Today we covered most of the distance from St. Thomas back to the Bahamas by sailing in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a bit windy, which creates waves and those waves make the ship wobble on occasion. But not very much, just enough to remind you that it is a ship you are travelling on. For the guests this is the final day to enjoy “full shipboard life” with everything in full swing as tomorrow we are in Half Moon Cay and most of the last evening will be given up to packing.  As the sun is shining nicely, the outside decks are full with sun worshippers.  

What is something new to Holland America; and the Nieuw Amsterdam is the first ship where it has been installed, is TV on demand. What we are used to in the airline industry already for a while. You switch on your TV and you have 20 or 30 movies and TV programs to choose from; and start and stop whenever you want.  Thus far on our ships you had to check the program and then catch the movie at the right time if you wanted to see it from start to finish. This upgrade will be rolled out over the fleet in due course.  What is interesting is that I hear more TV’s going in the cabins than before. I spoke to a gentleman who was very happy as he could now catch up with the latest movies as his wife did not want to go to the cinema at home anymore and this was a good alternative for him.  We used to alleviate the movie issue with the option of offering free –rental DVD’s to our guests to watch whatever they wanted but this of course works much better.

In the meantime my school class was hard at work and is starting to make themselves useful for the ship as well. Today it was watertight door testing with Central Closure.  Watertight doors are the most important defense we have against sinking. By sealing off the “holes” – passageways in the bulkheads, they ensure that water cannot flow through the ship but stays in one compartment. As long as no more than the two biggest compartments are flooded, the ship will stay afloat.  For everybody to do their work on the lower decks, we need those “holes” open most of the time. Thus there is the need for testing to ensure the doors still work. Every sea day there is a sort of test going on, to ensure good and correct operation. If ashore you might ask if “everyday” is needed; but for a ship it is. Basically a ship is exposed continuously to small earthquakes due to the movement while at sea and that has its influence on all the equipment. Much more so than on land. And thus we test.

The Watertight door panel on the bridge, showing all red. Means unsafe = doors are open.

We do the test by closing and opening locally on normal power. We do it locally with the hand pump. We do it local/remote = which means from an operating station above the “watertight deck” which is the highest deck under which watertight doors are installed and we do it with a General Closure from the bridge. (And if everything would fail, each door has a pressure bottle which ensures it open and closes 3 more times without any power at all)

One flip of the switch and the panel goes green. Means safe = all doors are closed.

For a General Closure in an emergency, the officer in charge will only have to walk a few steps and push or turn one button and all the doors close.  Checking this takes a lot of man power as we need guards near every door to prevent accidents. All crew are trained not to go through a open door when the bells are ringing but we are all human and sometimes in a big hurry. Accidents with Watertight Doors still happen in the industry and fatalities with these doors still occur as well. Even in the year 2016.

Thus the team was strategically parked in the various areas to control any straying crew and to see if the doors really closed. WTD’s normally close within 30 seconds after the alarm but some of them have to be opened up first as they are always kept closed and thus the whole operation takes at least half an hour to accomplish to ensure a successful test.  And thus we saved the other officers valuable time and learned another routine at the same time.

Tomorrow we are at Half Moon Cay. The ship will make its final approach at 07.30 to be in position for the tender service by 07.45 hrs.  We are expecting an overcast day with temperatures of around 73oF / 23oC and a strong breeze from the North East.

Today we docked at our regular Holland America Line spot in Crown Bay on the North side of the pier.  No neighbors today as Crown Bay normally only has a full dock with the Saturday ships from Fort Lauderdale or Miami.  As we are a Sunday ship we only see another cruise ship here when our schedule coincides (or collides) with a 10 or 11 day cruise ship. Or when a ship gets diverted from the Havensight Pier, at the West Indian Dock Company.

As explained before, Carnival Corporation was instrumental in constructing this pier at Crown Bay, which was the former US Navy submarine base. Then it allocated those piers to Holland America and Princess but also to other ships if there is no HAL or Princess ship calling.  Before those days we had to share the West Indian dock with everybody and/ or go to anchor.  And for Holland America that meant very often at anchor, because as soon as the cruise ship – size – expansion began, the big boys were given preference. So we anchored in the inner bay, which was not so bad, as we dropped the guests off right in downtown. And once we had explained to the guests that waiting for the tender saved them the taxi fare around the bay, most guests were quite happy with that.

