Sunday, April 22, 2012

cruise -- day 9


A couple of days ago (when I was not quite in a writing mood), I took a tour of the ship’s bridge.

To a pilot, the instrumentation seems rather simple for a vessel of this size.  Of course, they are spread over what could be the lobby of a modest hotel.

(A little detour here.  Nautical terminology sounds vaguely familiar to those who fly airplanes.  Like a dialect of pilot-speak.  For instance, both ships and planes have cockpits.  That is not an accident.  When aviation began, it borrowed heavily from ship jargon.)

Cruise ship captains, who spend a good deal of time pressing the flesh and having their photograph taken with that nice couple from Akron, are frequently (and repeatedly) asked: “ Who’s driving the ship?”  The answer is: “The same person who steers the ship for almost the entire cruise.  The computer.”

The array of computer and radar screens is impressive.  Not to mention several panels showing the status of water-tight and semi (yikes!) water-tight doors. 

As a terrible parallel parker, I have always been impressed with how easily the officers take the ship in and out of dock.  The days of tugs are gone with the advent of bow thrusters and azipods.