16 Dec 2003 - Tenth day at sea
0825
- Another day in paradise. Our position at 0810 is 19.51S, 164.16W.
Sky and sea are about the same. It's not so overcast this morning as
it was the last day or so. We are passing through various island
groups and nations but we never see a thing. The freighter's business is
just to get to New Zealand as fast and as efficiently as possible.
At lunch, yesterday, the Captain said we would arrive in New Zealand at approximately 1600 on Dec 20th and they would depart at 0900 on the 21st for Australia. These cargo container ships do not spend much time in port.
I went up and talked with Emil on the bridge again this morning. We had a second talk just now in the Ship's Office. I find him very interesting to talk with.
So, I want to go back and catch up on the various things that happened yesterday.
First, I solved my computer problem. Typically, it wasn't where I thought it was going to be. Actually, I solved two problems and the result is that the GENA program now is leaking very little memory so that as user can run it for probably days on end without running out of memory.
At 1500 yesterday, after coffee, Anatoly, the Chief Engineer, took us on the promised engine room tour. I took a large series of photos of the tour. There are too many to place here on the 16 Dec 03 page so if you want to see them, you can follow the link, here.
To say the tour was interesting would be an understatement. My major impresses ions were that it is very big, very noisy and very automated.
Originally, I was going to post a whole series of photographs of the excellent schematic diagrams of the Direct Tui which are displayed on the walls of the corridors within the superstructure. I blazed away and shot a lot of these but, after reflection, I think in today's world with terrorism rampant, it doesn't make sense to post such things. I'd hate to hear at some future date that this fine ship had become a victim of someone's political or religious 'cause' and the way they'd known how to attack the ship was through the diagrams I'd posted. Nope. We're not going to go there.
There's a room on A deck where air conditioning equipment is running. It controls the temperature in the crew quarters and well and keeping the various food lockers at the correct temperatures.
Then we went to the Ship's Office, which is also on A deck. In this office is a computer used by the officer's for general purposes. Also, there is a lot of equipment and another computer which come into play when the ship is in port. here is where they control the various ballast tanks which insure that regardless of how and where the weight of the cargo is on the ship, that the ship remains level and balanced. There is also a system here which can sense the tilt of the ship from side to side and it will rapidly pump sea water from a tank on one side of the ship to the other side to counterbalance the tilt. The many gauges tell how much water is in the various tanks, how deep the ship is in the water and etc.
Next, we went to the port end of the A deck passageway and went into the Chief Engineer's Office (Anatoly's office). He told us how inspections for the various systems on ships have been internationalized and standardized now. There's a long row of books on the starboard wall of his office that are just for the regulations, requirements and various papers which must be filled out and stored to be ready for inspection. He also showed us on his computer in the office one of the forms in Excel which he must fill out to record the use of fuel and etc. each day.
On A deck, there is a stairwell going down which I'd never used before. In leads you down into the engine room. Once you enter, it gets really noisy. We didn't wear ear protection because we were only going to be there for 30 minutes or so but any of the crew who goes there on a regular basis does wear protection. Once down the ladder, it was hot as well. Must be 90 to 10 degrees in there. We walked straight over to the Engine Control Room.
Once you enter and close the door behind you, the noise level drops amazingly and the room is air conditioned. One wall is largely glass and you can look out into the main engine compartment and see the main engine working before you. Around you, are arrays pale green panels with controls and indicators everywhere. The ship was built in Korea in 1998 so it is quite modern. The panels along the back wall seemed to be dedicated to electrical functions whereas the ones facing the engine itself were focused on monitoring and controlling the engine's status.
Anatoly told us that there are over 300 sensors scattered around which are feeding information into the engine control room. The equipment watches these sensors ceaselessly and will set off alarms if anything gets out of its normal and expected range. Everything must be just so. The temperature of the bunker fuel going in, the temperature of the exhaust gas coming out, the air pressure in the super-chargers - it is all monitored. During the day shift, people are always on duty there but in the evenings, the area runs unattended but all of the alarms systems are wired to the cabins of the Engineers so if anything goes wrong, they will know instantly.
Most of the system have redundancy and are setup to automatically switch over if the primary unit fails. Also, all the automatic systems can be operated manually if the automation itself fails.
Anatoly took us to the chalk board and showed us several things including how the superchargers work, how the fresh water is made on board and also how the thick fuel they use is centrifuged to precipitate out the heavier parts and then the lighter purer part goes on to the engine. The heavier portion is stored and then disposed of when they come to port. These days, dumping anything at sea is frowned upon and there are serious fines involved if anyone does it and is caught.
From the control room, we went outside and proceeded down deeper into the engine room. In all, it is about three stories high. It extends from under the main deck all the way down until you can see from the shape of the walls, that the ship's hull is curving in under you. It is a very complicated place. I rarely lose my orientation but in a short time I had to ask which was was forward and which aft.
