I have Killdozer somewhere around here. In one of those complilation books. I haven’t read that for a while. Might as well give it another go.
Killdozer! has a lot of his own experiences on the merchant marine and construction jobs in the pacific, if I recall. He goes into lots of details about the machines.
So sturgeon and Jack Vance(my favourite) were both in the merchant marine. Jack vance actually wrote a lot of the “Dying Earth” on ship.
Freegards