Alistair Baillie

We’ll I’ve now been at Warsash for a few weeks and so far all is going smoothly. The most boring class so far seems to be Meterology – although it has had some interesting points.

Other classes include further Stability which I am actually understanding this time round and finding to be reasonably easy – its just maths really and problem solving.

Cargo operations has been split into 2, with one class every 3 weeks. Wet cargo has us currently doing group work to plan the voyage of a chemical tanker from Texas to Australia, either via the canal or round South Africa. We’ve basically to work out what will give us the most profit and take into account various operational factors.

Dry cargo on the other hand currently has us planning the loading of a bulk carrier. We have to load 4 compartments in less than 12 goes (9 will give most marks) while debalisting (is that even a word?).

Voyage Planning has us planning a passage from South of England to Calais (that’s in France). Relatively easy since I got to do some passage planning on the ship I was on, only problem is the college want you to do it one way – and all our companies do it different ways.

I think that’s all on the college front really. Two weekends ago I went to Bristol with Ben for the weekend which was good. Much better than staying in Southampton.

In two weekends time I am doing the RYA Advanced Powerboat Course which includes night navigation in the Solent so that should be lots of fun – assuming Helena doesn’t crash the RIB this time.

Anyway until next time.