Life Aboard: Fire Drills, Pizza Buns and 360s

The day started at 03:30—it was time for watch. The strange thing was that, since we had recently changed the watch schedule, it didn’t feel like morning, but more like the afternoon. Anyway, we began our watch with a climb around the rig to get more comfortable with the heights. When we came down from the rig at around 05:00, we had pizza buns and fruit.

The rest of the watch was filled with the usual duties, like washing the deck and checking the sails. We also took some time to prepare and discuss things to bring up at the ship meeting. We decided that we wanted the temperature in the student area to be lowered, and we definitely wanted more fruit at every meal!

After our watch, it was time for breakfast. Since it was Sunday, we were treated to eggs and bacon in addition to the usual porridge and yogurt. After breakfast, I decided to get some extra sleep. Luckily, being Sunday, we didn’t have any lessons, so I managed to get six hours of rest.

Funny enough, what woke me from my midday nap wasn’t my phone alarm or a friend, but a fire drill. I jumped out of bed and got dressed quickly. These drills are mandatory every now and then so that everyone knows what to do in case of a real fire onboard. During the drill, we were supposed to get the backup water pump running, it didn’t really work. The reason is that the pump draws water directly from the sea, and if the ship is moving, it tends to suck in air instead of water.

After the drill, it was time for the ship meeting. We received both positive and negative feedback, which I thought was really helpful. One of the things we had asked for in the previous meeting was more variety in the vegetarian food, and we actually got it—which felt great. It's nice to know that the command listens to us.

After the meeting, I changed clothes and went back on watch. About an hour in, the wind completely died. So we started taking down the sails to switch over to the main engine. It was actually really fun to tuck the sails away up in the rig, and we did it well, which felt good.

But since the wind had stopped, the boat had also stopped—and when the boat isn’t moving, you can’t steer it. We started turning uncontrollably to the right, and after the boat had turned 180 degrees, the wind picked up again. Because we were turned around, we started moving backward. Eventually, we got the engine running and turned the boat back another 180 degrees. In total, we had done a full 360-degree circle.

After the watch, some of us went straight to bed, while the rest of us stayed up a little longer to play some guitar before finally heading to bed again—even though it already felt like morning.

Alfred Jägresvärd, Portside