Luddites To The Rescue. At one point preparing to take our ship to sea we had one dock area filled with unloaded items all waiting for a single crane. Another area was a truck waiting to load and leave and a third parked a short distance needing unloading and the contents brought immediately to the crane. One fork lift driver, one crane operator and one hmmmm manager. all deck crew all hand and arm signals. It was clock work with rarely a wasted second. The first truck couldn't leave until the second truck was unloaded and so forth. Two fork lifts on deck moved loads to and from the crane area to pre position spots. Delivery to parts of the ship came later.

In two hours one watch completed 50% of the task. The next watch and the watch after took eight hours to complete 50% of the task. The difference? Two watches worked by union rules and one was efficient.

On a Navy owned civilian crewed we cross decked a full ship load of ammo to another ship. The word is this takes three day less would set a record this was done in mid ocean with wire and helicopter transfers. By then I had learned union rules. three days is a lot less overtime. Better than no trophies or belt buckles or t shirts. it took five days.