Shaking Down

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
At four pm local we were 170 NM from our start point. This morning we stopped the vessel and held position by DP while attaching another tow vessel, the Fairmont Alpine, which combines with the Sherpa, totaling 25,000 hp, a vessel on each pontoon. As a result , we are now moving at 8.3 knots, and that will improve over time. This vessel has temporarily lost number 5 thruster, and we are looking for causes in order to repair. The sky is overcast and the true winds are out of the NW at 3 knots, but we see relative wind from the SE at 5 knots. Barometer is 30.15 and falling. The ancient mariner continueth his narrative. As his journey gets underway, away from land, he logged:


“The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.”
We are sailing southeast from winter into summer, from North America to another continent, another culture out of another time. Some say that homo sapiens came from there out of a very distant, ghostly past. Even so, at night we pull a sheen of phosphors, a witch’s brew of greens and blues and whites…and at Thanksgiving, ten Punjab terrorists from Pakistan terrorized Mumbai, India, killing 172 innocents, pure murder: on Christmas, a Ugandan rebel army murdered 400 innocents. In California, some nut, Pardo, dressed up in a Santa suit and murdered nine people— including kids—at a Christmas party.

Perhaps mankind DID come from Africa. All races and cultures seem so much alike in their terrible meanness. It is our common heritage. I read a book by Hammond Innes, called “Levkas Man”. It was a search for the origin of man’s ugliness to prove that our behavior is incidental, or that it is manifestly genetic, a good book. Levkas man was discovered in bits and pieces and had physiognomy to indicate an innate killer. Innes’ hero traced down the home cave of fossilized Levkas man and found that he was homo sapien and was innately horrible. It seems to me that we have proven it over and over again, and that a billion or two humans meeting their maker would be a blessing for the other four billion of us. Over-population of humans is killing the entire planet.

Thruster 5 is a problem. I have been unable to assign it or run it manually. Jerry and others went down to check and repair. After a time Jamie called up and asked me to assign HPU 1 (hydraulics) to that unit. I did, and the damned thing spun up full speed against its brake and started burning. We got it shut down and evacuated the smoke, but still don’t have a clue what it is. Almost coincidentally, thruster 1 overheated at the upper thrust pad and had to be shut down. Our mechanics are lacking, as usual.

A scientist named Shapiro evaluated the impact of human-kind upon our earthly nest and learned that we are doubly—or more—over-populated. In his report, he said that that geographical limits of the US should not have to support more than 150,000,000 people. The negative impact of populations greater than that is exponential. He reported on the entire earth and its ability to support one billion people. More than that will eventually destroy the face of the land, all water, and unleash disease and war and ultimate death rates to equalize nature’s demands. He was found anti-social, ethnically biased and politically incorrect. Our government assured that he was silenced and cut off from his work, and now we have 300,000,000 in the US and nearing 6 billion on earth, which is tiring at trying to support all that sewage, water and food demand, space, pollution, loss of natural habitats, fouling of the seas, de-forestation, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the hopelessness of the masses of Muslims, the poor, and the dispossessed. Shame on Shapiro. And the Catholic Church is still against birth control, and yet wants us to go forth and multiply. Bullshit. Shame on the Pope.
Wednesday, December 31, New year’s eve, Day 3:
“All in a hot and copper sky
The bloody sun at noon
Right up above the mast did stand
No bigger than the moon”
Today is calm. There is neither wind nor current, and the sea is smooth as glass. In sailing times, it would have been as doldrums. It works somewhat against us, as two vessels are pulling us, one on each pontoon. The bow is down one degree, and the wash creates variable drag, which oscillates heading, which demands greater--then lesser power…I have taught the BCO how to calculate added drag area when the bow is not level by n-degrees: tan(n) X length of keel X width of pontoon X the number of pontoons.. It works out to 506 extra square feet of drag area and actual drag increase, D=1/2ρv2s, where s is area: The greater the area, the greater the drag. One entertains oneself the best he can out here.

When Magellan exited the now famous strait between Chile and Tierra del Fuego that bears his name, he and his crew soon entered an area of dead calm water in the Pacific. It lasted for 60 days in which there was no breath of air, nor shadow of cloud, nor hope of relief. Men killed themselves by gunshot or by jumping over the side in utter hopelessness. Water was rationed, then tainted. Supplies dwindled. It is called “the doldrums” and exists annually. That event likely inspired Coleridge to write:
“Day after day, day after day
We stuck, nor breath, nor motion,
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
I have heard people describe their depression as “ being in the doldrums.” I was a grown man before I realized that the doldrums are real, in either case.

When I came on tour at noon to relieve Tony, we had come 338 NM. Course made good is 116°. Mike Stelly is the BCO until 1800 hrs, when Brent Humphries comes on. Both are good lads and easy to work with. This is a good crew, except for a few, who seem generally incompetent and somewhat cavalier. We had a nuisance alarm on a thruster hydraulic pump valve. When we reported it, the response came back, “I don’t know what that alarm means, so I can’t fix it.” Fini. End. If I were the boss for an hour, I’d make that individual walk the plank.

Speaking of bozo, the Washington Post reports that the bozone layer is that sheen around someone that keeps good ideas or knowledge from seeping in. I tried to explain that the alarm defined itself, its location, and its problem, but I may as well have been speaking Swahili to a Navajo.

We are making this trip without benefit of a single map or chart, part of the adventures of working for a drilling outfit. Africa is east, for Christ’s sake: we’ll find it. The tow vessels DO have maritime equipment and they can find Capetown. Actually, I can, too, with DGPS. We can find anywhere on earth, as long as we have GPS. Of course one might have trouble in the straits and harbors, or islands or specific refueling locations. But it is only a thing. No sweat…so long as there are no shoals or shallows, or restricted areas, or military ordnance areas.

As I was typing this, the phone rang, and some of the aforementioned individuals wanted to swap engines to get number 5 off line. We went through the usual litany of getting one started, which requires three minutes warm up, but they wanted an EMERGENCY start, because #5 was blown and was throwing oil all over the place. However, the bozone layer down there was too thick to penetrate, so they failed to mention that it was critical.

2305 hrs GMT: deleted original coordinates (Corpus) and entered Waypoint 8 coordinates into DGPS: 21.6 degrees north/ 85.2 degrees W. That is 386 NM from our present location: 25deg 3.58’ N and 90deg 27.03’ W. Waypoint 8 is just west of the westernmost finger of Cuba, east of the Yucatan.