Programs Blog

Author: Rebecca Hueckel (Reba) A Watch, Deckhand

Ship’s Log

Noon Position 20° 27.0‘N x 070° 25.8’W

Ship Heading Hove To

Ship Speed 2-3 knots

Taffrail Log (nm) 1054 nm

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan (from 1300 Watch Change) Windy, Wavy and Wet!

Wind ENE Force 7/8 with 10-12 ft seas out of the ENE

About 37 nm North of Dominican Republic, West of Silverbank.

Souls on Board

What a day! (Or morning I should say) The students are getting their first look at stormy seas aboard the Corwith Cramer. We have been treated to some of the classic tales of a swaying ship such as; puppy lines (lines run along deck to be clipped into while moving about), a thrown table (they are gimbled! meaning that the surface swings back and forth with the motion of the ship. *Cheers to Nate for catching the fried rice!!*), stowage checks (to fly or no to fly, that is the question) and lots of naps. ‘A Watch’ had dawn watch this morning (01:00-07:00) and wow was it an exciting one! As you can see from the weather report above we found some significant wind and waves.

Corwith Cramer’s compass swaying with the waves

To give a little more detail the Beaufort scale of force 7 winds is 28 to 33 knots and force 8 is 34 – 40 so we are in the mid / low 30’s of knots of wind. Unfortunately, this weather did result in us detouring away from silver bank, but luckily we did see wales yesterday and a few crew members also saw a mother and baby humpback today!

Even though the weather was not in our favor this morning we kept our spirits high! Big shout out to Eva our 3ed Mate for powering us through a long dark watch and leading us in song! With weather like this every once in a while you have to laugh at yourself and your situation. As best put by Jenna (2ed Scientist) while we stood steadily looking out over a dark ocean, 03:00, wind and rain pouring over our faces, soaked to the bone; “This is quite silly”.

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANDACE! Love you lots and I can’t wait to see you when I get back!! I hope you are having a wonderful week of exploring the beaches in Oregon!!

-Rebecca Hueckel (Reba) A Watch, Deckhand

Contact: Douglas Karlson, Director of Communications, 508-444-1918 | [email protected]