Here is a post from Tom, our assistant Radio Operator.
Let's assume that the average staircase has 12 stairs. Let's also assume that the average ladder has 12 steps.
People seem to forget about them but all the time we walk the stairs. It starts when we wake up and walk up to the lounge to have a quiet cup of coffee (1 staircase ), when the cup is empty you have to bring it down again to the messroom (1 staircase) and up to the radio room (2 staircases). The first thing we do is clean the radio room and the deck, which it is on and that also means cleaning a toilet (so that's 1 staircase). When the cleaning is done, you have to fetch a new towel and bring the old one down to the laundry and back to the radio room (6 staircases). The morning job of today was putting up a new cable on the mast, we packed nicely so we didn't loose to much time going up and down and then we started our attempt to reach the highest point of the ship (another 2 staircases and 2 ladders) It wasn't so sunny as the last couple of days so the crowsnest was a welcome shelter.
We managed to lay the cable quite quickly and all that needed to be done was finishing up but first a little break with coffee in the lounge to warm up (another 2 ladders and 5 staircases).
After the break we went back up on the mast (5 staircases, 2 ladders) and finished up the cable job. Back down to the radio room to clean everything up, including bringing stuff back to the workshop (2 ladders, 6 staircases)
Time for lunch (2 staircases)
After lunch some more coffee in the lounge and back to the radio room (3 staircases). Today is a good time to start cleaning up the stuff under the bench so most work is in the radio room (sorry, no staircases in there). I had to help out the captain a bit with some small computer issues and since the captain was on the bridge I had to walk up to the bridge 3 times (total of 6 staircases).
Coffee break and back to the radio room (6 staircases).
After the break it was quite calm and I was trying to figure out what to do with the assorted cables. A good idea seemed to be to put them in the radio room store so I went down to see if there was still enough room and came back up again to pick up the spare cables (6 staircases). First I printed out an inventory of the store and got the printout on the bridge (2 staircases). Back down again with the cables, there were a lot of them so I had to make 2 trips (9 staircases). Then I went up to the galley to talk to the cook about good boxes (1 staircase) didn't have any so back down again (1 staircase) to lock everything up.
Back to the radio room (3 staircases).
5'o'clock, end of the working day, down to the lounge to have a drink with the rest of the crew (1 staircase).
Back to the radio-room to write this little piece but first my headphones to listen to some music (3 staircases).
That's it for now, I think that tonight I'll probably do another 10 staircases so let's calculate
77 staircases = 924 stairs
8 ladders = 96 steps
Now let's say that a stair is 16 cm high and a ladder 20 cm that would make a total of 16704 cm.
So today I roughly climbed a tower of 167 meters high ;)
Greetz,
Tom
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Comments
How do you find the energy for all that work, Tom? Everyone must have muscles the size of Brussels from working on that ship!
Posted by: Kieron Barnes at July 27, 2005 02:16 PM
Zo te merken gaat het dus beter met je knie! Groetjes vanuit de loods in Gent
...en een hele dikke kus van mij!!
Posted by: Brechtje at July 26, 2005 02:50 PM
Keep on climbing.
And keep on fighting the unbeatable foo, to bear the unbearable sorrow, and to reach for the unreachable star...
(Don Quichotte)
Grtz. From a sleepy head in Mechelen.
