One of the things I've learned from owning an old car, is that absolutely everything can be fixed, and made to work as good as new, but at a cost. Certain bits of it do indeed work as good as new, but other bits are on my to-do list, or I'm waiting for them to get worse before it is worth doing anything about it. But overall, the car is not getting worse.
When things are known to have failed like this, does it not conspire to give an overall air of "worn out" to the ship, that is not fair? And does this air, not affect the crew? I'm sure all the crucial stuff was absolutely fine, but all the non-crucial stuff... If I was a new Captain given command of QE2, and then told all the various things I couldn't do because they were broken (stern anchors and bow thrusters spring to mind), would that not cause me to have a certain attitude to her also?
I agree, that everything
can be fixed, however shipping companies are renowned for their cost cutting, especially if the passengers can't see it. The stern anchor was seldom used, and to be perfectly honest, not that useful when it was, hence the reason it was never repaired. The bow thrusters didn't need repairing at all - they needed replacing - but that's another story. They were underpowered when she was built, and at the end it was more cost effective to use tugs than go to the expense of replacing them.
There was a slight demoralising feeling that we felt when things weren't done, but as well as being proud of our ship, we were also realists in that the ship must make money to survive. If that meant a job being delayed in order to keep the budgets in check, then you just have to 'grin and bear it'. The standing joke during dry-docks was of a superhuman 'Red Pen Man', who flies in to the yard in the middle of the night, and puts a red pen through the dry dock spec, hence reducing the jobs and money outlay. That got extremely frustrating, especially when it was something that really did need doing, but I don't think it we allowed it to get to us too much. I think the thing which frustrated us the most was when it was a job which the passengers noticed. We would inevitably get screamed and shouted at, as if it was our fault that the office had cut the budget, but again, 'just grin and bear it'! It allows them to get it off their chest, and we have a good old moan in the Wardy in the evening.
