Shipyard in a Pandemic

Phoebe Gilday

News moves strangely in a shipyard. Time moves strangely in a shipyard.

I went to work on March 13th; before the Canadian border closed; before anyone was talking about social distancing; after hand sanitizer was scarce and toilet paper almost as rare. We live on the boats; we wander the locked yard at night to stretch our legs. Everyone is exhausted and sore and has a dry cough from wearing a respirator all day, yet also somehow inhaling sawdust and paint fumes. News of course came in, but it seemed surreal. Emails from head office got stranger and more panicked. Could we launch in a week? Definitely not possible. How was everyone holding up? Totally fine, thanks for asking.

One night someone broke into our tool trailer looking for masks (I’d moved them). Then the Corker dropped his tools halfway through the day and said he had to go find guns before the zombies came (we’re in Canada, that just isn’t a thing). He hasn’t come back. Two weeks later the ‘tools down’ came from the office. We got one boat to ready to launch and put her in. When the fuel truck came the driver put the clipboard down and backed away, he told me to use my own pen. I think it was then I realized what world I was stepping out into.

Pushing the ship far enough from the dock against current to slip in fenders, the crew stood shoulder to shoulder, as we do.

We dropped anchor for the night and went to take a breath on the beach. There were signs saying it was closed. The ferry traffic was a fraction of its usual self. Our arrival at home port was greeted by one lone office representative. He took our lines but jumped aside anytime we got near.

As the crew sat snugly around the galley table the owner talked on speakerphone. There were government subsidies coming; the company would survive, we were all laid off, ‘stay safe’. The office rep waved at us nervously, retrieved his phone from the table, and left.

I don’t think any of us wanted to leave that galley, elbows touching, steam from mugs mingling, sawdust in our hair. We didn’t yet understand what supermarkets were like, the empty streets, the choreographed dance with the checkout clerk to tap a card without approaching too close.

In hindsight, we should have been shut down earlier, but we were a small self-contained unit, a family sheltering in place. I’m glad we got to steal two extra weeks of ‘normal’, as normal as a shipyard can be.

PHOEBE is a commercial skipper on a tall ship on the west coast of Canada (currently laid off and starting a garden), she has traveled the world as an officer on cruise ships but now stays closer to home, exploring the BC coast both commercially and recreationally on her own Dana 24.