the vessels had the game onboard.A that time it was the 2008 version.
I also are able to take pics from ships, or parts of the ship to provide Vstep with the info.

Marc