Lord Nelson - 11/01/2014

Day 29

Out here on the high seas it’s about more than the wind in order to keep Nellie on track to her final destination – It’s all about communication!

One of the most important pieces of communication begins with the morning meeting, held every day at 08:45 in the chartroom.

There the captain, permanent crew, Bosun’s mates and watch leaders discuss the day to come and agree on any messages that need to be sent to the rest of the crew. The watch leaders descend to their watches and tell us how it is.

During the day the permanent crew and Bosun’s mates pass on their knowledge of all things nautical, explaining perhaps for the 10th time what that bit of rope does. They also teach us specific things about knots, navigation and splicing to name but a few subjects.

The ship even communicates with Bracknell!! Each watch collects meteorological data (sea /air temp, wind speed, swell height/direction etc.) and this is fed into the European meteorological system network terminal which transmits the data to the met office. In a tiny way these real time observations feed into the overall weather forecast that we get here on the ship.

At the end of the day is the finely crafted tannoy announcement that is the captain’s daily update, featuring any ships admin matters, the noon to noon distance, and the likely weather for the next period.

So it’s not just about the wind and the waves, comms plays its part.

Just a watch specific item, last night on the First watch (20:00 to midnight) we experienced gusts up to gale force and briefly attained a speed of 10.5 knots!