The Bridge

I just returned from my Bridge Tour! One of the crew members, who is Romanian, led us to the bridge- I took lots of pictures so I will post some later. The MV Explorer was built in Germany and can go a top speed of 30.5 knots. It is classified as a small passenger ship. I forget the exact dimensions. Most new passenger ships have been built with a lot more speed- but he was saying that is unnecessary for us because we can only arrive at each port at the exact time we’re scheduled to. Usually 0800. If we arrived early because we went at a higher speed, we’d have to do circles in port. There are two big Captain’s chairs and lots of technology: A GPS system and a cool electronic map and lots of buttons and lights. Very high tech explanation, I know. He told us about the bow thruster and I think he said they were currently filling the ballasts with sea water to offset the loss of fuel. They have lots of flags too- all the flags for semaphore as well as many countries’ flags- probably just the ones we are going to. I got to sit in the Captain’s chair!
So Dad- I don’t think I’ll get to visit the engine room but the Bridge sure was cool. Beautiful view! They have lots of pairs of binoculars in there too. We asked him about some of the rumors that have been flying around- particularly about the pirates. Near Malaysia (I think) there are “pirates” with fast boats who tend to target slow cargo ships (more economical and easy targets than a passenger ship). The rumor had it that crew members stay on “pirate watch” 24/7 and that students can sign up for a shift. Unfortunately, untrue. There was no one ‘driving’ the boat while we were there and some kid asked if it was on autopilot. The Romanian responded, “No, the force is driving the ship.... of course we’re on autopilot!” We are also only using one of four engines right now so they have to constantly adjust the starboard propeller (something like that) so we don’t go in circles. So that was a fun experience!