NavList:

All showed what one might call a polite interest, the Chief Mate remarking with a smile that I would be able to help out if the GPS failed and that he could scarcely remember how to use a sextant. The Second Officer frequently asked how I was getting on and asked me to demonstrate the sextant to the Third Officer, a Filipino aged 27. He also rummaged in a cupboard to find me a brand new Freiberger Trommelsextant (one of two) that had never been used. Interestingly, I had an error of over 90 seconds at one point of the arc, something that not too many years ago would not have allowed it to leave the factory.

All were happy to explain the ship's progress and working to me, but only the Captain's English was up to a sustained detailed conversation. I believe all were familiar in theory at least with the concept of the navigational triangle.

The Chief Mate seemed to be kept quite busy calculating unloading and loadings in advance, with the aid of a standard computer program and with ship's maintenance, and all were very computer literate, compared to me. As I mentioned, all were involved in crawling under desks to get at bits of the malfunctioning GPS unit (or maybe it was one of the radars).

Bill.
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