From Raw Dough to Golden Gulab Jamun — A Seafarer’s Recipe for Calm, Crew Cohesion & Better Ship Ops

 # From Raw Dough to Golden Gulab Jamun — A Seafarer’s Recipe for Calm, Crew Cohesion & Better Ship Ops

by Dattaram Walvankar — ShipOpsInsights with Dattaram ⚓🚢

 

*Introduction*

Life at sea is equal parts storms and sunrises — and often, the inner storms matter more than the weather report. I once likened my life to an uncooked gulab jamun: full of potential (khoya, sugar, cardamom), but raw until you meet the heat and the syrup. For every officer and crew member reading this: think of emotional maturity as the cooking process. When it’s done right, operations run smoother, decisions become wiser, and teams bond in ways balance sheets can’t measure. This post reshapes a personal journey of ego, correction, disciplined practice and lasting sweetness into practical lessons you can apply on the bridge, in the engine room, and ashore. Ready to cook? 🍯🔥

 

## 1) Raw Dough: Ego, Anger and the Unseasoned Seafarer

There was a time I wore my small wins like a heavy captain’s cap — proud and unsteady. Early in my career I let a promotion and a few successful sailings inflate my sense of “I-know-it-all.” On passage, that attitude showed: brusque orders, snapping at mates during berthing drills, and missing the chance to hear a junior’s perspective. One near-miss during pilotage (a result of rushing a berth plan) shook me — not because I was embarrassed, but because I realized how quickly ego creates hazards.

Shipping is unforgiving of pride. A single unchecked reaction can cascade: unhappy crew → missed checks → cargo damage → client disputes. So how do you “cook” the raw dough into something reliable? Start with humility as a routine: log one moment a day when you were defensive or impatient. Debrief it with a colleague or mentor. Practice saying, “Tell me more” instead of “You’re wrong.” These small changes deflate the steam of ego before it boils over. Over months, officers report calmer handovers, better watchkeeping, and a culture where near-misses are caught earlier — simply because people listen first and command second.

🧭✨ #ShipOps #Leadership #CrewSafety #Humility #MindfulWatch

 

## 2) The Hot Oil: Responsibility Heats You — Where Change Begins

Responsibility is heat. When I settled in Pune and shoulders filled with family and crew-care duties, life got real. The pressure of payrolls, shore schedules, maintenance windows — all of it felt like oil crackling in a pan. A senior sister once told me, “Start a simple daily practice; it makes your faults visible.” Those words were a match. On one voyage, a port operations proposal I’d put heart into was dismissed by our charterers. My first instinct was fury and a sharp reply. Instead, I paused, pictured my mentor’s calm face, and asked for a second review. We reworked the plan with clearer contingencies, communicated transparently, and the charterer reversed course — the project became a reputational win for our company.

In shipping, heat reveals your real recipe: will you burn or brown? Practical takeaway: create a “cooling protocol” for reactions — 5 deep breaths, note the trigger in a “cooling log,” then request a 24-hour revisit for contentious emails or decisions. Make a mentor or trusted chief your sounding board for high-stakes communications. Over time, reactive boards turn into deliberate strategies — and that’s how small commercial losses turn into long-term trust.

⚓💼 #OperationalExcellence #CalmLeadership #Mentorship #ShipOpsInsights

 

 

## 3) Amrit Kalash — The Watchful Practice of Daily Quiet

My personal practice was long — hours of repetition that first felt impossible with ship schedules. But the stages are universal and compressible for seafarers: Stage 1 — mental clutter (pre-sail worries, cargo specs, family calls). Stage 2 — the thinning of noise (after routine checks, a breath, a short reflection). Stage 3 — flow: decisions come from steadiness, not reaction. I learned to map those stages into watchkeeping. On long passages I began a micro-ritual: ten minutes before the watch I sit in silence (or hum a short line that centers me), run through the watch checklist slowly, and visualise the next two hours. The first ten days were chaotic — lists resurfaced, schedules flitted through my head — but by the third week watch turnovers were sharper, OOW reports clearer, and fatigue-driven errors dropped.

For ship ops: you don’t need three hours to benefit. Start with 5–10 minutes: steady breathing, checklist review, and a one-line intention (“Maintain clear comms; protect my team”). Encourage this as an official pre-watch routine. When a culture normalises three quiet breaths before orders, you’ll notice less friction, better situational awareness, and a team that responds rather than reacts.