Anchoring outside was not very nice as it resulted in a Tender ride of at least 20 minutes. In those days we often had the Norway at anchor outside as well. She did not fit in due to her draft. But she had two beautiful tenders/landing craft which could take about 400 guests. So 2 runs for each land craft and the Norway was empty. When they came charging by, the guests in our little tenders tended to get a bit agitated. So we always kept our fingers crossed for hopefully a cancellation of another ship or at least an anchor spot in the inner bay.

Holland America has been coming to St. Thomas for a long long time. My oldest record indicates a cruise from New York with the Statendam III in 1930. The captain at that time George Barendse fell so in love with the island, that together with two passengers he purchased a piece of land there overlooking the harbor. He built a house and when his ship would arrive; his house boy would raise the Dutch Flag while the ship sailed into the harbor. One day I will try to find out where that exactly was, as I also have the name of one of the passengers. This Lady wrote her memoirs and mentioned this strange fact of sharing a piece of land with this Captain. I have no idea how land is recorded in St. Thomas but I assume there must be somewhere records being kept.

This is how the Nieuw Amsterdam looks like from the lifeboat. Balconies everywhere.

As it was a beautiful day today in port I got permission to go down with a lifeboat and have the team do lifeboat exercises. Important in my opinion as you can only instruct crew properly, if you can do it better yourself. As we were happily sailing to and from the ship we naturally got the attention from the USCG surveillance who was playing around with their Rigid Inflatable. But as we both applied the Collision Rules the correct way, no mayhem ensued and the USCG changed focus to a small speedboat which was not exactly operating safely. Nobody was wearing lifevests either.

While in the water I took the below photo of the sailors painting the stern. You would think due to advancement of technology the whole ship  could be reached by some modern contraption, but no, new ship design still creates plenty of locations where only the old fashioned Bo ‘sun chair can do the job. And it is the only way on a Vista or Signature class ship to paint the stern as it has this strange angle. (The angle is there on purpose as this hull lay out gives a better water flow around the ship and helps to optimize the propulsion by the Azipods).

Bo’sun chairs on the stern of the ship. One is in use with a sailor painting, the 2nd one is in the process of being rigged up. Both sailors are wearing safety harnasses incase the Bo’sun chair would slip. And there is permanent supervision from above.

Tomorrow we are at sea and we are now retracing our steps. Same way back as the way we came but the day after tomorrow we will stop at Half Moon Cay.  If nothing changes we should be in port together with the Oosterdam.

During the night we sailed the final stretch of the North Atlantic route leading us to our first Caribbean Port of Call, San Juan.  By leaving Grand Turk at 15.00 hrs. we can just make San Juan by 13.00 hrs. Thus the guests do not get all full day here but an afternoon together with an evening. This then complies with the companies’ desire of having at least one evening stay during a cruise. It does not always work out that way for every cruise but whenever possible the company tries to make it work. For this Nieuw Amsterdam cruise it does work and the good ship will sail this evening no earlier than 22.00 hrs. 

That left us with being the last ship in port, as the MSC Davina and the Carnival Dream both pulled out at 17.00 hrs.  I was with the whole class on the bridge and it was interesting to hear the local pilot inquiring if the coffee machine on the MSC Davina had already been repaired as he missed his Cappuccino. I suppose it is a matter of getting your priorities right.

I was on the bridge as we did Touch Drill training. This means that we simulate an emergency and then go through the motions of taking all the correct steps to deal with this emergency. These are called Touch Drills, as it requires the officer to really go through the motions and Touch all the buttons but not really pushing them. Making the round from console to console and from safety station to safety station it is much more realistic than just taking about it.

When you talk about something you have time to think, when an emergency call comes in, you do not have much time to think. You should have a schedule in your head – mental checklist- which you can implement at once.   Then later on (after the first two minutes) you can grab the checklist and verify if you did not forget anything.  The urgency comes from the fact of having to alert so many people. A real fire on board involves at least 150 of a 600 strong crew and to get them going, every second counts and the need of providing the initial information for them to act on, however sparse it still might be, is crucial.

