Complaint Review: Candy Fleet - Morgan City Louisiana

This company still operates as an offshore crewboat operator in the Gulf of Mexico.

Offshore crewboats are BIG, about 140-60 feet LONG! 4 big diesel engines.

They hire captains, deckhands and unlicensed engineers.

The boats only have a 4 man crew=Captain, 2nd Captain (Mate), engineer (also works as a deckhand) and a deckhand.

Pay rates in 2004 for Deckhands were $75.00 for a 12 hour day. Engineers made about $85 but had many extra duties.

This company is the biggest joke on the water.

There is no orientation, safety classes, or any entry-level training. They will hire just about anybody that walks into the office.

I was hired as a deckhand. Pay was $75.00 per day. Yes, that was barely minimum wage. 84 hours a week. But the captains often insisted that you work over 12 hours a day (see below).

The captains are the 1st problem. I had one captain who was 64 years old, hard of hearing and he had diffculty seeing. He was also a very racist, angry, hate-filled man. He used the F-word, N-word, and every other cuss word in every sentence he spoke.

Although deckhand is an entry-level postion, the captains had little to no patience with the workers. They would cuss you out over the loudspeaker while working on the deck. They often asked you to do unsafe work practices and you were threatened with termination if you refused.

Another captain was a religious fanatic (Born-again) and he would cuss you out and say all manner of filth (of course he used God's name in vain) but 5 mins later he would act like nothing happened  and then ask you to have a "Bible-Study" with him. Hypocrite!

As you live on-board the boat you have no chance to escape your coworkers.

One night while running for the 3rd time to an oil rig offshore the oldest captain asked me if I was doing all my daily chores (there was a daily list posted in the galley as a guide), I answered truthfully that I was keeping everything as clean as possible (the boat was NOT dirty) while also doing my job while docking/undocking, loading/offloading cargo, and acting as a lookout while underway. He exploded on me and said that: "That 12 hour workday is a d**n suggestion, if you gotta work 14, 16, 18 hours all day to get all your work done, you're going to do it you MF'ing G-D SOB".

That's ILLEGAL! The US Coast Guard only permits maritime workers a maximum of 12 hours of work per 24 hours. The only excpetion would be an emergency (like a fire). Wiping down woodwork with Pledge does NOT count as an emergency that I would be forced to work a 16 hour day with no overtime (maritme industy is exempt from overtime and minimum wage).

Once the engineer and relief captain/mate (a HS dropout) got into a shoving match/fist-fight while the boat was underway. I had to grab the wheel to keep us from crashing into another vessel (an oil tanker).

The final straw was the captain almost got me killed 3 times in 3 days. First it was loading huge (about 2 tons) steel boxes onto the deck in the middle of the night. I told the captain I was not a certified rigger, but he insisted. A steel box missed my head by about 6 inches.

2nd time was out at the oil rig, we had an engine overheat. The captain insisted on an unsafe and totally uncalled for procedure. As I was knew and inexperienced I tried waht the captain told me to do. It didn't work. I finally got the engineer outta bed. He helped me fix the problem, but said it was a miracle I wasn't seriously injured or killed by following the captains directions. He then went on to tell me that the same captain had given the same instructions to a new deckhand a few months before and the new deckhand was seriously injured with 2nd degree burns all over his body. The captain still had his job. The engineer also told me to never listen to the captain again in regards to the engine room and I if I had any doubts or problems I was to go for him, anytime. He was the only decent person on-board the boat.

3rd time was coming back into dock. I had to step over from the boat to the dock so I could tie the boat up. The captain couldn't even see me (about 100 feet away) because he had bad eyesight (remember he was 64) and he moved the boat while I was crossing. I slipped and almost fell into the water between the boat and the dock, if I had I would have been crushed to death by the boat when it bounced back a few seconds later against the dock. As it was I narrowly averted having my leg crushed.

After a major verbal blow up between me and the captain, I left the boat when we docked at the company offices in Morgan City. The HR idiot didn't care less about any safety issues and refused to transfer me to another vessel. I grabbed my stuff and walked off the boat.

If you value your life and your sanity, steer well clear of Candy Fleet. They also screwed up my pay by not giving me the proper tax withholding. It's a very anti-union outfit and they made people sign an anti-union statement when they get hired on.