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Rather than direct company pressure, were there were incentives to make trips in heavy weather in order to maximize the number of payloads a particular ship would carry over a shipping season.

I think that company pressure was more of an issue before the 1970's. Starting with the Henry Stienbrenner loss in '53 followed by the Bradley in '58 and then the Morrell , the industry as a whole started to think differently about a ships condition and venturing out in heavy weather.

I was never in 32 years pressured by anybody to go out in bad weather. It was entirely up to the judgement of the captain and was never second-guessed by the office if the decision was to take shelter.

I was wondering if anyone out there has any insight into whether there was any difference between shipping fleets directly owned by steel companies such as Bethlehem, Inland, and United States Steel in comparison to fleets not directly owned by such companies like Oglebay Norton, Wilson, Gartland, American Steamship, etc. when it came to sailing in heavy weather. Were ships from either type of fleet more likely to sail into stormy weather? As many of the independent fleets served steel producers through contracts did those fleets push their ships harder as they had a range of customers to serve rather than being part of a vertical integration business model? Did either type of fleet structure encourage sailing despite the potential hazards more than the other? Or did it just come down to the personality traits of each individual shipmaster?