Thus during a touch drill, the officer is forced to think fast, try to build up a mental picture of the local situation and then activate the emergency teams in the correct way with the correct objectives. Not easy at all, because it means knowing your ship exactly; understanding the sort of people who might call and having intimate knowledge of what each emergency team is going to do and how they are supposed to it

This is how my guys felt by the end of the training session.

This is partly different compared to the airline industry where the pilot can reach for a checklist for (nearly) every eventuality. In a way a little bit simpler, not easier as air planes are highly complex, as there are only two pilots, who deal with everything. All the guests are stuck in their seats and can be dealt with by announcements and actions of the stewardesses. On a cruise ship where all on board can be mobile all over the place and with a much more complex layout, not every initial action can be covered by a checklist system. We have too many variables when an initial evolution starts.

Tonight we sail at 22.00 hrs. and then tomorrow we are in St. Thomas where we will arrive at the pilot station at 07.00 hrs. We are expecting warm weather 27oC / 81oF with a strong breeze. And we are lucky, as the next 5 days are supposed to bring rainy weather over the Virgin Island.

It did not look very nice early this morning when the ship approached the dock. Blustery winds and squalls to the south of the island. Luckily at 7 am when the ship made its approach there was a “window of opportunity” as they call it and the ship could slip in. Then Weather Gods decided that Grand Turk had had enough rain and the squalls disappeared, leaving a sunny but windy day. As the beaches are on the West side of the island close to the specially built resort that goes with the dock, this area was in the lee of the island and that made it very nice. As the island is very low, the ship does not have the advantage of that little bit of lee so the blustery wind kept playing around the ship. The bridge was extra vigilant today with an officer posted on the bridge wing permanently to monitor the situation in case the lines would break. But the swell did not become worse as the wind angle was just right and we could happily make our call.

Today the whole ship was on the march as it was time for our monthly General Emergency Drill. Every week 25% of the crew goes through regular safety training and then at the end of that cycle the whole crew goes through the three step General Alarm sequence. We have to do this as Solas requires for each crewmember to participate in a Fire Drill once a month. This regulation has been made mainly with cargo ships in mind where the whole crew should be proficient in fighting fires. Cruise ships with their much larger crews have specialist groups to do so; the fire teams. Thus for us the stipulation does not make much sense. The chance that a front office lady will put on a fire suit and run into a fire with a charged hose is zero. Still the stipulation is there and thus we do the full 3 step alarm cycle once a month.

The majority of the crew might not actually fight a fire but they will go through the assembly routine of where they would have to report, If there was a fire.

With a ship the size of the Nieuw Amsterdam and with nearly 900 crew on board, that is quite a happening. First there is A. First Stage Emergency alarm. The specialist teams are alerted to deal with the emergency. Crew not involved are now on high alert, waiting for orders. If the emergency (fire or flooding) is more difficult to control, the B. Crew Alert Alarm will be sounded and now all crew will get involved. If not having a special function to execute they will report to a safe assembly location so they are out of the way of the fire / emergency.

If then the situation still is still not under control, the C. General Emergency Alarm would be sounded and all crew would march to their life raft stations. Before this would happen, the Guests would have been taken care of first of course.

During the first alarm the Guests do not do anything and 99% of all issues on board a ship can be controlled/dealt with in this way. The 1% which cannot be controlled might necessitate the sounding of the Crew Alert Alarm. Guests are now requested (nice word for being ordered) to go to their cabin and to get ready to go to the lifeboats if needed.

If the emergency is not solved under this standby alarm, then the Guests will be directed to go to their lifeboat stations as soon as the 7 short and 1 long blast on the whistle have sounded.

This three step alarm has been initiated to give everybody sufficient time to prepare and the more time there is,  the less chance there is for panic to occur.

Thus we went through the whole cycle this morning, with only a few crew excused for operational reasons. I had my officers shadow the various teams to pick up as many clues as possible for future use, because as soon as their work assignment comes in, they will be doing it.

What amazes me the most is for the kitchen to be able to still open the Lido Restaurant on time (11.30 hrs.) while the majority of the cooks were out of the loop and in the drill from 10.30 to 11.25 hrs. With fluffy rice and crispy sweet and sour at the Far East Counter. They know something I do not and they keep it very quiet in how they do it.

