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Comment by shellfishgene | Hacker News Reader

It only shows an officer's cabin I think, I wonder how those of the rest of the crew are.

If my experience in the offshore industry is anything to go by, a crew cabin will be 8-10sqm (100sqft-ish), with either one or two bunks (Pro tip: try to get dibs on the lower one), a small table or desk if you are lucky, a couch two people can share if they are really good friends, a couple of small cabinets for clothing and personal items, also two drawers under the lower bunk.

Oh, and with any luck, a porthole.

A head, 2sqm/20sqft or so, shower, toilet, sink.

Neat and tidy, but by no means luxurious.

I have only been offshore once, in the Goliat platform, for a mooring monitoring system installation — I was definitely not expecting the cruise ship like crew quarters! Single cabins with ensuite bathrooms, a cozy dining room with wall to wall windowing, even a pool table!

Goliat is a very modern FPSO design, however. My colleagues' experiences in other floating rigs around the world, which are usually built from converted tanker hulls, are more like what you describe, especially below the equator. For contractors you might be lucky and get a double cabin to share, but cabins might have up to four bunks. Definitely don't forget to pack some flip flops or crocs for the showers!

There are only 20-30 people working on a cargo ship, I wouldn't doubt that it's all quite pleasant. Lots of ship for so few people.

Most of it is for cargo, but still specially with containers you need very high superstructure. And you want it to be mostly empty space like rooms. As heavy liquids and so on are preferably close or below sea level.

In the end why not provide decent amount of space for crew as there isn't really any that valuable use.

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