The weekend started today and the shipyard went a little bit quieter.  But it being so close to delivery means a lot of work still goes on, especially by the sub-contractors. Those are company hired by the shipyard on behalf of Holland America who do the specialist installation work. Quite a few of them also live on board and they will prefer to continue working anyway. If they finish ahead of schedule then they will not delay the ships operation and they can go home earlier as well. On the outside deck the painters are taking  advantage of the sunny weather to continue painting.  They have been told to paint, so they paint, much to the frustration of the supervising deck officers who only like those areas to be painted that are supposed to be painted. Sometimes there is a “conflict of interest” and then the supervisor has to be located and after a bit of high drama the work goes on as it is supposed to be done.

The outside white starts to sparkle more and more with the constant painting going on.

Saturday is also the day the shipyard removes equipment no longer needed. This is mostly electricity cables and portable sub stations which all the workers use for their tools.  Nobody in the shipyard uses the power sockets in the ship as A: the plugs often do not fit as half our ship is on 110Volts. B: you never know if the power remains on with all the testing going on, C: somebody will get very upset if you connect a tool which is too heavy and then short circuit a junction box or worse.  When the building starts there is no electricity on board at all of course, only steel bulkheads, and then the whole ship gets power from the outside by means of heavy cables leading to portable sub stations (a sort of multiple junction boxes) all over the ship. A sort of temporary power grid. These sub stations remain in use until an area is completed.  With the nice dry weather today the yard had erected a special off-loading platform in one of the provision access doors to make it all a bit easier.

Our crew will be kept busy as this is our warehouse and everything you see will go on board in the coming days.

The Koningsdam is different to the rest of the fleet in many areas but there is one area where it is completely different. This is the first Holland America ship which is built with the – return safe to home – principle. This means if one engine room burns out with all the controlling equipment, the other one should be able to bring the ship home. If the navigation bridge becomes unusable then there is a second (more basic) navigation bridge on the top deck which makes it possible for the Captain to still sail the ship. This sort of two ships into one ship necessitated a lot of changes to the ships construction. Cooling systems, Electrical systems, basically everything is separate so can be fully split up in case of an emergency.

A nice touch in the Bill board area. A lamp in the form of a Trombone. Visible for a day and then wrapped up again until delivery day.

In recent time there have been a few ships which due to an engine fire were completely without facilities for a few days.  And a few thousand people without flushing toilets and A.C. is not pleasant. Thus the new systems now ensure that basic services will always be available. With the other ships there is retro fitting going on to make this also possible, at least to a certain extent, but the Koningsdam is the first HAL ship with the full concept.

These are a few of the several hundred boxes with crockery which are now unpacked and put to use.

It is now the plan for the complete crew to fully live and work on board, after the 17^th of March and this means the Hotel Department is ratching up the output of food and cabin services. By that last date all the offices should be finished so all the departments will be on board instead of in the yard offices. At the same time the crew training is in full swing. There is a second Hotel director on board who coordinates all the training to get over a 1000 crew ready for work. Safety first of course but then also all the work routines have to be rehearsed.

The Function Rooms on Main Deck have been completed. There are 3 but two of them can be split up.

Today the rest of the Entertainment Department joined the ship and now also the tests and rehearsals in the show lounge have started. Most of this takes place late in the evening when things are a bit quieter and not all the yard people “volunteer to become an impromptu audience”. The Cruise Director is now giving a daily announcement with what is going in. A most important fact, on Monday the self-service laundries for the crew will become operational. Good thing; as I am running out of clean socks etc.

Today all the ceiling lights in the main dining room were clearly visible.

Tomorrow is another quiet day and according to one yard supervisor a lot of extra protection will be installed in the delivered area’s and stay there until the final delivery of each area and the eventual handover of the ship.

The dry weather is holding and thus the yard is in full swing with what has to be painted or has to repainted. We normally wear hard hats in the shipyard to avoid being hit by “foreign objects descending from a greater height” but today the hat is handy to catch paint drips.  We also had our first introductory training in operating the lifeboat davits and lowering a lifeboat. As the technique keeps developing our lifeboat systems change with each class of ship we build and thus we have to be re-trained as well.

Not much Officer glamour & spivvy uniforms to see but here we have the deck officers gathered for Lifeboat Instruction.

Apart from painting outside, there is painting going on inside as well, with a lot of touch up in progress. Most of the inside of the ship was spray painted when the ship was only a steel hull and without most of the machinery installed. With those machines being installed and with over 2000 yard people milling around it is not all as pristine as it was in the beginning.  Thus suddenly corridors are blocked with plastic and a message in Italian exhorting everybody not to go through. Occasionally one of the shipyard firemen realizes this too late and his/her once fine red helmet has suddenly taken on another color. Another good reason to wear a helmet. First stick the helmet through a door before anything else.

