November 2 Noontime Position: Lat 46deg 57,9 N; Long 148deg 10,4 W
(Still) Over the Tufts Abyssal Plain

We changed time zones last night, moving our clocks back one hour. This was the first of eight consecutive days of “one hour retards” we will have on our way to Busan. As we will be crossing the International Date Line, November 7th is not scheduled to exist.

The elements are truly against us. We’re laboring counter to the North Pacific Current, as well as winds upwards of Force 11. Our speed has been cut, and the ship is pitching up and down even more strongly than before. The bow rises and plunges into huge waves, making the hull shudder and spraying white water high and wide over the deck. At breakfast, the Chief Engineer regaled me with news that on average one merchant vessel disappears without a trace every week due to freak waves. I thank him for this cheery piece of trivia I’ll have to live with for another two weeks.

The “Hanjin Copenhagen” is essentially a big steel shoebox 278m long x 40m wide x 50m tall. Pushing this mass over the water is one monstrous 74,700 horsepower engine cranking a propeller with an 8m diameter. This morning I went deep down into the engine room to have a look. On many levels, it was probably one of the most useless educational experiences of my life. Let me elaborate.

First of all, mechanical knowledge is not my strong suit. It still takes me a shamefully long time to make even simple bike repairs (if I can do them at all). Put me in a vast hold containing assorted tanks, pipes, pistons and gauges and I’m quickly out of my depth. Second, the Chief Engineer explained all this in German, a language I know but don’t often use. Even if he had done the tour in English, I still wouldn’t recognize a “ballast stripping eductor” or an “anti-heeling pump” if they were giving me a lap dance.

Finally, and most important, was the acoustic assault. From 10 stories above, the engine noise is a dull rumble. Below deck it turns into the piercing screech of a million hairdryers set on “high”. We put on sound dampening ear coverings to do the tour, and in this hearing-impaired state I tried vainly to grasp German technical explanations. I nodded sagely as the Chief proudly presented a set of valves, and pantomimed understanding as he gestured towards a row of boilers and said something profoundly undecipherable.

The one thing I did get: I couldn’t stand being more than 15 minutes in that sonic Hades. The engineers, electricians, oilers and mechanics spend their entire workday there.

Nov. 1  Noontime Position Lat 47deg 40,3 N, Long 137deg 42,7 W
Over the Tufts Abyssal Plain

What’s rocking my world these days is water, and lots of it. The Hanjin Copenhagen is large (about half as long as the CN tower is tall), but it’s also crossing the Pacific Ocean, which makes up 40 per cent of the planet’s surface.* The ocean floor is thousands of metres below us, and the wind has been blowing head-on  unimpeded for thousands of kilometres. Which means it’s relatively rough out here, even on a big ship. We have been in Beaufort 10 seas (on a scale of 12), described as a “Storm” in the Marine Observer’s Guide on the bridge deck:

“Very high waves, with long overhanging crests; the resulting foam, in great patches, is blown in dense white streaks along the direction of the wind; on the whole, the surface of the sea takes a white appearance; the tumbling of the sea becomes heavy and shock-like; visibility affected.”

I had my safety orientation with the 2nd Officer yesterday. I was made to watch a video presentation (emergency procedures, etcetera, with a jaunty jazz piano soundtrack). Then we walked around the ship and he showed me various flares, beacons, life rafts, personal flotation devices, as well as the muster station. Rather sensibly, the dispensary is right across from the so-called drinking store. As I now understand it, my role in any emergency is to go to the bridge and then stay out of the way. The deck tour, in near gale conditions, confirmed that I won’t be doing any real running around the ship. The deck surface may be flat, but the sea is not. I don’t intend my last triathlon to be a run-swim-die.

Today I stepped outside for a bit to experience those winds. Hooo-eeee! Small children and dogs wouldn’t have been safe. I had to have both hands on the railing to keep from getting knocked down. Even breathing into the wind was very difficult. I managed to avoid seasickness until lunchtime. The Steward brought me a big breaded pork cutlet and I had to excuse myself. A hearty heave-ho in the cabin, a lie-down, and all is good now. Presently, it’s calmer but we still all stumble a bit walking around. It’s the same sort of motion as you get on a plane going through turbulence, but dampened by the ship’s size. In the shower this morning, it was neat watching the water sloshing back and forth before it went down the drain. You put a pen on the desk, and it rolls around.

We have altered our course southward to avoid more severe weather (a nasty-looking red circle on the forecast printout), which means we’ll be going into the yellow/orange blob instead over the next few days. This entails covering a greater distance towards Busan, Korea (our next destination), but less wear and tear on the vessel. The steel hull flexes as waves crash into the hull, and that’s a good thing too! Otherwise we could end up with our bow and stern on wave crests with nothing to support us in between. Trough to crest, wave height is upwards of 14m.

*Fact checkers can correct me on this and other figures throughout. I don’t have access to Wikipedia.