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May 11-12, 2002
Vessel Data
Status: Enroute, Papeete, Tahiti to Auckland, New Zealand
Latitude: 26-58.4’S
Longitude: 163-42.0’W
Total Distance: 2221.8 miles
Gone: 971 miles
24 Hr. Dist.: 272.6 miles
To Go: 1250.8 miles
Current Speed: 11.4 kts.
Engine Setting: 75 RPM’s Port engine
Weather:
Air Temperature: 75°F
Humidity: 80%
Wind: NE 19 knots
Clouds: Overcast Layers
Sea Temperature: 75°F
Currents:
Water Depth: 4734 Meters
Sunrise: 0721
Sunset: 1826
Aboard the TSGB
Days 21-23
Weekend Edition
Daily Log:
Since there are only 45 sea-days to complete all of the academic and training programs, every sea day is a workday. This including Saturdays and Sundays, although we keep the day work simple and try to finish classes a little early. In this weekend edition of virtual cruise, you can see some of the training activity that continues throughout the weekend. Obviously, Bridge and Engine Room watches continue 24 hours a day.
Being a little ahead on speed, and pretty much caught up on our water making, I reduced speed at noon on Saturday and shut down one of the main engines. We are now proceeding along our navigational track
at 75 shaft RPM and making 11.2 knots. Slowing down usually eases the motions (rolling and pitching) of
the ship, and so it is now. The seas are moderate today because the wind has abated while we proceed
along a weak ridge of high pressure (although a low pressure is headed our way). There is still about a
15-foot lump of a swell running, but its period (length between crests) is long in distance. The result is that it does not rock us too badly.
This leg of our voyage is navigationally unremarkable. It is a simple great circle route from Tahiti to the
North Island of New Zealand. We are in a very remote part of the Pacific Ocean with nothing much
between here and there. Hence, there is very little ship traffic that we encounter. In fact, we are so far
removed from land of any kind, we do not even observe any sea birds. You can tell we are moving south
(poleward) as the temperature is cooling down and becoming less tropical. Auckland New Zealand is
about the same latitude south as San Francisco is north. Because the seasons are reversed in the southern
hemisphere, we are in the fall here headed towards the winter season in June and July while you are in the
spring month of May headed for summer there at home. Hopefully, we will have nice weather in Auckland anyway.
 Here, the students practice “donning” (putting on) what we call immersion suits. Their nickname is “gumby” suits
because with their enclosed feet, they resemble the cartoon character of the same name. When they take them off, it is called “doffing”.
 Immersion suits are made very much like thick SCUBA wet suits and are designed to reduce the effects of cold-water immersion in
the unlikely event of ship abandonment. These suits cover every part of the body, except for just the face.
 Saturday and Sunday, the deck cadets were taken to the steering engine compartment (the hydraulic machinery that
actually moves the ship’s large rudder) to practice “hand steering” locally in case the Bridge steering stand were to ever
fail. No matter what, you always want to have positive control of the rudder. You have only the movement of the compass to
steer by; no visual reference at all. The small wheel you can see in the student’s hand is the actual control wheel for the steering engine.
 Sunday, the students practiced the procedure to make the lifeboats ready in case we ever had to abandon ship in an
emergency. These procedures and skills have to be mastered so thoroughly that they could be remembered and performed even
if you had to do them half awake in the dead of night, in rough weather and when you’re a little scared.
Captain
HI MOM
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