We sailed at 15.00 hrs. and after leaving stern first from the dock, sailed around the north side of the island. Tonight and tomorrow morning we will be at sea and then by noon time we should be entering San Juan Harbor.

Today we are sailing north of the Bahamas on our way to the Turks and Caicos Islands and it is a bit wobbly outside. Nice and sunny but the weather system which moved over us has quite a bit of wind in its tail, more than really was expected. It is not that bad, apart from the occasional movement of the ship you can hardly notice that there is a sort of gale blowing outside, mainly because you do not equate a gale with sunny weather. The ship is almost full to capacity, just a little bit less than last cruise when each bed and each sofa was filled up. But that was a real party cruise and now we are back to our regular clientele with a surprising number of younger families on board. I do not know if somewhere in the States the schools are on break but there must be something as I do not expect that all these children are home schooled.

My six new officers arrived yesterday and they all made it safely to the ship, including one from New Zealand who had been on the way for 30 hrs. The rest is from Holland and England and those are flights which are easier to deal with. All have sailed with Holland America before and thus I can to spend less time on the basics of how a cruise ship company operates and instead can dive directly in the deep end with safe working practices and my “use your brain” mantra. When you are a cadet, and it is the same for any cruise ship company, you observe and you are allowed to help out with regular maintenance, as long as the responsibility remains with a licensed officer. It simply has to do with insurance. Insurance companies want to see certificates with stamps and seals and of course a cadet does not have those. As a result there is very “little hands” on a cadet can do. Now they have a certificate and thus we can go for it.

Standing and observing is different than having to make decisions yourself. Making decisions yourself and the feeling of being held responsible in the end for the decisions that you made creates a totally different perspective. And with that we started today. Step one: know your ship, know where you are at all times and how to get to a location via the shortest route (if possible) but always the safest route.    So while we walked around, my constant question was, where are we now and how do you know that?

This is a diagram of a ferry with 5 main vertical fire zones. large cruise ships normally have 6, 7, or 8

There is a basic division of a ship which all crew members have to know. Horizontally there are the deck numbers: for the Nieuw Amsterdam the crew decks C, B, A and then the passenger decks 1 to 14. Then vertically there are the Main Fire Zones which split up the ship in 8 sections. As a guest you can recognize those when you see the thick Fire screen doors recessed in the walls, most of them are located around the staircases. So each crew member should know exactly where he or she is if an announcement is made: Evacuate Deck 4 Zone 3. Without having to announce or to give specific names or cabin numbers; the section is enough. In this case it is the middle part of the ship where passenger cabins are located and at once Cabin Stewards can start evacuating guests from that area.

We have one trick to make it easier for the new crew: read the numbers on the Fire screen doors. Each door is labelled xx,yy,zzz    xx = deck,  yy is the zone, zzz is the door number. This is in our case 04. 03. 257. = Deck 4, zone 3, door 257. Because the ships now look very similar when going from deck to deck, this fire screen door numbering is a big help to immediately get your bearings when ending up somewhere you were not expecting. The group caught on very quickly and that helps them when reporting in their exact location if they are out there on a mission but also with quickly recognizing where they are when trying to ascertain their proximity to a danger area.

This is the Noordam at Grand Turk. Look around the bow and you can see how small the dark blue water area is.

Tomorrow we will arrive around 07.00 hrs. and if all goes well we should be docked by 08.00 am. I hope that during the night the wind will abate a little bit as it is not much fun to dock with high winds there. The dock is fully exposed to winds as the land is very flat and the ship has no room to drift as the dredged out area around the dock is not very wide.

All the boys of the RSVP charter disembarked today and it took quite a while to accomplish this. With so many ships in port the CBP were hard stretched to cope with all those 1000’s of guests, but the few officers available coped admirably with what came rolling off the gangway. Embarkation could still start on time and thus all was well in the world. Even all our new guests made it to the ship as far as I know, at least those who were using a form of Holland America Line organized transport. We can keep track of those and thus we know if they are stuck somewhere and delayed. If operationally possible the Captain can then hold the ship while shore and port operations try to get them on board ASAP. If guests are travelling by their own arrangements it becomes much more difficult as we do not know what transport they are using, where they are staying or that they are even on the way. Some guests who run into delays contact our head office which in turn then contacts the ship and the terminal people but often we have so called “independents” missing and there is nothing we can do about it.

