I just added some fishing trip photos to my Flickr page. The big wahu that the Capt is holding up is the one poor Jose lost overboard enroute to the resturant.
I am home now, so I hope to add a few more posts as well as some photos in the near future.
Jeremy
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Gone Fishin'
We went fishing last week. But this isn’t an ordinary deep sea fishing trip. We are required to go out every few weeks to test the ship’s systems. We are allowed to go anywhere in an area defined by a radius from a point near the island of Rota. We have Captain Smith on board now, so when we have to go out we always go looking for fishing holes (actually seamounts at least close to the surface) within our operating area.
As you can imagine, it takes a bit of work to turn a 650 foot-long ship into a fishing trawler. The captain sets up a hand line and two rods with deep-sea reels on the stern and we steam around the seamount, ready at a moment’s notice to stop the engines if we get a fish.
One of the biggest problems is that the transom (back) of the ship is about 40 feet above the water, so the captain uses a pulley system with quick releases to drop the fishing line down closer to the water’s surface. If a fish strikes, the quick release opens and he then runs over and starts reeling the line in. Speaking of line, the fishing lures are attached to about 150 feet of monel wire (to help the lure keep some depth) then to some sort of spectra fishing line that is nearly unbreakable. He puts out about 300 yards of line as we cruise around at between 9.5 and 10.5 knots. One reel has a built in electric motor and the other has a fitting to which we attach an electric drill. The hand line is the shortest, but takes a good 10 minutes to pull in. We are looking for the big, fast fish.
Of course a ship with 3 trolling lines running aft can’t turn too well. We were swinging slow circles well over a mile in diameter and taking about 20-30 minutes to turn around 180 degrees.
Well we were able to land three fish. The first was at an old fish ground near the island of Tinian called Esmeralda Bank. We caught our biggest fish there the first day. It was a 25 lb wahoo. We had a few other strikes, but didn’t manage to land any other fish. The second day saw us catch a 15 lb yellow-fin tuna, and late in the day another, but smaller, wahoo.
We got in Friday the 13th and the bad luck of the day manifested itself when the crew tried to get the fish from the now anchored ship to the Captain’s favorite restaurant. I lowered the three fish safely to the launch by the basket on the crane and it was in good condition when I last saw it on the deck of the launch heading to the port. Alas, the big wahoo never saw land, for as one of the crew lifted the fish in its bag, the bag opened and the fish slid into the water.
I heard the sad tale the next morning and had to take action. I posted this on the chalk board:
MISSING!
Missing one fish. About 3 feet long, 25 lbs. With white stripes. Last seen near Saipan pier.
If found, contact Jose “Butterfingers” Bonita at phone # 48.
The captain got a nice laugh out of it at least.
As you can imagine, it takes a bit of work to turn a 650 foot-long ship into a fishing trawler. The captain sets up a hand line and two rods with deep-sea reels on the stern and we steam around the seamount, ready at a moment’s notice to stop the engines if we get a fish.
One of the biggest problems is that the transom (back) of the ship is about 40 feet above the water, so the captain uses a pulley system with quick releases to drop the fishing line down closer to the water’s surface. If a fish strikes, the quick release opens and he then runs over and starts reeling the line in. Speaking of line, the fishing lures are attached to about 150 feet of monel wire (to help the lure keep some depth) then to some sort of spectra fishing line that is nearly unbreakable. He puts out about 300 yards of line as we cruise around at between 9.5 and 10.5 knots. One reel has a built in electric motor and the other has a fitting to which we attach an electric drill. The hand line is the shortest, but takes a good 10 minutes to pull in. We are looking for the big, fast fish.
Of course a ship with 3 trolling lines running aft can’t turn too well. We were swinging slow circles well over a mile in diameter and taking about 20-30 minutes to turn around 180 degrees.
Well we were able to land three fish. The first was at an old fish ground near the island of Tinian called Esmeralda Bank. We caught our biggest fish there the first day. It was a 25 lb wahoo. We had a few other strikes, but didn’t manage to land any other fish. The second day saw us catch a 15 lb yellow-fin tuna, and late in the day another, but smaller, wahoo.
We got in Friday the 13th and the bad luck of the day manifested itself when the crew tried to get the fish from the now anchored ship to the Captain’s favorite restaurant. I lowered the three fish safely to the launch by the basket on the crane and it was in good condition when I last saw it on the deck of the launch heading to the port. Alas, the big wahoo never saw land, for as one of the crew lifted the fish in its bag, the bag opened and the fish slid into the water.
I heard the sad tale the next morning and had to take action. I posted this on the chalk board:
MISSING!
Missing one fish. About 3 feet long, 25 lbs. With white stripes. Last seen near Saipan pier.
If found, contact Jose “Butterfingers” Bonita at phone # 48.
