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August 5, 2006
CAPTAIN’S LOG
The weather remains mild while we transit north with a low
quartering swell. When the sea and swell come from about 45°
off of the stern, the ship takes on a long slow roll to her.
While not severe at all, it does remind you every so often
you’re at sea when your desk chair rolls away from, say a
keyboard for example (with you in it naturally). So if I
skip a few spaces, you’ll understand I hope as I keep
hauling myself back up to the keyboard.
Yesterday, we got a break in the incessant cloud cover so
prevalent in this part of the Pacific at this time of year.
The sun began to shine about lunchtime, and the skies
cleared to just a few patchy high cirrus clouds. The deck
cadets, who have to observe a minimum number of celestial
sights to satisfy their navigation study requirement, were
quick to take advantage of the opportunity. Even though they
may be activity engaged in some daywork activity elsewhere
during the day, they are required to break away for a few
minutes only to get their sextants and take the sights. Then
they have to quickly return to their projects and work out
the complicated celestial calculations later after the
workday is over.
Here we see groups of cadets in their paint-splattered coveralls
shooting sun lines from the Bridge wing.
 
For those on watch, the task of working out the sight reduction
and plotting it on the chart takes place immediately….well,
perhaps after a little contemplation.
Training for all cadets continues unabated every day at sea
except Sunday, although some students still have some
assignments that will need catching up on. Let’s just say
Sunday slows down a bit compared to the other days of the
week.
The deck students continue in their firefighting module. Today
and tomorrow, they will be learning hose team operations and
tactics. In these pictures, you can see the teams
approaching a simulated fire on the fantail in a
complimentary formation with one team covering the other.
Proper hand signals and good hose team cooperation is
essential for maximum extinguishing power.
.
From this photo, engineering cadets are learning the procedure to
check the alignment on a steel shaft in their vibration lab
class.
In the diesel class, instructor Bill Rogers explains the inner
workings of a diesel engine using the cut-a-way full scale
model we have in the engine static lab.
Many of the cadets use our onboard computer lab for preparing
reports, project lists or just doing research for writing
assignments in their business courses.
Naturally, every day except Sunday at sea is a daywork
maintenance day. Ships must continually fight the pernicious
and corrosive effects of: salt, water, fine particular from
exhaust, urbane city air pollution (port) and just plain old
dirt. Keeping a ship clean and attacking rust (oxidation)
and galvanic corrosion whenever possible is a never ending
task and vigilance in the hard-to-reach spots is the order
of the day.
Here, a cadet hangs in a Boswain’s chair in order to scale the
exterior rust around a window frame. The individual steps to
accomplish this are: chip and scale the area to remove the
oxidized metal, feather the surrounding disturbed painted
surfaces, chemically reduce the remaining microscopic rust
particles, clean the entire area to remove chlorides, apply
2 or three coast of primer and then apply 2 coats of top
coat after the preceding coat has dried. That’s a lot of
“hangin in that thar chair” as tools and materials are
lowered down to them by the riggers above. Coffee break
anyone? 
Here you can see cadets applying white topcoat to a large project
area of the maindeck. This kind of paint product is $65 a
gallon. Sometimes, we will consume 50-60 gallons of paint
per cruise! (that’s an ouch to the budget). This cadet team
has been working on this large area through all of the steps
mentioned above for almost a week - and then end is near.
Then they can tackle another area – oh boy.
We are approaching the coast of Peru northbound, so we expect to
begin encountering numerous small-vessel fishing fleets in
the next day or so. That’s always a hoot weaving in and out
of those. We’ll keep you posted.
Captain
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