 We are now starting a 7 day East Caribbean Cruise with calls at Grand Turk, San Juan, St Thomas and Half Moon Cay. Then next cruise we call at St.Maarten instead of at St. Thomas. The Nieuw Amsterdam will remain on these sorts of cruises until it starts the Transcanal and sails to the West Coast for the Alaska season. The place of the N.A for the Europe Season will be taken over by Koningsdam.  This seems to be a sort of established pattern ever since the construction of the Vista Class started. The newest ship sails Europe in the summer and once it becomes the 2^nd newest ship it is assigned to Alaska. It will be interesting to see when the TBA –Dam comes out, if the Koningsdam will then go to Alaska as well. The only exception is the Eurodam which stays in Europe and that makes sense because of the name.

This brings me to the way the cruises are created/selected/ designed or better said decided upon. This is a whole extensive process which takes at least two years to complete. Because of this it is very difficult for HAL, or any company to quickly change a cruise. If political or health situations demand that certain countries are removed from the schedule, then cancelling is easy but redesigning the cruise is a pure headache.

What the guests suggest takes two to three years to work into the schedule for one of the ships. The biggest challenges are the port reservations. If you want to have a dock, especially in the smaller ports, then you have to be early and if there are more ships then the biggest one that fits, or the most senior ship on the run from last season will have preference.  So if you are in the seniority group then you try to keep that port in your cruise set-up for the next year or even the one after. Thus if we have to cancel somewhere, or pull out of the schedule for a prolonged time,  then the easiest alternative is to cruise to some larger ports where there will most likely be a dock available.

To give an example, if we would have to cancel Civitavecchia /Rome for a season then Livorno would always work as there is always ample dock space. Even if it would mean docking at a container dock.  If Livorno would not be in the proximity of Civitavecchia , then the nearest alternative would be Elba. That is an anchor port but with only two anchor spaces.  So if 5 ships had to omit Civitavecchia from the schedule who would get Elba??

The next important thing is the size of the ship:  Will it fit in? Therefore it is great to have a Prinsendam in the fleet, it fits nearly everywhere. Also it is one of the reasons Holland America does not want to go too big in their ships size as it severely limits the ports you can visit. Just compare the world cruise schedule for 2016 between the Queen Mary and our Amsterdam. Some ports are the same, some definitely not.

So tomorrow we are at sea and it will be interesting to watch the weather. A depression is coming over which will hit Florida tomorrow  and it is supposed to bring rain. For us it will be interesting to see what sort of weather it leaves behind while we sail for Grand Turk.

It is a wonderful sea day out here today, sunny but not too warm as the wind is now more from the N.E than from the S.E and thus brings cooler Atlantic air towards the Bahamas. Still it is around 80oF /27oC. but it only feels like it when in the full sunshine.  Thus our nearly 2100 charter people are having a grand final day. I wonder how long it will take to process all of them through Immigration tomorrow. Most of them are Americans so it might go fast. I will find out as I will have to go ashore again to be instrumental in helping to produce the “zero count”; meaning the ship is completely empty of everybody who is not considered a crew member.

The Nieuw Amsterdam is an evolution of the Vista Class and both the Signature and Vista Class differ from the other ships if you look at the outside. I do not mean looking at the superstructure or the number of lifeboats but at the lack of “blue covers” you see near the lifeboats on the S and R class. There, near each lifeboat station, is a blue cover which looks vaguely like a drum. Inside this blue cover is a rope ladder, called a Jacobs Ladder. It is used to offer those who are lowering lifeboats and life rafts a means of escape if they are not able to jump in the last boat or raft going down.

One of the S class ships. The blue covers are clearly visible just above where the blue hull ends.

However those ladders are cumbersome to handle, need a lot of maintenance (rope and sea air do not go well together) and they take up a lot of space. Either by taking deck space away, if they are stored on the Lifeboat Embarkation Deck, or on dedicated platforms if stored next to the lifeboat.  4 or 5 of those platforms would make enough room for a complete lifeboat if they were not there. Thus the shipping industry adopted a different solution. A descent device.