We looked at a lot of different kinds of equipment. Anatoly attempted to tell us what a lot of it was and what it did but I'm sure a lot of it slipped by me. the engine, itself, was pretty amazing. It was enormous. It has seven cylinders and it bangs away night and day. There were two spare cylinders which, if they had to, they could use if a cylinder failed at sea. Anatoly impressed on us that things are different on a ship. here, if something breaks, no one is going to come and help you. yes, you can get technical consultation on the satellite phone but whatever it is, you are going to fix it yourself right here. So, he said, they spend a lot of time maintaining things to prevent breakdowns and most of the systems are setup so that critical systems have redundant backups.
I took a photo of the propeller shaft as it turned. It was huge - maybe 16 inches in diameter. As I looked around, it looked chaotic to me because there is so much equipment but I realized that it is all well maintained and that it is not chaos. Here, everything is organized and well maintained.
Because they are self sufficient, they have an excellent machine shop on board and that's were Anatoly took us next. A large drill press, a big lathe, and entire wall full of tools greeted us there along with the Third Engineer.
Finally, we went up into a room at the very stern of the ship. Here is kept the steering gear which controls the rudder. We didn't see it do anything, however, since the ship has been running on the same course for New Zealand ever since we left Long Beach. We looked a several pallets of spare parts and then we climbed back up onto the aft deck by the muster stations and we were done. We thanked Anatoly, of course, for an excellent tour.
After the tour, John and I took a walk up to the bow and then he asked me to his cabin for a beer. It was a New Zealand brew called Steinlager. His cabin is smaller that this one and I'm very glad I opted for this one. I like the layout much better.
1300 - Back to present time. I just finished lunch. Everyone but Emil was there. He never seems to attend lunch. Of course, I understand that his watch shifts prevent him from attending the other meals; breakfast and supper.
I told Anatoly that I've written up the engine room tour and asked if he could come and help me correct the labeling of some of the photographs.
The Captain told us that tonight, we turn the clocks back one more hour and that tomorrow, it would be the 18th. So, the write up for what happened on December 17th will be short and sweet - nothing.
Today or tomorrow, the sun should be straight overhead at noon because we are getting very close to the Tropic of Capricorn and it is almost the Dec 23rd Solstice.
I've spent most of today writing up stuff in my log that I was behind on. I'm going to leave off with that now and read for 20 minutes or so and then wade into programming again now that I have solved the memory leak problems.
1525 - Captain just told me the schedule in New Zealand for the departure back to San Francisco. Everything is working out on schedule. The ship arrives in Tauranga at 2200 on Jan 2nd and then departs at 0800 on the 4th. That works out very well with my car reservations.
1532 - we're at 21.36S, 165.50W. Cities in New Zealand are beginning to show up on my GPS map.
In the evening, I went up topside and recorded a long piece verbally in my digital voice recorder. It was a bit strange. Here it is, transcribed:
A lot of strange thoughts when I'm up here on top, tonight. The first thing is that I don't think we ever truly see the dark night at home. This ship, of many thousands of tons, is just driving on through the night, driving into the blackness - you can't see anything ahead - it's just so black out there that it is hard to imagine. And the ship just drives on and on.
Where else could you move a piece of machinery this size blindly through utter blackness and not worry about what you might hit? I mean, there is nothing out here but ocean. Once your eyes adjust, you can look at the sky and see the vague shapes of things - some a little darker and some a little lighter - all on the bare edge of perception. I can imagine now what it would be like on some of the islands out here when they turn the lights off at night on a night like this when it is overcast. It is just utterly black. We just never see this at home because there's always some source of light around.
I was also looking down off the back of the bridge and, having gone into the engine room today, I know more of what's down there. I know that they leave the engine room untended except during the daytime shift and all those engines and all that machinery - a huge space full of all these machines - incredible looking stuff - is all just left running for 12 or more hours with not a soul there. There are lots of sensors, however, all wired up so that they can alert people in their cabins if there's a problem. But, it is pretty amazing, really. You could just walk in there with all that machinery running and no one taking care of it and all of it driving this enormous collection of steel through the black and empty night. Late at night, there is literally one person who is awake and paying attention and that is the officer on the bridge. He sits in virtual darkness, lit by the green glows of the radar screens, and there's not much out here so he has very little to do other than to stay awake and periodically go around and check things and make notes. And the rest of us are all just sleeping inside in this improbable situation.
But, when you come outside and realize the amount of blackness out here, it is very eerie. Another thing which is particularly eerie is to look off the side of the ship into this blackness. Occasionally, the ship stirs the water to foam so that you can see a vague shadow of whiteness in the dark. And the fact is that all of that which I see over the side of the ship - all the white and all the black - it is all death. I've had this thought when I was in an airliner before - looking out the window thinking that death was just mere inches away - outside, it is way far below zero and the wind is ripping by at hundreds of miles and hour. But it doesn't seem very real on a plane because you'd have to do something pretty remarkable to get out there where death is. But here, there's nothing but a small steel rail that marks the end of the ship. It truly is a ship driving through the blackness of death on all sides. And it is good that the ship is strong and that if we just stay here and mind our business, we'll be fine. But, it is pretty bizarre thinking about all this stuff.