03 December 2008, Belize.

We overtook the “Tampa” cold front during the night and by the time we arrived at the anchorage the sun was breaking through the clouds and there was a nice gentle breeze blowing over the water. That lasted until just after lunch time when the frontal system caught up with us and the wind increased and it started to drizzle and rain. Luckily most of the clouds missed the ship and thus it was not so bad after all as most rain fell at a distance.

For the Officer Of the Watch, the main concern is when a frontal system with rain approaches is whether the anchor will drag when the sudden wind starts pushing against the hull. All day the OOW’s take anchor bearings every 20 minutes. For that three conspicuous points are selected from the surrounding area. Conspicuous in nautical language means, you can see them both in real life and in the chart so you can transfer the bearings taken into the chart. It does not help very much if you take a bearing from a prominent point ashore and then to find out that it is not present in the chart. In combination with these bearings you can use the range rings on the radar to ascertain if the ship is moving closer or away from a certain point. The ship always moves a little bit while it anchor, pushed by wind and current and thus the bearings taken always change a little bit. However when taking bearings every 20 minutes you can see the normal pattern of the ship and recognize a sudden large change which would indicate that the anchor is dragging and the ship drifting away. In addition to using bearings, the position is also checked on the electronic chart which shows the true position of the ship at all times…… unless the GPA is off. Which happens occasionally and thus we use both the visual bearings and the electronic chart/radar. In every large American chart, there is a small saying: the prudent mariner will not rely solely on one positioning system. That is a very true word.

If the anchor would drag, the first thing the OOW does, is send an anchor party forward to pay out some more chain, which will reduce or stop the dragging, as more weight and thus more friction is put on the sea floor. While the anchor party is on its way the Captain is called. He is normally very close to the bridge, because anchor dragging does not just happen all of a sudden. He will have already inkling that the situation is not ideal, so he will be close. Based on his previous orders, or his observation when coming on the bridge, engines are started and the anchor will be picked up. Depending on the circumstances, the anchor will be re-deployed or the ship will “stay on the engines” and maneuver for the rest of the call.

However in Belize the holding ground is so good that a dragging anchor will only occur during storm force winds and then the ship would not be there to start with. Still the OOW carefully checks the ships position and keeps an eye on the weather. If there is a rain cloud coming he advises the Beverage Service. They are in charge on the outside decks and then have time to remove cushions and parasols if needed. Also they look after the magro dome over the Lido pool. Guests do not mind to get wet in the pool, however most of them do not like to get wet from water that comes from above. So the magro dome is closed for the duration of the rain shower.

While not checking the anchor position the OOW also keeps count of who goes ashore per tender. This means that the Quartermaster of the Watch writes down the totals each tender carries from ship to shore and vice versa. The idea behind this is that if a tender would get into problems during a transfer, we would know at once how many people are on board. On short tender distances this is not much of an issue as you can see the tenders all the time but in Tender ports such as Sitka Alaska, Kalmar Sweden or Visby in the Baltic, where the tenders can not be visually followed from the bridge, something might happen and then we need numbers. Thus the QM keeps the checklist and the OOW ensures that each tender reports the totals.

When the cold front came through the wind increased to about 25 knots and I used the stern thruster to keep a lee for the shore tenders at the gangway. When going through the channel outbound, it was interesting to see how much we drifted on this wind, when going around the corners as on several courses we had the wind full on the beam. By 7 pm. we were in open waters again and on our way to Santo Tomas.

The new employee of the month photo has been uploaded. See the right hand column next to the daily blog.