The crew member who launched the final  liferaft is descending.

Descending devices were not invented by the cruise industry. They originate from mountain climbing and were later adopted also in the building and construction industry. I believe there they are called a Friction or Rappel Device.  In principle these devices are very simple. It is a rope with at each end a loop for somebody to hang on to and a controlled brake in the middle. It is hung on a small arm extending from the lifeboat deck over the water and when in the loop a person can just step over the side and glide down to the water with a controlled speed. The loop at the other end of the rope comes up to the deck and the next person can than descend until everybody has safely escaped.

A shoreside version used for getting down from construction sites.

The requirement for having Jacobs’s ladders disappeared somewhere around the year 2000 and as a result all the Vista class were fitted with them. I mention the year 2000 as it depends on the year in which the keel has been laid to what legal requirements a ship has to comply with. So it is possible that one ship in a class of 4 similar vessels has different Solas requirements to comply with than another ship. Our Prinsendam with a keel laid in 1987 falls under Solas 1974 with a number of Amendments. Our Koningsdam is built under the latest Solas regulations, which, if applied to the Prinsendam would mean that the whole Prinsendam would have to be rebuilt.

Look for the sign on deck which indicates the approved location to use the device.

This does not mean that the Prinsendam is unsafe, far from it; it means that it uses other equipment to achieve the same result. Hence the Prinsendam has rope ladders and the Koningsdam will have Descent Devices.  Rope ladders do the same thing as a descent device but instead of gravity doing the work for you, you have to climb down.

Tomorrow we are in Fort Lauderdale and according to the Broward Country Traffic Board (which lists all the coming and going ships) we can expect the Carnival Conquest, Navigator of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Regal Princess, Eurodam, Celebrity silhouette and us. So it is going to be busy at the sea-buoy between 5 and 7 tomorrow morning.  It is also going to be busy in town and Ft. Lauderdale has issued a warning for severe delays. There is a car race going on, women beach ball champion ships, a marathon and a number of other things which might result in a severe clogging of several roads. Then with 15000 cruise guests leaving and a similar number going to the ships things might get interesting.  The Sheriff’s department of Broward County will not be bored. But at least they should have nice weather.

There is another – small- frontal system approaching which will bring rain on Monday over Florida and that means that tomorrow it will not be too warm. 70oF / 21oC, sunny and a moderate breeze.

Today is our first day at sea on our way home to Fort Lauderdale. As it is nice weather on the North Atlantic we taking the outside route sailing north of Puerto Rico and eventually the Bahamas. There is what we call an inside route and that is sailing north of Cuba and south of the Bahamas it is more sheltered as most of the route is protected by the Bahamian Islands, sandbanks and reefs which will blunt most of a North Atlantic storm.  But it is longer and thus it is preferable to go outside. Also for sightseeing there is no reason to choose the southerly route as there is nothing to see. Cuba is too far to the south and the Bahamas are so low that you have to be lucky to catch something even with a pair of binoculars. The sun is shining and we have the wind on the starboard quarter and that makes for a warm day on deck.

So today is a nice opportunity to blog about the ship as the Nieuw Amsterdam is as far as the inside is concerned a sort of bridge between what was the standard on the Vista Class  before and what will be the new standard on the Koningsdam. Moving away from an abundance of antiques and darker paneling to a lighter interior and more contemporary art.  There are still antiques to be found but less than before and there is an increase in more modern sculptures but it has been done in such a way that it blends in nicely with the interior and all in good harmony.

I am quite proud to state that I had a hand in two items which are on display. First of all about 15% of my HAL photo collection is on display in the hallways on all decks. I guess about 75% of all the photos of Holland America’s history on view come out of my collection. (Including the one I posted a few days ago and I did not even know that they had THAT one as well) It looks a bit strange to walk around and see the photos out of your album blown up to 3 by 2 feet on each wall and every 30 feet. Still I see a lot of guests looking at them with intent and interest so I am happy to have being able to make the photos available.

Around the sitting area there are several displays with memorabilia relating to the Nieuw Amsterdam II of 1937.