This is the Grand Staircase between the Ocean Bar and the Casino.

More and more protective covering is disappearing and rooms are ready for the final installation of equipment and furniture. Today the Casino, Photo gallery, Ocean Bar and Queens Lounge took another big jump.  The Ocean Bar is getting its furniture installed and the photo shop is nearly finished. It is only missing all the paraphernalia the photographers install themselves. On this ship they have a dedicated Black Label studio an improvement on the “tents” on the older ships where it was a retro fit. The B & W studio remains the most popular part of all photography on board and hence a dedicated studio.

The Photo Gallery. Only the protective covering still needs to be removed.

For most of the public rooms it is now waiting for the final furnishings to arrive. Most of it is already in the shipyard but will only be brought on board once it is safe to install. And as most of this installing is plug_and_play, it will not take much time.

The Koningsdam is the first HAL ship with a bridge – cockpit – design. 2 Navigators in the front and Captain and Staff Captain on the 2nd row. The chair to right is for a pilot, if needed.

The bridge is now being completed as well. It has been operational since the Trial trips in January but then most of the safety systems for the ship were jerry rigged. Now the official panels and monitors are being installed. This is done by an Italian company called Martec who are now trying to get their software to speak to the various hardware in the ship. Last night they were testing the closing of the Fire screen Doors from the bridge and although announcements were made, it caught the occasional Italian un-aware and the person in question let the whole wide world very loudly know that he was not amused. Learned another few words which were not in my Italian Dictionary. With the complexity of the safety systems increasing there is now a complete separate Safety Centre behind the bridge. E.G. completely separated from the Navigation Bridge. In case the Captain needs to overview an emergency and oversee navigation at the same time, he will have to stand with one foot in the safety center and one in the wheelhouse. But it is better that way as it will not disturb the concentration of the navigators.

Most of the art still has to be installed but the flatter art work has already been put on the bulkheads in the corridors. The Koningsdam has a musical theme and some of the decks are named after famous composers. We have Beethoven, Gershwin, Mozart and Schubert and the corridor art reflects this. On navigation deck the art is related (surprise) to navigation and the captain will eventually see a man high Lighthouse painting when he walks from his cabin into the Guest staircase.  I do not know who pulls the protective covering off and I also do not know who puts it back on but when walking around you get different glimpses everyday  of what is mostly still hidden behind carton and wall paper.

What is also Art: but on a Grand Scale is the company’s logo on the funnel. The Koningsdam is the first ship that has switched from the old to the new.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another dry day, so the painting will mostly continue full speed as well. I had better keep my helmet on for another few days.

Thus today the migration took place of all the officers and crew who were scattered throughout Mestre (the town next to the shipyard in Marghera) to the ship. We were blessed to today with sunny but chilly weather, in other words a perfect day to move suitcases up and down gangways and stairs. The lifts are working but they are constantly full of all sorts of shipyard people and thus it is much easier to go 4 decks up the stairs. We are all scattered over the ship; some are on A deck and some like me are on deck 4. We have been put everywhere where cabins are already completed and accepted. At least that is the objective as one of the crew came back with the magic words “cabin still under construction”.  But there are plenty of cabins so he got another number and there he went again.  This time the bed had been installed and he was in business.

Crew starts to help out with cleaning up. It releases shipyard people for other areas. This is the Ocean Bar area.

The whole boarding process is organized by the ships officers. We already have the purser in the yard and the crew officer and the GRM, the three most important people to set new boarding crew safely on their way.  The plan is to have between a 100 and 140 crew joining every day and if this works out then we should be up to speed by Sunday. That will then give us about three weeks to get everybody molded into a smooth operating team.  As mentioned before, the most experienced crew is being transferred from the various ships and thus the actual work will just be a matter of finding the right routine. More work will be needed in the safety training of the crew as the Koningsdam has a different mustering system and everybody will have to get used to that.

Vegetable Cold Room. For the time being one corner will suffice for serving the crew.

In the meantime a lot of finishing touches are being made on the lower decks. The cleaning ladies and the painters have moved in and miles and miles of temporary cabling is being removed. With 2500 guests and over a 1000 crew coming storing is in full swing but it will take a while before the store rooms are filled. One 40 foot container full of provisions does not make much of an impression. Some is done by the yard but more and more crew is being assigned to help speed things up. Ever thought about how much time it takes to get over 3000 matrasses on board? They are all the special Sealy matrasses that HAL uses and it takes sometimes more than 2 people to handle one of those things. They sleep heavenly but they are heavy to handle.

