STATION 1 OF 5
The Bridge.
Navigation, watchkeeping and the decisions made from the highest room on the ship.
The bridge is the one room from which the whole ship is sailed — and the one place aboard where the job is mostly watching. These guides start with the watch itself, then work outward: the radar picture, the stranger who climbs aboard to steer the last few miles, and the arithmetic that keeps the engine order short of full ahead.
READ AT THIS STATION
Four Hours On, Eight Hours Off
An explainer of the watchkeeping system — why the bridge is never unstaffed, how the rota divides a day at sea into six watches, and what the officer on watch is actually responsible for.
Rope and Wood Against a Moving Hull
A walk-through of the pilot boarding sequence — why a specialist joins the ship for port approaches, how the pilot ladder is rigged, and what changes on the bridge when the pilot is aboard.
What the Bridge Officer Sees in the Dark
An explainer of what a working radar display shows — targets, echoes, ARPA vectors — and why visual and electronic pictures are read together rather than one replacing the other.
Why the Engine Order Is Rarely Full Ahead
An argument-as-explanation for slow steaming — why the physics of hull resistance make modest speed reductions disproportionately efficient, and how that changes voyage planning.