The second item has more of a story to it. It is the model which is now on display in the portside of the Crows nest, what they call the “captain’s corner”. The model of the ss Nieuw Amsterdam of 1937. This model has a long history. It is a “Dubbeldam” water line model and a whole series was made of all the passenger ships in the 1950’s when Holland America changed from a Black hull to a Grey one.  The exact number is unknown to me but they were made to stand in the window displays of the main company agents. It is called a waterline model as it supposed to look as if it is sailing and it can be lit from the inside. At night it must have drawn quite a bit of interest from people walking by in the days before television.

Apologies for the reflection in the glass. I have not mastered that one yet with a digital camera.

Some of these models remained with the company and on display in the main office. When the Nieuw Amsterdam (III) came out in 1983 it was donated to the Officers of the Nieuw Amsterdam by the then time President of the company Mr. Nico van der Vorm and placed in the Officers Bar.  And there it stood until the ship was sold in 2000. There were quite a few people who had great interest in pinching the model to take it home but as I was the one who was boxing up all the antiques, I boxed that one up as well with the idea to find a nice place for it on one of the other ships. In the end I kept the model with me each time I changed to a new command, as I could not find the perfect spot. On each ship it was on display in the Atrium.  Noordam, Maasdam and then the Veendam.  I must have been the only captain in history to have travelled around with a six foot ships model in a custom made sailor’s trunk.

When it was announced that the sister ship of the Eurodam would be the next Nieuw Amsterdam (IV) it made sense to offer the model for display on board that ship.  And so it happened, the model was sent to the shipyard and installed in the Crows Nest. I do not think I will be with the company anymore when this current Nieuw Amsterdam is retired but I hope there will be a bright spark then who will see the sense of transferring it again to the next Nieuw Amsterdam. Who knows.

Tomorrow we have our second day at sea and then we are in Ft. Lauderdale.  Human Resources in Rotterdam have completed the list of the six new navigators assigned to my class and if they are not getting lost, I will see them on Sunday.

To get to St. Thomas one has to sail past, or better said under, some of the islands located on the N.E crest of the Caribbean ring of islands. Not that many though only St. Maarten and the British Virgin Islands. That makes it possible to leave at 11 pm. in the evening from St.Barths and arrive in the morning at Charlotte Amalie. To give the guests sufficient sleeping time, the charterer had decreed an arrival time of 9 am. which is a really decent time to arrive. HAL ships normally arrive at 8 am. as many other ships do as otherwise it is not so easy to accommodate all the tours. But as this is more of a party cruise it has a slightly different focus.  At least the Deck department did not disagree as after a late night departure it is nice not to have to get up so early.

Crown Bay is located behind an island hence the one way in and the other way out

Although the arrival time might have been different, the dock was not. The Nieuw Amsterdam docked at the regular HAL pier at Crown Bay on the Westside.  As we were coming from the East we entered through East Gregory channel and that will mean that on departure we will sail out through the West channel. Nose in on arrival and a quick backing out (going astern in nautical language) and the ship is on its way again.

I went to the forward mooring deck this morning to take photos for the class for next week. We have now held classes on the R Class and the Vista Class but this is the first one on the Signature Class. Although all the mooring decks are similar nowadays, courtesy of having one building/shipyard, they keep tinkering with the lay-out in the small details. And the small details you have to know otherwise you can have big accidents.

Where the lines go, how and also why. The 3rd officer explaining the plan.

The mooring process is an evolution of several steps. The first one is the pre-arrival meeting on the Bridge. Here the Captain will advise where he wants to park the ship. Then the Staff Captain will advise how many ropes will be used and – preferably – where they will be going. The latter does not always work as sometimes the Linesmen have a mind of their own. Then follows a discussion about the how & when. All that knowledge is taken forward by the 3^rd officer and is passed on to and discussed with the Bo ‘sun and the sailors. If everybody understands what will happen, everybody can also help ensure that the evolution is executed as safely as possible.

The sailors guiding the rope on the storage drum. Before the line goes taut the sailors will step out of the way.