Store room Alleyway. It almost looks like a ship already as most shipyard material has been removed.

The ship is running on its own power and light, electricity, hot and cold water as everything is now produced on board.  I have been parked in an outside cabin (with balcony) and everything is working perfectly. Currently they have started with tuning in the televisions and as these are fully interactive they all have to be programmed / software uploaded one by one.  The A/V boys will not be lacking work in the coming days.  A nice touch is that we have usb ports on the sides of the bed so you can charge your cellphone while using it as your alarm clock during the night.  The vanity desk has 5 electric plugs, 2 European, 3 American and another usb port which should be able to take care of all connectivity needs. One task each crewmember has been given is to completely check each cabin and push each button to see if everything work. For this they have a form to be handed in as soon as all checks are complete. Everything in my cabin works; it just needs more dust removal / cleaning. That will be done by our own cabins stewards once they can get at all the cabins.

Painting the piping is always the final touch when work has finished. This area in the Engine Room we call the Pipe Tunnel (for good reason) and connects  the Fwd part of the ER with the Aft part by leading in between the Potable Water Tanks.

What is an annoying part of a new building is the constant alarm testing. Each cabin, each speaker, each smoke detector, etc.etc. has to be tested individually before a certificate of completion can be issued. As a result we are now listening to a constant cycle of 7 short and 1 long beep on the alarm system with in between (coffee and lunch time) Ramazotti (Italian pop singer) and Michael Jackson (who seems to be world famous here in the shipyard as I have not heard anything else in English yet) Luckily the Captain has decreed that by 7 pm. it should stop so people can go to bed on time as the yard is getting back in action every morning around 05.00 hrs.

A constant flow of Matrasses, until over 3000 will have been brought on board.

The weather is supposed to hold over the coming days which will be good for the boarding crew. By the weekend we should be in full swing. More and more crew coming on board, and less and less yard people on board when the various projects are completed one by one.

With the cruise industry being so popular and there only being three major shipbuilders (with several subsidiaries) at the moment, shipyards are churning cruise ships out as if they are building cars. This means there is the advantage of cost reduction through standardization but also the challenge of still delivering a ship which can be identified with the company that ordered it and is hopefully still unique among all the other ships coming out around the same time.  Holland America with its new building program is of course right in the middle of it.

The standardization part is taken care of by Carnival Corporation. They have a large office in each Fincantieri shipyard and these people ensure every ship is built to not only the same legal standards but also the same company – corporation- standards. Where possible the same equipment and material is used. Thus a bow thruster in a Carnival ship will be the same as a bow thruster in a Holland America ship. This does not have any influence on the guest experience and thus it does not need to be brand specific. The same goes for a myriad of other things. For the ships interior and the operational side things differ and then the company’s needs are built into the specification. Interiors are unique and it is up to each company to use a preferred designer. The actual installation work is carried out by sub – contractors and they can be arranged by the yard/carnival office but they can also be company preferred.   We have now contractors at work, who both work on the Koningsdam and on the Seabourn Encore which is docked behind us.

The Queens lounge as seen from Balcony level. It still looks a mess but it only needs the protective covers to be taken away.

The big puzzle is now for the shipyard, for Carnival office and for the Hal people at the yard is how to get all the work done in the right sequence. As long as only the hull is being constructed, it is not as complicated but as soon as the fitting out starts it does get complicated. A simple thing as installing a door will involve several different companies.

A. somebody builds the frame work: B. somebody delivers the door: C. somebody installs the door: D. somebody installs the door lock: E. somebody installs the safety notice on the inside of the door.  F. somebody installs the door number, and during the whole process there are several somebodies who are constantly checking is it is being done and if it is being done according to specifications and without damage. ……………. And that is only something as simple as a door.

What is almost finished is the Jewelery shop. It still needs some cleaning and the inventory and we are ready for business.

This all results in constant meetings and questions (everybody on their cell phones!!!) in order to streamline the work as much as possible and to avoid parties being in each other’s way. It is not unknown for one contractor to barge over or through a freshly painted area or new installed tiling belonging to another contractor. All the officers and staff assigned to the new building are in between this all, as in the end they have to check if everything is really “their ship” and if it works and if they can work with it.

What is complete and ready, pending the storing of the inventory, is the Ships Infirmary.

