That’s how an episode of Silicon Valley ended.
Any women on board may also b crew members. I think it ws 1972 That women were admitted to the Maaritime Academies in the USA.
While I was doing my reserve duty the officers could not believe that we had only 3 men on a watch in the engine and boiler room. A watch officere, a fireman, and an oiler that was all.
I know what a fireman and an oiler did 100 years ago, but what do those job titles mean now?
In the US Navy a Fireman is the generic term for non-Petty Officers, enlisted personnel in the Engineering rates. E3 and below.
So that includes a lot of Rates from the Boiler Techs & Machinist Mates to Hull Techs (welders) to Electricians and Internal Communications.
I would not expect an fireman on a diesel ship (wich most are now) But a fireman rund the boilers. An oiler would have the same responsibilities. Checking equipment and letting the watch officer know of any problems. I did not work on any diesels but I would also guess he would keep an eye also on the evaporators, pump buildges. But on some of the modern diesel ships they have a “No man engine room.” Meaning the only time someone is in the engine room would be during the day foing day work, comming in and out of port, or in an emergency.
As for sexy funtimes, in Looking For A Ship McPhee talks about a crewman who always put to sea with a huge collection of porn VHS tapes, who would spend his off hours watching them in the crew lounge. McPhee’s informant didn’t say whether the crewman actually fapped while sitting in the open public lounge, but, well, no one watches porn for the character development and plot arcs.
Another good book on the topic is Christopher Buckley’s “Steaming to Bamboola.”
My cousin is Chief Engineer on a container ship, and we visited him when he was in port at Long Beach, His quarters suite was surprisingly spacious - with a living area, and a bedroom. This is shared (alternate 6-week shifts) with the other Chief Engineer, and they mostly leave (stow) their personal stuff while on land - guitars, etc. for downtime.
He met his fiancee when she was assigned to his ship, and they have cruised together a few times that I know of. Not sure how that works out but there is plenty of private space and time.
His ship has BBQs on the foredeck, and seems to have a lot of free time. I was surprised at the amount of rust, thinking that was a constant source of work for the crew, but they didn’t seem to focus on it.
One interesting thing he told me is that the water they drink onboard is all distilled, and it started causing issues when they are sweating in the engine room in the tropics - cramping, etc. due to lack of electrolytes. The ship owner was reluctant to spend $$ on gatorade or equivalent.
I use to take salt tablets.
We had a strange problem with the flash evaporator style water plants making effectively distilled water. We got new ice machines for the mess decks and they didn’t work right. They kept overflowing the cube molds.
It took a lot of trouble-shooting and contacts with the company before going through the wiring diagram we noticed the water cut-off circuit was closed by the water itself. Tap water conducts electricity well, distilled water not so much.
Related: one of the tests for laboratory-grade water purity is a resistivity measurement.
Oh that is funny.
Just add some salt. No … wait … oops! You just went to a lot of trouble to remove the salt. Catch-22! 
We were sent float switches like the older ice machines had. So our brand new state of the art ice machines stood useless for about 3 weeks I think waiting for these switches to arrive. Then we had to install them and I quote, “Yesterday Damn it”.
No their employer would not. And I doubt the crews would either. The employer wants the crew to be doing maintenance, checking cargo etc doing drills and completing planning and paperwork during the voyage. There is little enough time for all that as it is.
And though their mileage no doubt varies, many seafarers value long voyages as a time of relative peace when they can get their “me” time, to make up for the frantic time in port.
About rust. Everything on a steel ship at sea rusts. After you’ve been in the industry for a time, your attitude towards it changes.
Ships are built on the assumption there will be corrosion. I’ve been involved in many incidents where someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about will point to a component that has corroded severely and get in a flap. Then the real experts (naval architects, marine engineers) will point out that the component was designed on the assumption that it needed to be strong enough even after it was, say, 20% corroded away because that was what would occur over the life of the vessel.
I’ve seen ships that looked bright and shiny and well painted but up close - and when you know what to look for - could be seen to be suffering from severe wastage (corrosion). And other ships that people (media in particular) are very ready to describe as dangerous rustbuckets - on the basis of visually ugly but actually trivial surface rust and minor staining that wouldn’t bother an expert one little bit.
That makes sense. My cousin didn’t seem very concerned but also didn’t see it as his responsibility as Chief Engineer. IIRC He said it was another team (deck hands?) problem to deal with and not their main priority.
I’m sure I noticed it mostly because of my uninformed expectations from movies and such, and where I saw it was not likely a structural risk.
C/E’s are Above such trivialities as a rusty deck. They would see it as totally beneath them.
If it is not in the engine room it is not the CE responsibility. He has enough work for his wippers with out worring about doing someone elses job. Not a matter of being beneath them, just wron department.
and
Said another way, if the crewman was so unnecessary when at sea as to be allowed to sleep the voyage away, why bother having them aboard and paying them a wage? If they’re only needed in port, it’s probably far cheaper to hire in-port workers for those brief stops.
For something like the movie Alien, where voyages take a vast amount of time and where the ship is automated enough to mostly take care of itself the logic is different.