During the night the swells from this weather front high up the North Atlantic reached us. A very long swell with a clocked time, from crest to crest, of about 12 seconds. The ships stabilizers could easily cope with this and thus the movement of the Prinsendam was minimal. The weather forecast for today was very good, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to high sixties although it turned out that that forecast had to be corrected later in the day. Continue reading
Author: Captain Albert (page 196 of 236)
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
As mentioned yesterday we arrived with glorious sunshine but an hour later dark clouds started to gather on the horizon. That had not been planned at all in the forecast. However the weather does not always follow the predictions. The weather front that created the overcast weather before we arrived in Lisbon, stalled and tilted a little bit instead of moving north and deposited a rather large amount of rain over Lisbon in the course of the afternoon of the first day. Then it remained drizzly during our over overnight stay. Only today the weather started to improve with sunny periods.
Apart from the pilots being involved in getting the ship into port there is also the VTS or the vessel traffic systems. These are watched over by traffic control centres in the Lisbon area. This starts already quite far out in the open sea. Near Cabo San Vicente (South West point of Portugal and Europe) and in front of the Lisbon coast VTS systems have been put in place to regulate the traffic. When you look in the chart you see imaginary highways keeping Northbound and Southbound traffic apart. It reduces the chance of collisions between ships and it also reduces the change of environmental disasters as it keeps the tankers away from the coast.
When approaching Lisbon with its estuary of the Rio Tejo; we have to call in at certain points to let the control station (called ROC control here) know, who we are, what we are doing and where we are going. When we sail up the river we switch over the VHF to Lisbon Port Control which controls the whole river area and the port itself. The idea is that port control comes back with information that will help plan a safer passage up and down the river. In the weekend the port is not so busy and so it is relatively quiet with the information offered. During the week days port control normally has a lot to advise and also helps with calling other ships if there is an issue arising. Also they are normally aware when something is going to happen in the port, especially with navy exercises.
This was the last full day of our crossing and un-expectedly we came under the influence of some bad weather all the way to the North. A rather heavy system with lots of wind is moving towards the United Kingdom and that pushed a minor system, near the Gulf of Biscay, a bit further down. As a result the wave field generated by that minor system made it all the way down to our area and thus we had a Prinsendam that moved a little bit more than in the past few days. Still for an ocean crossing, not much movement at all. Later in the day the sun even came out and that was not predicted either. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
During the night the swells from this weather front high up the North Atlantic reached us. A very long swell with a clocked time, from crest to crest, of about 12 seconds. The ships stabilizers could easily cope with this and thus the movement of the Prinsendam was minimal. The weather forecast for today was very good, with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to high sixties although it turned out that that forecast had to be corrected later in the day.
I was aiming for a noon time pilot station time, which was on the early side but most of the time the river Tejo is full of sailing boats during the weekend, plus numerous fishing boats and then it is slow going. They always tend to be just where we want to be as well, and not all Sunday Sailors have any gumption of where they should be. That is out of the way of commercial traffic. I had also planned to swing on arrival, so we would be able to shoot straight out after departure tomorrow. A starboard side docking was making sense anyway as the tide was flooding and it is preferred to dock with the bow into the tide as it is easier to control the ship that way. As the Rio Tejo has a large estuary entrance which gets narrower and narrower ,like a funnel, when coming closer to the bridge, there is a considerable current on the river and along the docks. So with the pilots blessing, we were going to dock sb side alongside.
The pilot station of Lisbon is not at the entrance of the river, but about 10 miles upstream near Belem tower. That means that we sail ourselves those ten miles up and down the river until we get to the pilot station. There is the option to pick up the pilot before you enter the river but then you have to go to Cascais first, just to the North of the river mouth, that costs at least an extra hour and I have never seen the necessity of it.
The new “Belem Tower” of the pilots.
As the weather forecast had predicted, it was an overcast day with rain showers in the distance, but it remained dry where the ship was and that was in port today. After 6 very good days at sea. The Great circle that we had been travelling on came to an end just under the West point of the island Sao Migual (St Michael) on which Punta Delgada is located. A Great Circle line with a bit of a hic-up in it due to our deviation towards to Bermuda. Just West and South of the Azores is a bank, called the Alice Bank. This is basically an Azores island, a mountain top like the other islands, but one which did not make it to the surface. According to the chart there are a few shallow spots there, so we had to make certain that our course went just under it. From there it was one straight line to the pilot station. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
This was the last full day of our crossing and un-expectedly we came under the influence of some bad weather all the way to the North. A rather heavy system with lots of wind is moving towards the United Kingdom and that pushed a minor system, near the Gulf of Biscay, a bit further down. As a result the wave field generated by that minor system made it all the way down to our area and thus we had a Prinsendam that moved a little bit more than in the past few days. Still for an ocean crossing, not much movement at all. Later in the day the sun even came out and that was not predicted either.
I have been writing about waves and wave fields during this crossing. So the question should be answered what is a wave is and how do we measure it. On the bridge, for our observations, we eye ball it. A junior navigator has a sample book available with photos that indicate wave heights and that can be used to compare with what is out there. With a little bit of help from a senior officer it is then fairly quickly becoming routine to observe correctly what the wave heights are. Satellites can do the same nowadays with infra red beams which are extremely accurate in measuring the exact height. So are experienced sailors and we do it by just looking out of the window. The height of a wave is measured from its lowest point, the trough, to it highest point, the crest.