As a result of all these conflicting interests and requirements some areas are further towards completion than others. In the end it will all come together but at the moment it is not yet visible. Then there are some area’s which look incomplete but what is only missing is the lighting, the props and the furniture.

Getting things together is taking on an even greater urgency as tomorrow we are supposed to go on board and start living on the ship. March 10 is stipulated in the contract and the yard wishes to stick to the contract. Cancelling at the last minute is really not an option as the leases for the apartments expire and for the hotels arrangements end and all the new crew coming to the ship will then go directly on onboard.

So tomorrow is the big day when the ship goes from a building site to being a passenger ship, although the passengers are for the moment officers and crew. The weather gods seem to favor us as tomorrow is predicted to be a sunny day with temperatures around 14oC / 58oF.

One always connects Venice with sunshine and gondola’s lazily moving through the canals as a perfect example of Italian “La Dolce Vita”. Well, today it did not look like it at all. It was miserable and grey with a constant drizzle coming down when I arrived at the shipyard. Not really a place you associate with cruise ships. But then Venice has a very large industrial hinterland which we do not think off as we say Venice. But the shipyard is located in Marghera and this one of those areas considered to be part of greater Venice.

Some decks are nearly finished, apart from the art/decoration in the corridors. Hence it being possible for the officers and crew to live on board by the end of this week.

As there are only 3 days to go before the crew is going on board, I have been parked in a hotel in the nearby town of Mestre. Not an exciting place either but there is a big shopping Centre just across the road which makes the crew very happy.  For a few days now the first regular crew are arriving and they are staying in  various hotels in the area including mine. The officers who are part of the new building team have been here since last September, or even before, and they live in apartments in the area around Marghera. Marghera is the actual name of the town where the shipyard is located which is just south of Venice. Hence you always see the ships going through Venice itself when leaving the shipyard. It is at the moment the only way out although the local authorities are thinking about a canal which will provide a direct connection with the sea and which will then alleviate the need of having very large ships sailing through the old city. Not so nice for the cruise ship guests but much better for the islands of Venice as the ships wash  can affect /erode the swampy land upon which the whole of Venice has been built.

The two story high Lido deck. Fairly quiet as far as work is concerned as they were busy with laying the deck covering.

But leaving is still more than three weeks away and this morning Captain Emiel de Vries, Master designate for the Koningsdam, picked me up from the hotel and plunged me directly into the “controlled mayhem” of an Italian shipyard.  I have worked in French and German shipyards so I know what hectic is but here this is taken  to a new level.  The closer a ship comes to completion, the more people are milling around to finish everything off and I have never seen more workers per square yard as I saw this morning.  One always observes in a shipyard more chiefs than Indians (or at least a number of people acting as chiefs) but with the arrival of the Cell-phone this seems to have been taken to a whole new level.  Everybody is working hard; everybody is on the phone at the same time which then results in directing everybody else who happens not to be on the phone at that same moment.  I just wonder if everything would come to a grinding halt if the cell phone network would stop all of a sudden.  Better not, as the ship has to sail on April the 4^th.

There are things in life which a simple sailor will never understand. But these balloons have something to do with the eventual installing of the art on this pedestal.

My immediate task in the coming days is to study & learn the ship in detail and create search plans for the ship. These are plans which the Master assists in being able to arrange a fast, comprehensive and in depth search of the ship in case it is needed. Guests missing, property lost on board, stowaway reports etc. etc. These plans are normally made by a very experienced person who understands how a HAL ship operates, how all the sub departments and fiefdoms work; and who can figure out of who is exactly in charge of a particular locker, space or corridor. So while I am doing my familiarization of the ship, I might as well create a checklist at the same time and do it all from the perspective of the Captain. It will take a fair bit of walking around as the Pinnacle Class (Koningsdam & TBA-dam) is considerably different than previous Signature class. More about this in the coming days.

The show room at sea is nearly finished and the testing of the 270o digital background is in full swing.

With the arrival of the first crew there is now manpower to start storing the ship. All the cold rooms are filled up and other store room areas are slowly being taken into use as well. The company has a large warehouse where everything is received and from there distributed to the ship. Except for perishables; they go directly from the delivery van to the cold rooms. After the weekend more and more of that will happen as with sufficient crew available, more and more can be received directly on board.  I just hope for the local weather to improve.

We are not the only ship that creates a lot of fuss and Italian excitement as behind us lays the Seabourn Encore which recently was floated out from dry dock.  For this ship the finishing off is now starting as well and two ships nearing their finishing stages do create for a lively atmosphere.

Weather for tomorrow: Rain and overcast in the morning and then clearing in the afternoon and then Thursday should be a sunny day.

