Alistair Baillie

We’ll its now the end of week 5 which has been quite interesting.

Monday morning was spent doing very little this week, as my maths lectures don’t start until next week. After lunch was chart work where we were learning how to calculate our water track based on the different compasses, and how to switch between compasses using variation and deviation. It was also interesting to learn that although you might be steering one course, dependant on the wind, you might not actually be moving in that direction through the water.

Tuesday is a rather full day, after having the first period off, I started the day with Tides which at the moment is reasonably easy. Tides was followed by Wet Cargo where we watched the end of the video we were being shown last week, then learned the composition of oils and oil based products. After which was Celestial Navigation which I kind of understand – I’m just hoping once we start doing it I’ll get it. Last but not least was Spiral Induction.

Wednesday and Thursday are half days for me, Wednesday was taken up by Navigation Aids where we were told about magnetic compasses and how the ships magnetic field interferes with them. This fitted in with the chart work lesson and made what we learned in chart work a lot clearer. After which I had Terrestrial Positioning where we did difference calculations for the length of the lesson.

First thing on Thursday morning was law, which is reasonably interesting, and was followed by dry cargo. Thursday evening there was a lecture (mainly for engineers) given by The Royal Institute of Naval Architects and IMAREST at the college on podded propulsion systems on cruise ships.

Today I only had one class which was Stability and now it’s the weekend.