Now waves are never the same height. The wind blowing over them changes the height, another wave pattern might interfere and cancel much of the achieved height out etc. etc. Thus for measuring the average wave height we use the significant wave height. That is also the wave height indicated on the chart I attached a few days ago. The definition of the Significant Wave Height: is the average height (trough to crest) of the one-third highest waves valid for the indicated 12 hour period. This means that you can come across waves of double the height, or a nearly smooth patch of sea, where two waves have cancelled each other out. However for the prediction of what the ship will encounter in the near future, the significant wave height on the wave chart suffices.
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
As the weather forecast had predicted, it was an overcast day with rain showers in the distance, but it remained dry where the ship was and that was in port today. After 6 very good days at sea. The Great circle that we had been travelling on came to an end just under the West point of the island Sao Migual (St Michael) on which Punta Delgada is located. A Great Circle line with a bit of a hic-up in it due to our deviation towards to Bermuda. Just West and South of the Azores is a bank, called the Alice Bank. This is basically an Azores island, a mountain top like the other islands, but one which did not make it to the surface. According to the chart there are a few shallow spots there, so we had to make certain that our course went just under it. From there it was one straight line to the pilot station.
The Azores are, although in the Eastern part of the North Atlantic, still 740 miles way from the European (Portuguese) mainland. After their discovery in 1427 they have been part of Portugal. Due to its strategic location, as a sort of gate keeper for Europe, it has always played an important part in connecting the Western and the Eastern hemisphere. For the cruise ships it is very often a stop during the bi annual migration of the ships from the Caribbean Sea to Europe. Although since the European cruise market has started to develop rapidly, more and more ships are calling here all year around.
In the past, read before the 1990’s, the Azores where mostly called at by sailing yachts on the way across the Atlantic and cargo ships. Several tugboat companies had tugboats stationed here for call out, if ships would get into problems on the North Atlantic. Very famous is Café Sport in Horta; that for years was the home base of the tugboats of Smit International, the world famous Dutch salvage company. This café became such a Dutch stronghold that even the Portuguese owner spoke Dutch (and was an avid fan of Feijenoord the soccer club of Rotterdam). Punta Delgada had in those days less of a connection with sailing, as it was located further to the South.
06 May 2009, Crossing the North Atlantic Ocean.
This is our last day at sea before we arrive at Punta Delgada in the Azores. The weather is still holding, overcast as predicted and with a low to moderate swell (4 to 5 feet), which makes the Prinsendam gently pitch. It does not look like this weather will change very much in the coming period and that will mean that we have had a very good crossing, especially for the time of year, as summer has not arrived yet. As mentioned before, we have made up the time lost from our crew medivac in Bermuda and that means that we will arrive on time. I am even planning to be a little bit early so that we have time to clear the ship and set everything up before our official arrival time. Continue reading
We continued our crossing with good weather. Partly Cloudy skies with a little swell that kept the ship just pitching a little bit. The weather is supposed to remain good but a broad band of clouds is coming over the North Atlantic so it is expected that from this evening until Lisbon we will have cloudy skies. No rain is expected although we see on the radar occasional small rain showers in the vicinity. Rain does reflect on the radar. Especially a dense rain down pour acts as a reflector to a normal radar beam. We can boost the radar waves so that they penetrate rain clouds. However most of the time we keep the radars on a nice weather setting as that setting gives a better reflection of normal targets. However, with seeing the rain clouds on the radar comes the option (if they are not too large) to sail around the clouds and in that way keep the ship dry. Continue reading
Captain Albert Schoonderbeek
This is our last day at sea before we arrive at Punta Delgada in the Azores. The weather is still holding, overcast as predicted and with a low to moderate swell (4 to 5 feet), which makes the Prinsendam gently pitch. It does not look like this weather will change very much in the coming period and that will mean that we have had a very good crossing, especially for the time of year, as summer has not arrived yet. As mentioned before, we have made up the time lost from our crew medivac in Bermuda and that means that we will arrive on time. I am even planning to be a little bit early so that we have time to clear the ship and set everything up before our official arrival time.
We had a bit of excitement today as we were first hailed by a French warship and then later on buzzed by a surveillance plane of unknown registry, although we think that it was a Portuguese one, as it came and went back directly in the direction of the Azores. We were not surprised that we were encountering navy in this area. The Europeans have stepped up their surveillance against ships polluting the oceans and at the same time are casting a forever watchful eye against drug trafficking. Although the latter is not so significant here, as we are in the middle of nowhere. Most drugs are transported over the oceans in regular containers.
However pollution is a major issue and navy ships work together with air planes to monitor traffic and to catch offenders. There are still ships out there who want to save some money by not off loading waste oil and think that they can dump it overboard without a problem. Although every waste stream onboard has to be recorded and thus also each amount of waste oil generated; cooking the books still happens and money is being saved by pumping engine waste directly over board. With an airplane these violations are easily spotted as a clearly visible trail can be seen from the air. From the surface it is much more difficult as the ships propellers disturb the ocean surface by their turning and that makes it very difficult to see for an observer if anything is being dumped. Thus the reason that there are surveillance planes around.
The French navy ship called us with a whole list of questions, I suppose to satisfy its own reporting needs and my watch officer was quite occupied with providing the correct answers. The moment supreme (most appropriate word I think when dealing with the French) came when the captain’s name had to be given. Thus was a hurdle for my English navigator, so I decided to answer myself and started spelling my full name. After the 22 letters there was a brief silence and then…………….Thank you have a nice voyage; end of questioning. Either my name did not fit in the check list that had to be filled out, or the operator was not in the mood to repeat it all or try to pronounce it. Anyway we continued happily on our way, leaving the French behind in the distance.
Captain Albert
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