The nice weather held and we arrived this morning with sunny skies and a cool breeze blowing from the North East. A bit of a cool wind is not bad at all for Half Moon Cay as it makes it less warm later in the day and this indeed happened. Nice sunny weather with bearable temperatures while on the beach. My class had been up and about for a while already as they were involved in the General Closure procedure for all the Fire Screen Doors.  The Nieuw Amsterdam is divided in seven safety sections called Main Fire Zones or Main Vertical Zones and these are separated from each other by Fire Resistant bulkheads. There are a lot of holes in these bulkheads as everybody must be able to walk through the ship. In case of fire when we want to isolate the section on fire we close the Fire Screen Doors which will then plug those holes. 

Holes as in corridors; as in the big open spaces of the public rooms; as in access to store rooms; AC Stations, Engine Spaces, etc. etc. The law requires the testing of these doors on a regular basis. Closing and opening locally, closing one by one from the bridge, closing by vertical section from the bridge and closing them all at the same time. The latter is called a General Closure. The challenge is when to do this because A. most of the time there are guests and crew walking around creating a chance of an accident and B. if guests or crew keep going through you cannot see from the bridge if the door is really closed. The indicator will not stay on green = safe = closed.  Through the years we have figured out that the best time is around 05.00 in the morning. The late night revelers have gone to bed, and the early morning risers have not risen yet.

All the doors in the process of closing. Done from the bridge and now going from Red to Green. Over the top of the console tracing paper has been placed so the Safety Officer can mark those doors which might need attention

Still we have officers and crew everywhere to monitor the situation and six extra hands for this evolution is always much appreciated. Hence at 05.00 we were all in position when the switch was flipped and the doors closed. With so many Fire screen doors there is always one that will need re-adjusting or for which the controlling light on the bridge has flunked out.  This is then corrected the same morning by the Safety Officer and his staff.

The Half Moon Clipper approaching with the Zuiderdam in the background.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that all the material for the days stay comes from the ship(s) and nearly all the service staff as well. For that purpose the Half Moon Clipper comes alongside to collect all the food and drink needed on the island. As soon as the ship is on location the tender service starts while at the same time the Half Moon Clipper is loaded. Everything goes to the island where small trucks are waiting to bring it to the various venues. When the day is done the left overs are returned to the ship(s).

How about this? A whole pallet of Hamburger buns going ashore.

Our Culinary Staff are very skillful in calculating how much will be used during the day, so very little comes back.  They know exactly how much our guests eat (a lot) and what they like (steak, burgers, fish and freshly cooked vegetables). What is harder to predict is the amount of beverages being consumed as that depends on a lot of factors. Thus we see quite a few bottles returning. According to one Steward there was today a low interest in various Rums but a high interest in Light Beers. Next week might be different.

All the luggage crates have been loaded by means of the crane from the Half Moon Clipper and ready to depart.

Today also my class came to an end. For 14 days I tried my best to transfer as much information and experience as possible. Some of the routines and topics might have looked be a bit mundane but later on they will realize that safe working comes with knowledge of routines and doing it and then it will all make sense. They will now return home and then wait for their first assignment.

Holland America: Here We Come.

I will fly home as well to turn myself around and get ready for the other part of my job the On Board Team Support Officer.  Then on Monday 7 march I will fly to Italy to join the Koningsdam. Thus for a few days my blogging will stop and then I hope to dispense some interesting facts about how a new and empty ship is being manned and is getting ready (I think the Navy uses the word “worked up’) for service. We have about three weeks to get all the crew singing the same tune before the first cruise starts. A lot of crew come from the other ships and that means we have to mold S-Class, R-Class, Vista Class and Signature Class routines and service into a new Pinnacle Class operation.

Tomorrow morning we will be docked in Ft. Lauderdale around 07.30 am. and we will have the same busy day as usual.  I will be “on the blog” again in seven days.

This is cruising at its best. It is not too warm outside, courtesy of a cool north Atlantic breeze. The sun is shining and it is a following wind and thus the relative wind on deck is nothing more than a gentle breeze. I wish we could have this during every sea day. Yesterday on departure we saw flying fish around the ship, (and quite a few of them directly eaten by Black Starlings) and today the flying fish were there again but no Birds. It seems birds do not enjoy hanging around a ship with a following wind. Maybe it is too hard to fly or maneuver in the air if the wind comes from behind.

Half Moon Cay surrounded by other Bahamian Islands.