The captain got a nice laugh out of it at least.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Farewell SS WILSON
I just heard that my old ship, the SS WILSON is now at the ship wrecker. They steamed her wide open towards, and then up onto, the beach.
I was third and then second engineer on her. We tramped to Africa, Yemen, Europe, and Southeast Asia on my two trips on her. She was built in the 1960's and was a "classic" C-5 steam freighters with yard and stay booms. The engine room was fitted in brass and was just a joy to work. The old steam ships seem to have more soul then the modern diesel plants. I prefer working on the old steam ships, but they are becoming more and more rare these days.
It is strange; getting that email from the ship as she was 2 miles from the beach hits me harder then it should. It feels as if I just heard about an old friend's passing. I guess in a way it is similar. I will surely miss the old girl.
JCA
I was third and then second engineer on her. We tramped to Africa, Yemen, Europe, and Southeast Asia on my two trips on her. She was built in the 1960's and was a "classic" C-5 steam freighters with yard and stay booms. The engine room was fitted in brass and was just a joy to work. The old steam ships seem to have more soul then the modern diesel plants. I prefer working on the old steam ships, but they are becoming more and more rare these days.
It is strange; getting that email from the ship as she was 2 miles from the beach hits me harder then it should. It feels as if I just heard about an old friend's passing. I guess in a way it is similar. I will surely miss the old girl.
JCA
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Comments now open
I adjusted the settings so that anyone can comment on this blog. I figured that most of my tiny readership are not members and couldn't comment before. Next thing you know I will take the time to figure out how to add some photos in here. Maybe when I get home I'll tackle that one.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Rough Day at work
Have you ever had a project that should take an hour but ends up taking all day? I had one of those today. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong with moving 140 feet of fabric attached with bolt ropes did go wrong. Snags, rips, too much friction, broken pieces, unplanned interruptions...
We had to move an 11 ton aluminum structure twice while we were rolling in order to get enough slack to get the fool thing down. grrr.
A mere 7 hours later, (no to mention an unplanned break to bring steel angle-iron on board) we finally had the infill on deck and ready for the sewing machine and heat gun. Fortunately it is my last one (barring any emergency) so I can take my time fixing it.
We had to move an 11 ton aluminum structure twice while we were rolling in order to get enough slack to get the fool thing down. grrr.
A mere 7 hours later, (no to mention an unplanned break to bring steel angle-iron on board) we finally had the infill on deck and ready for the sewing machine and heat gun. Fortunately it is my last one (barring any emergency) so I can take my time fixing it.
NavList
I joined my first Google group yesterday. I found an archive of a Celestial Navigation group and eventually found it to be on Google. It took me awhile to get signed up after finding it with work, but I now have a place to "talk shop" about navigation. Good times in Nerdvana...
Friday, May 9, 2008
Star Fix
A few nights ago we were sailing among the Northern Marianas Islands in the North Pacific. The ship was doing a routine independent steaming exercise and it was another boring night as we passed close to the island of Rota, the southernmost CNMI island, which is a bit north of Guam.
As is usual when i am bored on the bridge, staring at a radar screen devoid of ships, and only showing the occasional rain squall and Rota in the distance, I pull out the sextant and try my luck.
That night was a particularly good night. I knew even before the sun set that there would be a good horizon and few clouds to obscure the stars. I would need both if I hoped to fix my position with any accuracy.
My AB Justin feels a compassion for my obsession with Celestial Navigation as he is equally obsessed with rigging. This was the man who spent most of his lunch and both breaks the other day splicing and eye in wire with what is known as a Liverpool Splice. To make matters more challenging he used the method that his rigging book labeled "the hard way."
As Justin kept a sharp look out for any small craft ahead of us, I pulled out the only Celnav book I use anymore: Pub HO 249 which give a convenient list of 6 stars that are both bright and optimally placed for a good fix for anywhere in the world.
I was not going to go overboard, so I picked 4 stars and grabbed the ship's sextant and headed out to the gyro repeaters on the bridge.
To make things a bit clearer, to reduce your position from the stars, you start with a big assumption, and then use a sextant, a chronometer, and a method of turning the angle from the sextant in to lines on the chart that are crossed to give your position. The assumption is where you are in the world. In the days before GPS this could be a sketchy proposition. Fortunately today you are just basically checking to make sure that the GPS is working properly, so I use the GPS fix (accurate to mere feet) as my “assumed position.” From there I figure out where the stars should be from the aforementioned HO 249. Once I know the direction and height of each star, I pre-set the sextant to the correct angle and use the compass on the bridge wing to point it in the correct direction. Nine times out of ten if there are no clouds the star and horizon appear in the sextant as I point it in the right direction. I then fine tune the sextant so that the star is superimposed on the horizon and then mark the time. While this sounds simple, this is the “art” of Celnav. Getting the sextant properly held and taking an accurate reading is tougher than it sounds, especially with the ship rolling. Accuracy here is measured in teths of seconds of arc. A second of arc is 1/60th of a degree, so we are talking very fine measurements.
