Surplus of Requirement

Surplus of Requirement m/s “Kari” rode the seas like a swan, only when the most evil waves of the Atlantic ocean hit, did she flap her wings. Why was it she was crewed by harbour dregs? Men who callously walked on her deck and were ready to leave her at the next port of call, for booze, cigarette and whores? Often she had to sail understaffed because her crew had succumbed to the bleak pleasure of a harbour bar. We officers loved her, even though for most of us she was the last chance before being barred and losing our tickets, walk the shores and beg a shipping clerk for a opening. She carried everything in her hull, trucks, tanks, jeeps and even hats for some South American dictator’s wife. Then she was sold to Bangladesh too old and cumbersome the owner said, it was all about container ship, in and out of harbours, quickly. In Hatiya the captain cried his home was being dismantled in front of his eyes. For us too it was the bitter end, old and grizzled, no one needs a sailor who thinks of his ship as home.