We are on the regular route in the North Atlantic Ocean and around 1700 hrs. today we were passing the Turks & Caicos Islands again. Now we will stay in open waters until early in the morning tomorrow when we sail between the various Bahama Islands and approach Half Moon Cay from the South. The  best known island in this region is San Salvador Island which is located just east of Half Moon Cay (which itself is part of Little San Salvador Island) It is one of the larger Bahamian Islands but away from the beaten track and not so easy to get to. Very famous for scuba diving due to the proximity of nice reefs and those same reefs also make it difficult for larger ships to go there.

If there was an easy way to get larger ships to the island, no doubt we would have built a pier there in the same way as on Grand Turk Island. Apart from the excellent beaches it also has the Columbus Monument. The island lays claim to fame due to the fact that Columbus discovered the New World here in 1492. If this is true I do not know because several other islands claim the same thing. For a cruise ship always a nice attraction to provide the guests with. But maybe not a place for Holland America to be as one of our previous Captains, Commodore Verhoog made a whole study about this in the 1950’s and came to the conclusion that due to the prevailing current Columbus must have landed somewhere else. And we have to believe our Captains of course so Holland America could possibly  not call somewhere where it was proven by one of its own Masters that it is the wrong island. The island has several little harbors and marinas but nearly the whole island is surrounded by an extended reef and that means a long tender service and a ship which is not sheltered by the island itself. Not good for a safe tender operation and Guest Satisfaction.

Two teams on deck, the forward one has the fire /water hose, the 2nd one the fire/foam hose.

None of the crew was bothered by all of this, as it was Fire drill time. Once a week the ship conducts, in accordance with Solas regulations, a First Emergency Response Drill. We always try to keep changing the scenario’s around to keep the interest and focus of our crew going. If you extinguish the same trash can every week then boredom tends to set in quite quickly. So today we practiced a Helicopter crash on deck. With the objectives: A. to save & protect the ship B. if possible save the people inside the helicopter.  I have been told that the new helicopters coming into service are less flammable and have better safety protection features than the ones before and thus we stand a better chance to help the occupants if something like this would happen. Thus far the helicopter pilots out there and the cruise industry have a 100% safety record and that is something to be proud about, but still we train and exercise.

Once the injured person is safely removed they are handed over to the stretcher team for transport. Here we see the team made up of Housekeeping Attendants with a Medical Officer putting our “victim” on the stretcher.

Thus we simulated a crash on the forward deck and exercised the correct approach with the objective to remove a “victim” / injured person. For that we use two teams; one with a hose with sea water and one with a hose with foam (against fuel spills). One team tries to maneuver itself in such a position that the victim can be safely removed while the 2^nd hose protects the team busy with that extraction. In the meantime there is another team a deck above who lets it “rain” foam over the crashed helicopter and a team below in case fire goes through the deck below. When the whole exercise was over there was a debriefing for lessons learned, followed by a short training to explain the whole sequence and what each and every team does, as often everybody only sees a small part of the whole evolution.

Tomorrow we will be in Half Moon Cay where we will be together with the Zuiderdam. For my school class it will be an early morning as at 05.00 hrs. the ship will conduct a General Closure of all the Fire Screen Doors in the ship. More about that tomorrow.

Because the time/distance between pilot station and docking is so short and the port layout is so simple, all the cruise ships arrive at nearly the same time. If there were traffic lights they would all be lined up behind each other waiting for their turn.  There is not a traffic light system of course  and so the port authority has to make sure the ships are scheduled in such a way that they can be handled by the pilots in the right order and that there are linesmen waiting on the dock for the ropes to come ashore.

When we arrived the Regal Princess was already docked, we came in second, followed by the Celebrity Summit and then followed as the last one of the visiting quartet, the Freedom of the Seas. This left two berths empty at the end of the East Pier. Thus in total St. Maarten can handle six ships of considerable size. In contrast to San Juan, they have the bollards better positioned here and thus little to complain about in regards to the pier. But sailors like to complain, so we will find something.  As mentioned yesterday the challenge of St. Maarten is to deal with the swell coming around the East point of the islands. This has always been an issue; hence they built the cargo port against the rocks / hill of the East point and completely out of the swell.  When the time came for constructing cruise piers there was not much lee side left anymore and now we just have to deal with it. If you are deep in or deep forward on the East pier then only your stern catches the swell a bit but the other berths can be fully exposed, depending on the angle of the swell.

Today the West pier was more exposed and both the Regal Princess and the Freedom of the Seas docked nose out so that any swell would hit the bow and the energy transferred into a pitching motion. Easier for the mooring ropes to deal with. If you dock nose, then the swell hits the stern and as that stern is squarer and blunt, the swells energy tends to be more converted into a cork screw swaying motion and mooring ropes do not like that at all.  It puts a variation of stresses on a rope and where they touch the ship it will eventually chafe through or find a weak strand among all the strands which make up a rope and it will break. The east pier was more sheltered thus Summit and NA docked nose in.

