Programs Blog

Elizabeth Siminitus, A Watch, Hamilton College

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Ship’s Log

Noon Position
31°04.47’N x 73°02.96’W

Ship Heading
100 psc

Ship Speed
7kn

Taffrail Log
614 nm

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan
motoring with the three lowers up, light winds from the south, rain passed earlier

Description of location
290 miles SExS of Cape Hatteras

Souls on Board

Hello World! I hope all is well for you. Coming to you from the library/lab spillover space, I want to tell today about the transition period we’ve just entered. Today was Easter, as well as Audrey’s birthday, so we had a Swizzle (a celebration involving lots of music, laughs, and various talents), complete with egg dying, cupcakes, and a pseudo Easter-egg hunt. This conveniently marked the end of our first phase of learning onboard.

Posy and Elizabeth MC-ing class and leading trivia on their home state.

Phase 1 was packed with learning, as everything from flushing the toilet to setting sails to eating at the gimbaled tables was foreign to us students. We’ve now spent many hours on deck, in lab, and exploring everywhere else, and we’re ready to move on to Phase 2, the shadow phase. Now that we have basic knowledge from these first two weeks, we can move from learning how to do things to digging into why we do things.

It’s definitely the right time for us to move to the next phase because we keep surprising ourselves with the knowledge and skills we now possess. Today we had The Great Pin Rail Chase, where we competed relay-style to locate lines as a watch. There are roughly 90 lines on board, so it was impressive to see how quickly and confidently we all strode off (no running on deck!) to find our lines.

Props to B watch for coming in first place, although it was close. On A watch, we have also taken some turns delivering the turnovers to the next watches with updates about what happened for us and what they can expect during their next six hours. Most of the time we don’t even have to be reminded to do our hourly observations and boat checks!

Maeve, Kate, Elizabeth, and others from our swim call.

Regardless of our level of preparation, it is a little bittersweet to be moving into Phase 2, as the shift comes with a new rotation of watch officers. Our mates and scientists are moving to join the next watch while the students and deckhands stay put.

It is a great opportunity to learn from new people and their experiences, but we’ve gotten very comfortable with our cycles and watch groups. They were our original team, where we started to feel comfortable and competent aboard our floating home. They finally get our weird jokes and knew what to expect when we get a little loopy around 0300. However, we’ll settle in quickly and we won’t be far apart from our old officers. After all, it’s pretty impossible not to see someone on a 130ft ship with only three heads.

Today we were able to sail again after the winds picked up from a very still day yesterday (no complaints, it meant we got to swim after our field day!). I’m happy to keep cruising on.

Hello to Mom and Dad, I hope the snow has melted by now and the puppy is behaving better! Much love to my pals and happy late birthday to Zach ? Thanks for reading along, world. I’m headed to my bunk to get a (rare) full night’s rest before morning watch with our new crew.

-Elizabeth Siminitus, A Watch, Hamilton College

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