The Jinkuk

When I was a kid I liked watching the snow plow. That’s not the whole truth. I still like watching the snow plow. The clearing of snow, the creating order from chaos, there is something about it that pleases me greatly. Its twisted, I know, but I can watch it for hours. I get the same feeling, only milder, when watching Japanese stevedores load cars. They are fast, efficient, skilled, and they never make mistakes. It’s a science to them. Some highly intelligent short little scientist has recorded this stuff on video, studied it carefully while making all kinds of eyebrow movements, come to several clever conclusions, and written them all down in a manual. That manual has then been sent on review to other scientist who have agreed and disagreed, gotten agitated, called each other names, become quite angry at each other, but finally made up and decided that their friendship is more important than whether the stevedore waving the white flag should wear a pink or a green cap (even though the color contrast is clearly increased by no less than 12% in the latter. Clearly!). They have amended the manual further and made it even more perfect. Other scientists have continued this work for quite some time, centuries perhaps. Now, the stevedores follow this manual in every detail of their work and the result is astonishing. I want to live here.

I said earlier that we were taking the FRB, Fast Rescue Boat, out for a spin on Tokyo bay. It sounds sexy, doesn’t it? But in reality we have to ask the harbor master for permission to perform drills in port. And we got permission to use the boat not more than 20 meters from the ship. Even though we broke that rule slightly, it wasn’t exactly out on the Bay. But goddammit was it fun. That thing is such a joy to ride. It’s water jet propelled so there is no problem flooring it, 33 knots, and then shifting to full reverse. It stops on a dime. The steering in reverse on the other hand, is reversed, which messed with my head at first. But when you figure it out it’s so easy to steer.

We have three Koreans onboard with us fixing something in the engine room. One of them is named “Jinkuk”……This is all we ever talk about now. I suggested it was an old pirate medical term for unfortunate symptoms related to unsuccessful intercourse during heavy influence of alcohol. "Argh matey, tharr be no movement in the one-eyed pirate….me’ve come across the ol’ gincock from the wenchin’ and grogg, ay!"