The beginning of the Pier and the entrance to Philipsburg. 1000’s of eager shoppers pass through the gates here each day.

Today we were the lucky one, with our nose all the way in and protected by the Celebrity Summit; it meant our ship was hardly riding along the pier. The Summit caught a bit of the swell with the stern, and was making more movements but not much to be concerned about.  So we all had a nice, quiet and sunny day, while at least 10,000 guests explored St. Maarten.

It is amazing what goes on, on a cruise ship, as far as training is concerned. Not just the training by the ship itself or my presence with a group of officers but what the company flies in from the outside. Last week we had a safety trainer to refresh technical skills for deck and engine and this week we had a Pest Management Specialist coming in: the cockroach guy, for his relevant training.  In the old days we used have a lot of cockroaches on the ships. The ships had a lot of real wood on board and were constructed with an eye on sturdiness and not exactly for easy cleaning options.  When I was a junior officer I was sometimes supervising the “the safari team” which was a group of sailors hunting for the bugs. Then the ships got less wood and construction also started to take into consideration “cracks and crevices”. The less of them, the less chance of having the bugs. Now the ships are vermin free but we still have the challenge to keep them off the ship. For that the relevant crew was trained this morning, Housekeeping Store rooms but also the shop ladies as they handle boxes with the shop stores coming from the shore side. Recognize what you see and what to do about it is of the utmost importance.

The German cockroach marches on board, The American Cockroach flies on board, and the bed bug hitches a ride to come on board. Important to know is where and when to expect this and half the battle is already won. Stop that from happening and you are in good shape.

On top of that we had our Hotel Director Renee Tuinman conduct an “Excellence Meeting” to help the crew to raise the level of service to an even higher level.  My team was of course present, first to soak in all the knowledge but also to understand the issues the other departments have to deal with.

I have four representatives from Holland on board, one from New Zealand and one from the UK. By handling all the mooring and anchor equipment they will get a bit routine insight of what goes on during mooring deck operations.

Soon enough it was departure time as the Nieuw Amsterdam sailed at 15.00 hrs. in order to make Half Moon Cay on time. The team is present at each mooring and unmooring and are building up more and more routine in the operation and we were there to cast off the lines.  Tomorrow will be a sea day and the weather looks good so we should have a good ride back towards Fort Lauderdale.

Our medical evacuation in Grand Turk yesterday caused a delay in departure and thus we arrived a bit later today in San Juan.  Nothing we can do about it; saving lives comes first at all times.  But the captain put the pedal to the metal and tried to make up as much of the lost time as possible. With lunch just behind us the good ship Nieuw Amsterdam sailed into San Juan under sunny skies. While it was outside quite windy, inside it was a lot better and by the time we docked it was almost windstill……. Relatively spoken as the wind was still blowing but we docked behind the Carnival Glory. That ship is bigger than the Nieuw Amsterdam and thus acted as a magnificent wind breaker. She will leave at 16.30 hrs. today but she was quite handy for our docking purposes today.

The Carnival Glory keeping us nicely out of the Easterly Trade Wind.

Today we docked at 3 West which is not our favorite dock as it only has one bollard for the stern lines which has to be shared by two ships. Why the designer and authorities did not put some extra bollards in, which would have made it possible to separate the lines of the Carnival Glory and the Nieuw Amsterdam, is anybody’s guess. Two big ships with all their stern lines on one bollard is not good practice. Today it is not much of a challenge as the wind is not too bad but on a very windy or stormy day putting all your eggs in one basket, e.g. putting all your lines on one bollard is not good seamanship.

The offending Bollard. There is more than enough room to have installed four of those on the large dolphin/platform.

However, cruise terminals are seldom designed by sailors but by shore side designers who put those “little bowling pins” where it looks pretty and aesthetically pleasing. Once the dock is opened up and the professionals arrive it is too late and we just have to live with whatever creativity has been put on display. And retro fitting is an uphill struggle which seldom comes to fruition. But enough moaning from my side for today.

The Royal Dutch Navy Frigate De Zeven Provincien docked at Pier 1 West.

Today San Juan had the pleasing presence of two Dutch ships. We had a Dutch warship in. The F802: an Air defense and Command Frigate with the very Dutch name of De Zeven Provincien. In English The Seven Provinces. A name harking back to the 16^th century when the Netherlands had only 7 counties’s or States of which Holland was the most important. It is a class of three ships with the other two named after Dutch Admirals who also in the 16^th. Century were very effective in hitting the British over the head.

