R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
01-July-13, Vigo, Spain
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: Working in Port
Hello again everyone. Well, we have been back at port for nearly a week now and we are still working on getting the engine fixed. We still don’t have a sail date, but it looks as if it will be sometime next week at the earliest. Even though we are in port, that does not mean we have time off. Oh no, we have a lot of work to be done.
For the first two days, we were still on regular shifts and so my work time was midnight to noon. For these two days, I worked on the guns with Carlos, Bern, and Robbie. During the first night, Carlos and I were tasked with looking at the shackles on all 40 guns, which means 80 shackles in total, and ensuring that they were in good condition. If we found one that wasn’t, we had to change the shackle and the bolt. This is no easy feat as the guns weigh anywhere from 80 to 100 lbs. In order to lift them up so that we could remove the shackles, we used a chain lift, wrapped it around the guns and hand cranked the gun upwards until enough stress was taken off of the shackle and chain. Once this was done, we could then remove the shackle and bolt and put new ones on. In all, we replaced about 20 shackles.
When we came to the last gun and were nearly done with changing the shackle, we noticed that the gun was not built correctly. So, we had to take the gun off and rebuilt it. Carlos, decided to let me try my luck at rebuilding the gun without him taking the lead. It was a bit nerve racking to build a gun correctly when I had only seen a gun for the first time a few weeks back. But with Carlos as my teacher I remembered a lot of the tricks he showed me and was soon able to finish the gun. I did, of course, make some mistakes, but Carlos was there to help me fix them and to give me pointers on how to make things easier.
The next day Bern, Robbie and I worked on checking the gun umbilicals. These are the cables that connect the guns to the boat through which goes air and the commands to fire. In order to check them though, I had to climb into the reels and disconnect two cables. The reels are about 2 feet wide inside and have a diameter of 5 feet. It was pretty cramped inside. Soon though, I got used to the confinement and was able to quickly and easily disconnect the cables. Once I had disconnected them though, I had to wait for Bern and Robbie to check the cables. The hole to climb in was quite small and so I stayed put inside the reel. One time though, Robbie and Bern encountered some problems and so I was in there for about 45 minutes. It didn’t seem that long to me though since I had accidentally fallen asleep waiting for them to radio me my instructions.
After the second day at port, we went on regular shifts meaning everyone works from 7:00 to 16:30. I like these shifts better as I can now eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and don’t have left overs for my dinner. Since we went on day shifts, we have been attempting to reorganize the boat. My job, along with the gun mechanics, is to organize all of the cables used for the guns. They were currently in a shelving unit, but we had to remove it and move it to another lab and so we had to make our own shelf or cable holder. We discussed ideas about what we could do and we soon started to work. To my surprise, it was my idea that they decided to use. It should be done fairly soon and we will see how well my design works.
Well, that is all that is going on with me. It does look like the cruise will be extended however I will not be able to continue if it is extended as I have other work lined up. I will stay as long as I can and I hope that the engine gets fixed soon. Take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off –