Today I had my whaleboat qual (short for qualification). We’re tested on the boat and line handling procedures we’ve been learning for the past couple of weeks, on a points system for various stages of the operation.
The procedure was the same as it’s been while we’ve been practicing - undocking, maneuvering outboard of the Enterprise, making an approach, and docking again. This time, however, we were making a starboard landing (starboard side of the boat against the dock) instead of a port landing, which was how we’d been practicing.
Today in Basic Seamanship Lab we had our first experience training in the motor whaleboats. For those of you unfamiliar with motor whaleboats, here’s a picture of one very similar to the ones we have here at the Academy:
Part of Basic Seamanship involves small boat handling, so we use the motor whaleboats to learn line handling and boat maneuvering. Today made it particularly interesting for our first time out, since we were fighting very strong crosswinds while docking, and driving rain.