The Dutch Royal Navy always has one or more ships stationed in the Caribbean as it maintains a base in Curacao. They play a very active part in trying to curtail the Drugs trade which comes out of South America and we regularly see them patrolling near the coast of Venezuela. In the same way as we see the USCG and the US navy.  I could not find what they were doing here but if they were involved in the anti-drug war, then normally San Juan is a stop on the way out or on the way home. Great for the crew; there is nearly always a dock available in downtown and then the “fleshpots of Babylon” are just across the road as my uncle would say. We always keep an eye out in case there is somebody waiting at the fantail to lower the flag in a proper greeting ceremony but nobody was on standby.” Across the road” was much more interesting I suppose.

We will stay in San Juan until 20.30 tonight, shorter than normal but then we have to go to St. Maarten this time and that is a much longer distance to travel than to St. Thomas where we dock during other cruises.  We will be arriving there at 7 am. in the morning and for all the navigators is always the big question there: what will the swell be like? The ships at the two big docks are fairly well protected against the wind but the swell tends to curve around the island and cause the ships to ride along the piers. Not good for stepping on and off the gangway and it causes mooring ropes to break.

We are expecting the Regal Princess, the Freedom of the Seas and the Celebrity Summit. According to the planning of the port we will be docking at the South pier on the North West side and that might just make it nice and sheltered as we will be lying in line as the most western ship of the four. Weather should be good, maybe a bit windy but with sunny skies and temperatures of 28oC / 83 0F.

The last cruise call at Grand Turk was a bit of a disappointment weather wise, at least for the operational side; too much wind, this week it was picture perfect.  Clear skies, gentle breeze and no swell. The only complaint we could make was, that we were not the only ship in port. Shortly after our arrival the Carnival Pride arrived. Luckily the Beach resort built together with the cruise ship pier is large enough to handle two or more big ships, thus there was no overcrowding to speak of. For a moment I was afraid that there would be three ships as the Regal Princess showed up and hovered off the dock, but they needed to land somebody and send a tender for the authorities.

Who was also very happy was the Staff Captain as he was able to lower lifeboats for training, which with the possible swell in this port is not always possible. This cruise can be very difficult in this respect, swell in Grand Turk, late arrival in San Juan, and swell in St.Maarten. It all leaves St. Thomas as the only reliable port where we seldom have issues.   Thus today the boats went down and we also drilled the life raft crew. This training was done by my school class who got their first official taste of un-aided work in front of a –very critical- audience.

A quick check on the cheat sheet in order not to forget anything and then it is time to train the newly boarded crew who will get a special “welcome instruction”

As we had worked, studied and trained for this for the last two days, it turned out not to be such a difficult thing and the regular ships officers were quite impressed. They had to learn it the hard way, as they joined Holland America before this program was in place. All went well, which was a great boost for the confidence of my trainees and at 1 pm. I had six smiling gentlemen sitting in front of me, who were quite pleased with themselves. Now it is a matter of gaining experiences and building on the initial experiences made. Hopefully they will not forget the wise lessons of this old captain who kept them busy for 14 days with all sorts of strange training and insights behind the scenes.

Spaghetti Junction. 8 ropes going ashore in Grand Turk to keep the ship alongside.

One of the most important insights to be gained takes place during the arrival and departure standbys on the mooring decks.  One of the regular duties of a 3^rd officer is to be at “stations” during arrival and departure for supervising the mooring of the vessel. The only way to get a real good insight into what exactly goes on, how to handle ropes safely and how to create an efficient team on the mooring deck is to have done it yourself.  When looking at the sailors going about their duties, it looks easy enough but once you get involved yourself your find out it is not. Basically you need eyes in the back of your head to keep a good overview. Most people only have eyes on the front, but when you start gaining experience and start to build up routine, you get a feeling, a sort of sixth sense of what is going to happen and so you – see – the situation before it occurs and can then prevent it.

Carnival “Priders” returning home.

So my guys are doing each and every arrival and departure which means getting up early every day but then they have to get used to it anyway. On departure today it gave them the chance to observe the contrast between Carnival and Holland America. Carnival with long lines at the gangway as everybody returned from the beach at the same time which took time to clear; Holland America guests all  back early but with an ambulance at the gangway for a medivac which took up our time.

Tomorrow we are at sea, heading for San Juan were we should arrive around lunch time. It should be another nice but hot day. 86oF / 30oC with high humidity.