This night I was able to gather my four stars in short order, and for the heck of it, I shot the moon, which was about 20 degrees above the Western horizon. I was feeling good and went inside and took a GPS fix at exactly 7PM, less than 10 minutes after I started shooting the stars.
The math involved in reducing stars is a matter of spherical trigonometry, which is quite beyond my willingness to explain here. When I was in school, and in my Coast Guard tests, I had to use tables and books to reduce all of these numbers and triangles. Scientific calculators make things simplier, but for my money, I like using computers. There is a great program that allows me to plug in my sextant numbers, the time of the sight, and the approximate position, and it automatically calculates for me my “most probable position.” Basically instead of doing lots of math and then plotting the lines on the chart, it spits out a latitude and longitude. This night was my golden hour. I entered my 5 sights into the computer and it spit out the exact latitude from the GPS (especially impressive since we were heading due South so that the Latitude changes rapidly) and 0.1 minutes of Longitude out. This is accurate to 0.1 nautical miles, or about 670 feet, about the length of my ship. In ten years of shooting stars, this was the most accurate I had even gotten. Needless to say my ego was huge that night. I was a happy camper, although no one else on the ship was sharing my joy. I guess it’s a Celnav geek thing.
As is usual when i am bored on the bridge, staring at a radar screen devoid of ships, and only showing the occasional rain squall and Rota in the distance, I pull out the sextant and try my luck.
That night was a particularly good night. I knew even before the sun set that there would be a good horizon and few clouds to obscure the stars. I would need both if I hoped to fix my position with any accuracy.
My AB Justin feels a compassion for my obsession with Celestial Navigation as he is equally obsessed with rigging. This was the man who spent most of his lunch and both breaks the other day splicing and eye in wire with what is known as a Liverpool Splice. To make matters more challenging he used the method that his rigging book labeled "the hard way."
As Justin kept a sharp look out for any small craft ahead of us, I pulled out the only Celnav book I use anymore: Pub HO 249 which give a convenient list of 6 stars that are both bright and optimally placed for a good fix for anywhere in the world.
I was not going to go overboard, so I picked 4 stars and grabbed the ship's sextant and headed out to the gyro repeaters on the bridge.
To make things a bit clearer, to reduce your position from the stars, you start with a big assumption, and then use a sextant, a chronometer, and a method of turning the angle from the sextant in to lines on the chart that are crossed to give your position. The assumption is where you are in the world. In the days before GPS this could be a sketchy proposition. Fortunately today you are just basically checking to make sure that the GPS is working properly, so I use the GPS fix (accurate to mere feet) as my “assumed position.” From there I figure out where the stars should be from the aforementioned HO 249. Once I know the direction and height of each star, I pre-set the sextant to the correct angle and use the compass on the bridge wing to point it in the correct direction. Nine times out of ten if there are no clouds the star and horizon appear in the sextant as I point it in the right direction. I then fine tune the sextant so that the star is superimposed on the horizon and then mark the time. While this sounds simple, this is the “art” of Celnav. Getting the sextant properly held and taking an accurate reading is tougher than it sounds, especially with the ship rolling. Accuracy here is measured in teths of seconds of arc. A second of arc is 1/60th of a degree, so we are talking very fine measurements.
This night I was able to gather my four stars in short order, and for the heck of it, I shot the moon, which was about 20 degrees above the Western horizon. I was feeling good and went inside and took a GPS fix at exactly 7PM, less than 10 minutes after I started shooting the stars.
The math involved in reducing stars is a matter of spherical trigonometry, which is quite beyond my willingness to explain here. When I was in school, and in my Coast Guard tests, I had to use tables and books to reduce all of these numbers and triangles. Scientific calculators make things simplier, but for my money, I like using computers. There is a great program that allows me to plug in my sextant numbers, the time of the sight, and the approximate position, and it automatically calculates for me my “most probable position.” Basically instead of doing lots of math and then plotting the lines on the chart, it spits out a latitude and longitude. This night was my golden hour. I entered my 5 sights into the computer and it spit out the exact latitude from the GPS (especially impressive since we were heading due South so that the Latitude changes rapidly) and 0.1 minutes of Longitude out. This is accurate to 0.1 nautical miles, or about 670 feet, about the length of my ship. In ten years of shooting stars, this was the most accurate I had even gotten. Needless to say my ego was huge that night. I was a happy camper, although no one else on the ship was sharing my joy. I guess it’s a Celnav geek thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
