Peter Hendra wrote in
:

No, I have never called on channel 13 - what is it internationally
used for? We/I usually call on Channel 16 at sea.

On this side of the pond, at least, Channel 13 is the Bridge to Bridge,
Ship to Ship channel, usually used for navigation broadcasts by the
ships. No shore stations are supposed to be allowed. Not sure about
your region's ship-to-ship channel, but I suspect it's the same.


I also have used the spotlight on the mainsail. I just hope that
someone is looking my way at the time. Some of them do come a bit
close at times though which is somewjhat disconcerting. WSe have found
that if the "owner" gets on the radio, we get good responses but that
is not a hard and fast rule.

Many of the merchant sailors I talked to were under the impression us
"yachties" were just too snobbish to talk to mere Merchant Mariners.
And, the yachties I've talked to thought the MM guys hated them, which is
just not true. They're as curious about your boat as you are about
theirs! I've even been aboard some of them docked at Charleston for some
chow or the nickle tour. You should see a 38,800hp, 7 cyl inline diesel
with 5' diameter pistons on a 7' stroke, if you haven't. It's a 2-
stroke!

You're right about them being bored to tears. It must be hell going
faster than 5 knots and making more than 120 miles per day. They never
have to worry much about wind direction or sea state not that we worry
overly about it. Ther's not much you can do when you are there. They
do however take advantage and note of currents which can save/cost
them extra time and fuel. But this is compensated for by having a
regular cook and all the comforts of home.

Well, we do it for fun. They do it as WORK, which makes it lots less fun
as the years pile up. They DO worry about wind...especially the car
carriers. Those ship sides have LOTS more sail area than the combined
sail area in any marina. The car carriers flat sides are HUGE! I have a
ham radio friend who is one of the two masters on Sealand "Performance",
a 950', 38,800hp single screw container ship. Larry tells me, "I can
stop it in less than 2.5 miles!" It's just like driving a bassboat in
slow motion...(c;

Speaking of the food, the food is excellent on "Performance". I ate
dinner with the crew who didn't go ashore. Their food is "packed" into 4
refridgerated 50' containers, stuffed full. The container crane lowers
the container onto a little railroad car made for them that transports
the container to the galley, stern end first. The cooks just open the
rear container doors and the food is ready to unload....in the order of
the menu they are going to serve. The crew simply eats their way through
the container from back doors to front wall, then open up the next
one....four in a load. It's all very efficient for the tiny crew these
huge ships now carry...about 21 crew and officers. A computer controls
the engine and pages the duty engineer if it doesn't like some parameter.
Noone sits in the engine room and watches it any more.

I've always wanted to go to Europe on a commercial ship. There's a
Polish steamship line that carries 6-8 passengers for around $1600, one
way. That's a helluva 2 week vacation really cheap. Many lines have
dropped passenger service because everyone, today, is just in too much of
a hurry to be crammed into an airplane after humiliating strip searches.
No thanks....I wanna DRIVE a ship!...(c;

Larry
--
Who cares about Europe? I just wanna go and come back around the
ports....(c;