Working Abroad with Damen Naval – part 2: Jimmy Post in Romania

Working for Damen Naval doesn’t necessarily mean being based in Vlissingen or even the Netherlands. There are currently quite a few Damen Naval people working abroad. In this article, we hear about Jimmy Post’s time working in Romania.

Jimmy Post started working for Damen Naval in March 2022, starting off as Assistant-Foreman – and then Foreman – in the piping department at Vlissingen-Oost. And then in June 2023 he was offered a temporary position as Piping Supervisor at the Damen yard in Galați, Romania on board Combat Support Ship Den Helder. “This is quite a different job to what I was doing in Vlissingen; there I was supervising a specific team of pipe fitters and pipe welders,” he says. “Here as Piping Supervisor on the CSS, my job is to support everything regarding piping, which is a broader role. For example, I help the piping department with any problems they might have or questions they need answered. Or maybe the Commissioning Engineers are having problems with setting a system to work; in which case I first investigate what’s happening on-site to solve the issue, calling the engineering department in Vlissingen for support if necessary. Vlissingen is my contact point; that’s where the end responsibility is.”

At other times, it’s the engineering department in Vlissingen that calls Jimmy for information. “Because I am here on-site, I can easily see what’s happening on board the ship. This means that I can answer any questions they have and check how the onboard situation compares to their engineering model.” It is clear that Jimmy’s job is to keep a close eye on the real-world, real-time state of piping on the CSS, serving as the ‘middle-man’ between the engineers in Vlissingen and the piping teams in Galați. “It’s a coordination role, a bit like being the spider in the web,” Jimmy adds.

Now that the Galați shipyard team has finished their scope of work on the CSS and the ship has departed for Vlissingen-Oost, it is also an end to Jimmy’s time in Romania. How does he look back on his time working abroad? “Galați is an old industrial city; it’s definitely not a holiday destination. But that is fine because I have been here to work.” To that end, for the last year and a half Jimmy has been working in a ‘three weeks on, one week off’ routine, with 48-hour weeks spread over six days. He spent his time off back in the Netherlands with his family. “I have missed my wife and four kids a lot. But this time has gone by so fast; the previous year feels like a couple of months.”

And is there anything that he will miss about Romania? “The weather here in the summer is very good, as my wife and I found out when we visited the beautiful mountains here,” he answers. “And the range of food that you can find in Galați is good. There are dozens and dozens of restaurants; you name it and you can have it.”

Although Jimmy is looking forward to returning home to his family and to his job at the Vlissingen-Oost yard, he sees the benefits that working for a period abroad has given him. “I learned a lot about shipbuilding by working at the Galați yard; I see the growth of my craftsmanship, so from that perspective it was a really good step to have done this. What’s more, before going to Romania to work on the CSS, I was working on a yacht, which is a completely different type of ship. My manager, Martin Wattel, told me that I would learn a lot about naval ships in Galați. And he was totally right.”