Putting ropes ashore is the easy part of the operation, to do it safely every time takes a bit more of doing. So apart from the meeting, safety shoes, helmets and gloves are compulsory.   Then there is the safe handling of the ropes, especially when the ropes are coming taut.  To keep the ship alongside the ropes have to be pulled as tightly as possible with the winch. When that happens it is the moment when the ropes comes under a lot of strain and that is the moment a rope could snap. So the word is to stand clear at all times. As that could be forgotten in the “heat of the battle” we have Snap Back Zones everywhere painted on the deck. These are yellow areas and indicate the danger zones where a rope might go when it snaps. Most of the time this will be on the edge of the hull opening where the ropes goes in or out, but if there is a weak section in the rope it can be away from the edge as well.

A job well done with all the ropes ashore and on the correct bollards.

Nowadays we have different ropes than in the old days. Most of our ships are equipped with Marlon Ropes which are stronger but also, if they snap, just break and do not curl over the deck as a Jack out of the Box. Still the Snap Back Zones are there for a reason and everybody keeps a close eye on not standing in the yellow zones when the ropes are moving.

My photos of this morning will go in a Power Point which will be discussed with the class before they are let loose on the mooring deck to do it themselves. Again preparation helps to prevent accidents because as the golden saying goes:  If you go out with 10 fingers, we would like you to come back with 10 fingers.

This was the last port of our cruise. We now have two days at sea and then we are back in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday. As we are sailing with the (Trade) wind following us, we should have a smooth ride home.

With a windy Caribbean day on the schedule the Nieuw Amsterdam arrived at 11.30 at the anchorage of Gustavia. For a deep drafted cruise ship that anchorage is quite a distance out of town. First there is the shallow area then a deeper area but with rocky pinnacles and finally regular deeper water where a ship can safely anchor. It was not too busy today and thus the NA could come closer than otherwise is sometimes the case.  And how deeper in you can get the more sheltered the anchorage is.  St. Barths is a hot spot for the Jet set and there are always a few gin – palaces parked there while the owners are making money somewhere else or sitting in a villa on the island. Today it was fairly quiet and most of the outer anchorage was open and empty. I have seen otherwise.

It is a all that blue stuff – shallow water – which keeps ships far away from the small harbour of Gustavia.

Somewhere in the archives is a story about my call with the Prinsendam at St. Barths just after Christmas. Everybody who was somebody according to themselves was at the anchorage with their yacht. On top of that Ambramovich had parked his yacht the Eclipse right on the deep sea anchor spot where I was supposed to go. And as that yacht has about the same length as the little Prinsendam there was no way I could sit next to it. That meant I had to anchor much further out thus causing the wind and swell to hit the ship from both sides, curves both from the north end and the south end around the island. So I gave up and sailed on to Antigua.

Today this was not necessary the Nieuw Amsterdam could anchor safely although the Seadream II had pinched the best spot as they had arrived earlier and we could not do that with our schedule. Thus the guests have a bit of a wobbly ride to the island but in the evening it should get better as the dying off of the wind after sunset will cause the waves to subside a little bit.  Our last tender is at 10 pm. and then we hop around the corner to St. Thomas.  In the meantime the guests should have a great day. The sun is shining and the beaches on the island are very beautiful. We should have a lot of happy campers today.

The ships training room with a capacity of about 60 seats.

In the meantime it is time to reveal the secret of the “Bubble”. This elevated deck part on the bow was a very clever way of creating a space needed for three items which would otherwise take up valuable space inside the ship. Still they were needed and thus came the bubble.  Inside we have the training room which is an absolute necessity nowadays giving the amount of training crew need to take.

Part of the Officers Bar. Which also has a dance and game area.

The 2^nd item is the Officers Bar. In this location no noise can bother anybody so another win, win. The remainder of the bubble is given over to offices for the Safety department which has also greatly increased since the proliferation of the safety and audit requirements. All for the best but the paper trail causes far much more office work than ever before.  I think that the “Bubble” is going to be with the fleet forever.

The Safety department forms part of the Deck department and is headed by the First Officer who went from being the senior watch keeper to this function, then the next step is Staff Captain. He is assisted by a 3^rd officer who is assigned to safety duties outside his watch keeping duties.  The remainder of the department is made up of fire safety attendants, Lifesaving attendants, a locksmith and a number of security guards who help out with safety checks.  And for all of those you need a big office and gathering place.

Tomorrow we will be in St. Thomas with a weather forecast of regular Caribbean weather. A bit windy, partly cloudy and temperatures around 80oF or 27oC.