Noise cancelling headphones, any good?

[jacloc]

Would a set of noise cancelling/reducing head phones or ear buds be any use to someone who has a noisy cabin (next to the steering gear). They are having trouble sleeping, or even resting, due to the noise when under way. Or would a decent pair of earplugs do the job as well? I know some of these headphones are rather costly but some are available for less than ?50. I have never had any experience of these gadgets and hope someone could advise! Thanks.

[Silvertop]

Apparently they can be very good, although I have no first hand knowledge of this. My concern is the reason to block out the noise, loss of sleep, or studying? If it's sleep then constant music instead might be damaging to the ears, how about decent sleeping earplugs? Noise is a fact of life on a ship, most people get used to it, but I'm not make any excuse if it is excessive!!

[ETwhat?]

I would go for decent ear plugs and just learn to live with it, I wouldn't be sure how good noise cancelling earphones would be to provide silence

[Clanky]

How long has she been in the cabin for? Most people find they get used to it after a while.

The only time that I have problems sleeping is the first night at home as unless I have a skinful of beer I lie awake amazed at how quiet it is.

She could try getting some disposable earplugs from the engine room to start with, just tell her not to re-use them or she will end up with an ear infection.

[Bulman]

Their are good sets that you can get custom made to fit the ear cannel, but not much point if their on ship I suppose as you have to get a casting of your ear from a options and then send it off to them. But obviously they last for ages and are only for that person!

[bobofinga]

I was always told never to wear ear plugs or noise cancelling earphones incase you didn't hear an emergency signal or ... missed your alarm ha.

[jacloc]

Thanks for your suggestions, I didn't think about not hearing alarms and calls.

It was just an idea, she has someone going to visit in a few weeks and I thought they could take her some as an early christmas present, so, bad idea!

They have been in the cabin for 2 months now, but sharing with a spa girl for the last month, it's the being disturbed and then not being able to drop off again because of the noise. I will suggest popping down to see the lovely engineers to get some earplugs.

[EH75]

Yeah I would get some earplugs. I can't sleep on ship without them and you will still hear alarms. If you can't hear the alarm with earplugs in then it's not loud enough! They don't block everything out, just reduce ambient noise.

[chris]

As a cadet, I had a cabin directly above the engine and could only get to sleep with my ear defenders on, but it wasnt great as I could only just hear the fire alarm, luckily it was a false alarm.

[jacloc]

I have just found out that the noise is not the real problem, though it is annoying, its more the vibrations. I don't suppose there is anything that can be done to solve that!

[ETwhat?]

if the vibrations are causing things to rattle and squeak bits of fag box wedged in all over the place help. its part of the deal though and cadets do tend to have poor cabins on certain ships

[Martyboy]

I seen a chef with a knife wedged in the deck head panel to stop it vibrating once... I advise against that!! But yea, part of the fun of your first few days on ship is going around finding the rattley bits with paper..... Sadly the steering gear moving will cause vibrations which can't really be helped, these things are just part of life at sea.. For watch keepers who sleep during the day there is generally something which wakes you up..... Phones ringing, Crew washing down the outside of the ship and kinly blasting your windows with the hose etc...... I did have a set of noise cancelling head phones on board that I picked up for ?20 at Asda and it would cancel out some of the noise like the general "humming" a ship makes due to the A/C running 24/7 but I could still here machinery operating and the likes, plus they'd be really uncomfy to sleep with i'd imagine

This is my personal preference and people may think me weird for it, and i'm not sure how practical it'll be if sharing, but I ALWAYS have a DVD on in my cabin when I go to sleep at night, find it hard to sleep without one, even at home I have something on youtube or the iplayer when I go to sleep (it's why I know every word of every episode of the big bang theory and Still game )

[alistairuk]

This is my personal preference and people may think me weird for it, and i'm not sure how practical it'll be if sharing, but I ALWAYS have a DVD on in my cabin when I go to sleep at night, find it hard to sleep without one, even at home I have something on youtube or the iplayer when I go to sleep (it's why I know every word of every episode of the big bang theory and Still game )

Similar to you - I tend to leave music playing just loud enough that I can hear it over the background noise - after months of experimenting I find quiet slow music tends to be better - and make sure it's all the same volume (sound check is actually enabled in iTunes if you're using it) or you'll **** yourself when it randomly comes on loud in middle of the night.

My cabin is bad enough, but my office is unbearable when the ship is at sea (literally directly above the props and steering gear room) - I tend to find an excuse to camp out in someone else's office on sea days...

Unfortunately it's part of life at sea - you do eventually get used to it - I find it strange for the first few days when I get home - it's too quiet!

[Martyboy]

My cabin was above the winches on my last anchor handler, amazing cabin when not working, as soon as we started running the winches, it was hell

[Hatchorder]

I was on a ship that was fitted out in Scotts in Greenock. They tightened up every panel so tight that the whole ship squeaked in any sea at all. It was horrendous. We ended up sprinkling talc on every seam and waited for it to work its way into the cracks and act like a lubricant.

We had a cadet that upset the sparky once. The sparky got into his cabin and removed the light over his bunk. Then he lowered a 2ft piece of string with a small nut tied on the end and put the light back. Every time the ship pitched he got a BANG, Bang, bang bang. Every time the ship rolled it was a swish swish from side to side.... Took him weeks to work it out!

Personally speaking if I was tired enough I could sleep through anything. Slept in tween decks on top of cargo and all sorts.

Ian