It's real, now!

Well, we're getting ready to head to sea for two weeks. We sail Monday, and get back the Friday after, with a weekend stop in Vancouver. It's real, now! Six weeks will come to fruition--sortof--and those countless hours of figuring out a bunch of stuff that didn't quite make sense at the time, studying Rules of the Road, learning how to do passage planning... everything will come together for two weeks. And then we'll go to the sims and start all over again.

I've been assigned to PCT Renard 58, fourth in the Orca class, which was launched a little under a year ago. Part of me hopes she'll have her own idiosyncrasies, different from PCT Orca, which I sailed on last year, but I won't hold my breath. Besides, I'll be much too busy planning and actually sailing around to notice much of that--and I won't be at the helm, as we have "NETPO kids" to do that.

Speaking of NETPO kids, their presence is a relief. There will be five of us MARS III students per Orca (originally there would be six, but three students have failed the academic phase and are being recoursed) planning around 50+Nm of relatively tight navigation per day. We were told it would amount to between 6-8 tracks, 10-12Nm per person, per day, so with one less person it should be up to 8-10, 12-14Nm if not more. The NETPO students (they're, for the most part, about the same age as us MARS III students, but anyone on a "lower" course somehow gets referred to as a "kid"--as in "BOTC kids" (basic training) to "NETPO kids", even though some are in their 30s and all but one student in our division are in their early 20s) will be taking over the same jobs as we had to deal with last year: helmsman, lookouts, cooks, lifebuoy sentry, etc. MARS III students will focus on being OOW, NavO and FixO.

I'm fairly certain I haven't mentionned the roles (as we use them on this course) so just as a refresher:

OOW: Officer Of the Watch. Theoretically has charge (but not command) of the ship. A bit of a gray area on this course, as we're not fully qualified. Gives the conning orders ("drives" the ship), gives recommendations to the Captain regarding COLREGS (Rules of the Road) situations. Also, most of the time, uses the VHF radio to contact the traffic system, or other vessels. Works closely with the..

NavO: Navigation Officer. Referred to as the NavO even though there is only one NavO on a real ship--the rest of the officers doing "navigation" are normally referred to as "navigator." The NavO plans a passage (the aforementioned 10Nm), lays down the tracks, clearing bearings and other important information on the charts, writes down the relevant information in his notebook, and is responsible to the OOW for the navigation of the ship. Both the NavO and the OOW talk to the Captain, as the NavO takes care of staying "on track" and the OOW takes care of "not running over other ships." The NavO also works in conjunction with the...

FixO: Fixing Officer. Stays at the chart table and does a whole bunch of stuff for the NavO. As fixes need to be taken every 6 minutes (at most), the NavO takes bearings off various points and tells the FixO, who then plots the bearings on the chart, compares it with the planned track, computes the EP (Estimated Position) or DR position (Dead Reckoning), figures out how far from the next wheelover the ship is, and tells the NavO all the relevant information. Also figures out the tidal set, if any, and other such information.

Basically, the bridge team (all three of those guys) has to function as a--excuse the corporate babble--synergy. Everyone has to do their job properly, efficiently, and well. If the FixO fails at finding the ship's position, the NavO can't make sure the ship is safe, and the OOW can't safely alter to keep out of the way of other vessels. It is, truly, a symbiotic relationship.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to being out "at sea" again, though it won't be a big booze cruise as it was last year, unfortunately. At least this year we're totally geeking out over MARS III stuff, whereas there was nothing to really geek out about last year on NETPO. When people start making jokes about relative velocity and whatnot, you know it's going to our brain.

I apologize for the utter lack of posting up to now, but there was very little to talk about, and as the weeks went on it turned into one massive blur of information overload. I've absorbed so much knowledge, I feel like someone just plugged me into one of those computers like in the Matrix and uploaded everything into my brain.

I expect to be able to write at least a little blurb every day or so while at sea, though I don't know if I'll have any internet access (beyond my blackberry), so I might end up posting them all at once, once I get back. I might post little "survived the day--moored at (some port)" along the way, but nothing extensive.