Trapped on an Unseaworthy Ship

What Happens When the Chief Engineer Knows a Ship Should Not Sail but Management Says, "Sail"?

A.K. Girisam arrived in Alexandria expecting another routine assignment as Chief Engineer. Instead, he stepped aboard an aging vessel and discovered an engineering nightmare: failing machinery, contaminated bilges, illegal piping, defective pumps, missing spares, blackout risks, broken ventilation, and even oily water coming from the taps.

His conclusion was unequivocal. The ship was unseaworthy. He wanted to leave, but management persuaded him to sail. Then, in rough seas, one of the major failures he had feared became reality. What followed would test his engineering knowledge, endurance, professional judgment, and integrity-and eventually get him blacklisted.

Trapped on an Unseaworthy Ship: Memoirs of a Chief Engineer is A.K. Girisam's remarkable collection of true stories from a lifetime at sea. Told from the perspective of a retired marine engineer looking back across decades, the memoir takes readers inside a professional world that few outsiders ever witness.

These are not romantic tales of leisurely ocean voyages. Girisam takes us into engine rooms where enormous machinery must be repaired while the ship rolls beneath the crew's feet; through steering failures during Suez transits, flooding at Tubarão, groundings off Baoshan, dangerous fuel problems, near collisions, environmental dilemmas, and corporate conflicts. Yet this is far from a grim technical memoir.

Girisam writes with the wit of a man who has lived long enough to laugh at his younger self. His first encounter with severe seasickness becomes an acrimonious argument between his stomach and brain. A violently moving ship seems to perform everything from a waltz to Indian classical dance (Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam) and modern breakdance. Colleagues, captains, superintendents, sailors, divers, and family members emerge as memorable characters.

Praise and Editorial Reviews:

"A delightful read... gives us access to a world we could never have entered ourselves." - Dr. Michael Broadly, Retired Scientist & Public Health Officer "What fascinated me was the mind required to keep machinery, people, procedures, commercial expectations, and physical reality functioning together... A very good memoir makes us recognize something of our own working lives: difficult decisions, institutional absurdities, and moments when experience tells us something the manual neglected to mention."

"At a deeper level, this is a memoir about judgment, responsibility, character, and professional resilience." - Dr. Mehmet Yildiz, Editor & Technologist "Girisam writes as an engineer-investigating causes, consequences, failure points, and remedies... The engineer blacklisted as professionally dangerous by one company is soon entrusted by another to take delivery of a new Cape-size vessel from Hyundai's shipyard in South Korea. Genuine competence reveals itself through action."

Behind the Humor lie Serious Questions:
• What should an experienced professional do when company instructions conflict with expert judgment? • When does following procedure improve safety, and when can blind compliance create a different danger? • Who carries responsibility when commercial pressure meets physical reality? • How do seafarers endure isolation, pirates, pandemics, and institutional failures?

You do not need to be an engineer or a sailor to enjoy these stories. Readers who appreciate memoirs, true adventures, maritime history, professional ethics, and leadership will find much to contemplate and plenty to smile about.

The ships may provide the setting and the engines may create the problems, but the people make these stories worth remembering.

Welcome aboard.