So…. Computer broke again. It’s taken me a while to retrieve the last few entries and all the photos of the last couple of months from the carcas of my old machine. I have spent the money from my cargo time on a new macbook. yeah.
I am back on land and back to school. Last week I went to Lifeboat class. Lots of rowing. I gots blisters. At first I was very ambivelent about taking a class to deploy a class of boat that doesn’t exit in the tow industry. But the class had some good seamanship points that were subtle and possibly unintended. The working of a gravity davit is fairly useless knowledge as far as I am concerned, but learning a new potentially dangerous operation, then taking each role - including supervisor was a great process to go through.
“This 15-day course covers every aspect of traditional navigation. Subjects include: charts and chart work, compass correction, plotting and position lines, tides and currents, logbooks and voyage planning. It also covers the theory of the earth’s magnetism and the application of variation and deviation to courses and bearings and general gyro and autopilot operating procedures.”
Ok….This class was intense. I would say this could have easily been a 5 week course. I was lucky in that I had already taken the US Sailing Coastal Navigation course. So, I had a leg up. Even still, I had to study everyday to feel comfortable with all that was crammed into 3 weeks.
“This 4-day course provides the knowledge, understanding and proficiency required to take charge of a survival craft or rescue boat during and after launching as outlined in the STCW Code. Offered through Seattle Maritime Academy.”
This class had some review of BST but with some new info. And lots of rowing. I gots blisters. At first I was very ambivelent about taking a class to deploy a class of boat that doesn’t exist in the tow industry. But the class had some good seamanship points that were subtle and possibly unintended. The working of a gravity davit is fairly useless knowledge as far as I am concerned, but learning a new potentially dangerous operation, then taking each role - including supervisor was a great process to go through.
