Various situations are presented with respect to employees rendering
watchman or similar service aboard a vessel in port. Members of the
crew, who render such services during a temporary stay in port or during
a brief lay-up for minor repairs, are still employed as ``seamen''.
Where the vessel is laid up for a considerable period, members of the
crew rendering watchman or similar services aboard the vessel during
this period would not appear to be within the special provisions
relating to seamen because their services are not rendered primarily as
an aid in the operation of the vessel as a means of transportation. See
Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U.S. 187. Furthermore, employees
who are furnished by independent contractors to perform watchman or
similar services aboard a vessel while in port would not be employed as
seamen regardless of the period of time the vessel is in port, since
such service is not of the type described in Sec. 783.31. The same
considerations would apply in the case of members of a temporary or
skeleton crew hired merely to maintain the vessel while in port so that
the regular crew may be granted shore leave. On the other hand, licensed
relief officers engaged during relatively short stays in port whose duty
it is to maintain the ship in safe and operational condition
and who exercise the authority of the master in his absence, including
keeping the log, checking the navigation equipment, assisting in the
movement of the vessel while in port, are employed as seamen within the
meaning of the exemptions. The same may be true of licensed relief
engineers employed under the same circumstances whose duty it is to
maintain the ship's auxiliary machinery in operation and repair (see
Pratt v. Alaska Packers Asso. (N.D. Calif.) 9 WH Cases 61).
