Today marks one week before my departure for Anchorage and then the Arctic. Because I will be on a ship for six weeks, I have been learning about ship terms. I will share a few here.
What About Knots?
A knot is a unit of speed, and a nautical mile is used to measure distance. One nautical mile is based on Earth's circumference, and is equal to one minute of latitude. One nautical mile is equal to about 1.1508 statute miles. (oceanservice.noaa.gov) A statute mile is the unit we think about when measuring long distances in the US. One knot is equivalent to one nautical mile/hour, or about 1.1508 statute miles/hour. If using the metric system, 1 knot is equal to 1.852 kilometers/hour.
As a unit of speed, the term "knot" may be traced back to early ship travel when a rope with a piece of wood on one end, and evenly spaced knots in the rope, was released from the back of a ship. The rope and wood were allowed to float behind the ship for a specific period of time. Afterward, the rope was hauled in and the knots counted. This provided x number of knots in a given time, and was used as a measure of the ship's speed. For a more comprehensive explanation of knots, you may wish to visit oceanservice.noaa.gov.
Making My Way Around
Left and right sides of the ship are designated as port and starboard, respectively. When on the ship, facing the bow (front), port will be on the left and starboard will be on the right. Starboard has its origins in the steering oar side (because most sailors were right handed the steering oar was located on the right side) and became a shortened form of the Old English terms "steor" and "bord". This meant the other side of the ship faced port and the porters who loaded and unloaded supplies; hence the left side. (oceanservice.noaa.gov)
Photo from http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/port-starboard.html
My "berth" refers to the bunk in which I will sleep, located in a stateroom, and a ship bathroom is referred to as a "head".
The main deck on the USCGC Healy is labeled as "Deck 1", and decks below the main deck are given consecutive numbers; i.e. 2, 3, 4. Decks above the main deck have a prefix of "zero"; i.e. the bridge is 05 and one deck above the main deck is 01 (iceflow.net/healy). The bridge is the location from which the ship is commanded.
I will have lots of opportunities to practice my new vocabulary terms during my time aboard the USCGC Healy, and I'm looking forward to learning more about the Healy, its crew, and the research team!
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