Day 063: The Atlantic Ocean
Weather: 15ºC wind 20kts, waves 4m
Last Port: Torshavn, Faroe Islands
Next Port: New York City, USA
Status: At Sea
From the Navigator
We will continue on our transatlantic crossing throughout today maintaining a south westerly course. Transatlantic travel played a major role in the expansion of western civilization into the Americas, and the Atlantic separates the “Old World” from the “New World”. In modern times, the Atlantic is referred to as the Pond and many British people refer to the US and Canada as “across the pond”, and vice versa.
All our courses are drawn in advance on our electronic and paper charts by the ship’s navigator, an one of the main duties of the Officer of the Watch on the bridge is to make sure that the ship is following these tracks. A nautical chart is a representation on a plane of an area of a spherical surface, the Earth, for use for navigational purposes In general terms, two types of charts are produced for navigational use: Mercator charts (on which rhumb line courses appear as straight lines) and gnomonic charts (on which great circles appear as straight lines). A chart is essentially a map of sea area, showing on it any coastlines, rocks, buoys, lighthouses and other prominent features, the characteristics of all lights and depths of water. On board the ship we have over 700 paper charts covering the regions around the world where the ship is sailing.
