09 November 2008, Tampa.

At 01.29 in the morning, we passed the Tampa sea buoy, one minute ahead of schedule and then lined up in the leading lights of the Tampa bay outer fairway. With a fresh breeze of about 20 knots blowing from the north we sailed through the buoys. The fairway is covered by leading lights to keep the ship in the middle of the channel as the channel is not that wide, especially when the wind is blowing on the side, or on the beam of the ship, the ship will be pushed to the lee side of the channel. With the wind blowing from the north the Veendam was pushed “set” as we call in the nautical language to the South. In order to stay in the channel, you have to steer for ‘drift” and then the leading lights are really handy. As long as those two strong green lights are in line, the ship is in the middle.

The leading lights cover a course of 084o true but with the wind pushing the ship to the south we were steering 4o degrees less to stay in the channel. If you would see the ship from above you would see that is was heading under an angle in relation to the buoys; while the ship as a whole moved over the mid channel track. There is of course a limit to how much angle, how much drift, you can steer as the fairway is not as wide as the length of the ship. So under circumstances where there is a real storm blowing the channel will be closed. The drift angle for the ship would then be so big, that while the bridge was in the leading lights, the stern would hit the buoys.

The whole of Tampa bay, where the ships sail through are covered by these leading lights. They make it easier for the pilots to keep the ship in the middle of the channel, when under the influence of wind and current. The skill of the pilots is to make each course change in such a way that the ship ends up in the new set of leading lights when moving from channel to channel section. Especially when another ship has to be passed, and your own ship has to move out of the leading lights to create as much room as possible, it becomes a very skillfull exercise. Nowadays, with the ships being so big and wide the pilots are aided by a computer program on their laptops that shows in real time where they are. As it is connected to the GPS, it shows on the screen within a foot where the ship is exactly. That makes it possible for the pilot to line the ship up exactly in the centre of the fairway but it also tells the pilot how much he/she can veer off the centre track line when another ship has to be passed.

When the very big ships are passing through Tampa Bay, such as the Carnival Miracle, then no opposing ships are allowed to be in the bay that might have to pass this ship. Due to the length and width it would be extremely difficult to move sufficiently out of the centre of the fairway to let another ship pass by. These ships are called “protocol” ships and they call for clever planning by the Port authorities in order to get other ships out of the way and still let the traffic flow unhindered.

The Veendam, which is classed as only a medium size cruise ship, there is no protocol and we do meet opposing ships in the channels. The pilots discuss with each other where they want to meet and than adjust speed accordingly. For that they have on their computer a gadget, called a predictor. It calculates the meeting location based on the current speed of both vessels. We met one tanker in Hillsborough cut, which is a long straight and fairly wide channel. It was no delay to us and by 05.45 we were docked alongside. Customs and Border Protection stepped on board as planned at 6 am. to start the clearance of the ship. Due to a cold front coming down from the NW, it was a cool day and tomorrow evening the wind is supposed to pick up but not too much and that is good for Key West.