🕰️🌊 #Watchkeeping #MindfulnessAtSea #CrewWelfare #SafetyCulture

 

## 4) Night Watch Miracle — How Quiet Hours Change Decisions

One of the clearest memories is a still midnight passage: the ship humming, crew breathing in rhythm, and a strange, sudden calm washing over me. It felt like someone clicked a “calm” switch in my mind. That quiet allowed me to notice a subtle navigation cue the radar operator had missed. I intervened gently, we adjusted course, and avoided what might have been a costly deviation. The lesson: when you cultivate inner silence, external signals become easier to read. In shipping, the quiet hours (pilotage windows, night transits, fog watches) are where practiced calm makes the difference between safe passage and costly correction.

Turn this into routine: institute a “three-breath decision pause” before any major order at night. Train the bridge team to speak up with “I notice” statements rather than accusatory tones. Encourage a short communal debrief after critical watches — three lines: what worked, what surprised us, what to do differently next time. These small practices leverage quiet into actionable safety gains; they make your bridge a place of attention rather than pulse.

🌃🔭 #NightWatch #BridgeResourceManagement #SafetyFirst #CrewCommunication

 

## 5) Cooked Gulab Jamun — The Transformation: From Reactive to Resilient

After months of steady practice — humility logs, cooling protocols, pre-watch rituals — the change was subtle but unmistakable. Crew gossip eased. Engineers who once clashed over watch handovers began exchanging short check-ins. Commercial teams found negotiations less combative because decisions were made from steadiness rather than ego. On one explaining voyage, our charterers commented on the “disciplined, calm approach” of the team — and that goodwill led to repeat business. That’s the cooked gulab jamun: the reward isn’t a brief pat on the back, it’s enduring trust.

Leadership in shipping is not just about emergency responses; it’s about shaping a field where decisions are small and sound, so big problems rarely arise. Practical initiatives that helped me: weekly two-minute gratitude rounds in the mess, anonymous crew suggestion boxes that are actually read and acted upon, and a captain-led “calm model” — visibly choosing composure over quick anger. Those actions convert short-term fixes into cultural shifts. And culture is the real cargo that keeps a ship profitable and people proud.

💛📦 #CrewMorale #Retention #OperationalResilience #ShipLeadership

 

## 6) Ram Naam — Making a Practice Sustainable on the Long Voyage

Sustaining a practice at sea requires realism. You can’t mandate long meditation sessions during cargo ops, but you can build micro-habits: a 60-second breathing check before cargo operations, a 90-second “mood check” during watch handover (one word: calm/tense/ok), and a two-line end-of-day note from the OOW to the captain summarising one risk and one mitigation. These tiny rituals are analogous to continuous nama — a presence that eventually becomes default.

Operational tools that align with this discipline: include a “mindful minute” in the Safety Management System (SMS), add pre-watch micro-checks in the vessel’s standing orders, and run short leadership refreshers for senior officers focused on emotional intelligence. Lead by example: when senior officers adopt the micro-habit publicly, it becomes acceptable and then expected. Over a year, these small repeated actions compound into a smoother voyage, fewer disciplinary headaches, and stronger safety compliance — a cheaper, more humane ROI than any technical upgrade.

🔁⛴️ #SustainablePractice #SMS #EmotionalIntelligence #ShipOpsLeadership

 

## 7) Final Sweetness: A Captain’s Prayer — Legacy on Deck and Ashore

The final sweetness isn’t fame or profit; it’s a quiet legacy — a ship where the last watch is calm and the crew talks about you as someone who steadied storms inside people, not just in weather reports. My closing wish is simple: may the practices that saved my career and home life serve yours too. The combination of humility, deliberate pause, and simple daily rituals doesn’t require doctrinal belief — it asks only for discipline and courage to change. If you take one thing from this: invest in the inner temperature of your ship as much as you maintain the engine room. A steady interior keeps the exterior humming.

If ShipOpsInsights can help, let’s build micro-practice toolkits for vessel types, run short webinars for watch officers, and collect real-life case notes from you — the community — on what worked. Together we transform raw potential into lasting sweetness. 🙏⚓

🫶 #LegacyLeadership #ShipCulture #ContinuousImprovement #ShipOpsInsights

 

## Call to Action (CTA) — Let’s Anchor This Together

If this recipe resonated, do one thing right now: pick one micro-practice (a 60-second pre-watch breathing check or a daily humility log) and try it for seven days. Share your story in the comments — what changed? Like and share this post with a colleague who leads a team or manages operations. Follow *ShipOpsInsights with Dattaram* for weekly, practical, field-tested ideas that make your ship safer, your team steadier, and your life sweeter.

Together we’ll keep ships safe and hearts steady. 🙌🚢

— Dattaram Walvankar (ShipOpsInsights with Dattaram)