Emlyn Grieve

Responsibilities in this role are ensuring the safety and security of the Pier to all vessels and harbour users at all times.

Working in providing Stevedore facilities to Orkney Ferries. Assisting with general maintenance ensuring the pier is kept tidy and safe for users. Routine inspection of all Pier and infrastructure.

Arranging and assisting with berthing of vessels.

Providing assistance to skippers of vessels and answering queries and requests.

Maintaining a daily log of vessel movements and recording any billable facilities that are used.

Fulfilling an overnight security and watch keeping duty over Orkney Ferries Vessels.

Working in this varied role has provided me with further skills, working as a member of a large team and playing an integral role within that team.

It has provided me with a greater knowledge of how the Orkney Harbour System operates and the larger infrastructure that is in place.

I owned and operated my own business,the fishing vessel 'Three Boys' as a Scallop Diving vessel.

Duties included maintenance,day to day running and up keep of the vessel.

Maintaining and repairing any issues with the engines, compressor and electrics aboard the boat.

Managing the crew/divers that work with myself as part of the team aboard the Three Boys.

Catching and diving for scallops.

Communicating with customers and buyers for sale of our catch.

Addressing Health and safety issues and making sure all diving practices are done within HSE guidelines.

Keeping logbooks up to date for recording of catch to Marine Scotland, and diving records maintained for HSE Diving inspections.

Maintaining diving equipment and recording plant and maintenance records to HSE Diving inspectors standards.

The experience and knowledge I have gained from doing this has taught me how to deal with having my own crew.

I feel I am responsible for them on a safety basis and on a financial level. It has also given me the ability to look after my own boat and keep it up to a safe working level as described by the MCA and HSE.

I feel I also have built a strong ability to make decisions based on outside factors. These may include tides,weather conditions, shipping movements and notices to mariners. For the sake of safety of divers and the boat, our working day is planned around these factors.

The majority of my time at Leask Marine was predominantly working as a diver. This would include diving in Fish farm cages and mooring systems as part of a team of usually 4 divers.. This entailed removing the dead fish and checking the security of the cage nets.

Other work diving was surveying and checking and repairs of piers and Harbour areas in Orkney. Some of this work would be underwater but some was above water.

I also dived on renewable energy projects that were underway at that time.

In the later part of my time at Leask Marine I was promoted to a Dive Supervisor which meant I was responsible for the running of a Dive team. This usually consisted of 4 persons which I looked after as per HSE rules and Guidelines. I would make sure the rest of my team were fit and knew where they were supposed to be on a day to day basis. I found this role working as part of a team hugely rewarding.

Passing on my knowledge to other less experienced divers was something I enjoyed doing.

I would deal directly with the client and representatives of the client. Reporting back to the client was usually on a daily basis and usually involved returning job specific written reports of the daily events.

A large part of my work was to get my team to the requested job site. This would of course involve the ability to operate different work craft. Vessels we would use would be M/V Uskmoor,M/V Challenge or M/V Challenger.

I was competent in the use of all these vessels and assisted with the maintenance and up keep of these vessels.

During this time I worked on boats around Orkney as a Fisherman/Scallop Diver. These boats included The F/v June Rose, F/V Jacqui B, F/V Incentive, F/V Ewing McGruer,and the F/V Aaron.

The F/V Jacqui B and Incentive were vessels that were fishing crab and lobster. Duties included assisting as part of a crew hauling creels, emptying/sorting catch, baiting and shooting creels, and taking occasional watches.

The F/V June Rose, Aaron and Ewing McGruer were Scallop Diving boats where I worked as a Scallop Diver.

The experience I gained from working on these boats taught me how to work as part of a team and gave me a good knowledge of navigating small boats around Orkney.

Responsibilities included, feeding salmon, operating a work boat, maintaining the fish farm, maintaining the work boats and harvesting market ready salmon.

While at this job I did a lot of work learning how to work and operate a boat. These boats varied from a small semi displacement 21 foot workboat to a larger steel 50 foot twin engined workboat.

During this time was when I first went to sea on Fishing Vessels. The vessels I worked on were The F/V Siobhan, F/V Southards and the F/V Minch Hunter.

These Vessels were all rigged as trawlers or scallop dredgers. Duties involved assisting with the shooting and hauling of fishing gear.

Sorting and bagging up catch and general crew duties on a trawling vessels.

The experience and knowledge I gained was working as part of a crew. I learnt valuable skills in how to maintain a working boat and how to take watch on a vessel operating a trawl mostly in darkness hours.

Collecting shellfish waste from

different locations throughout Orkney in a pick up.

There was normally a small team of us who all had our own roles within the company. Quite often working with each other to get tasks completed quickly and efficiently.

Assisting with the running of a fish meal plant on a day to day basis.

Assisting with the maintenance and repairing of broken and damaged parts in the fish meal plant.

I feel this job gave me a lot of experience and knowledge in the repair and maintenance of mechanical equipment.