Tending Moorings In New Jersey

Half of the Vessel ops senior class took a trip to the shipyard marina in New Jersey to help the marina move a mooring. It was really nice to see everyone working together to get the task done. Some kids were attaching the mooring to the crane, while another student was steering. Some were on bow watch and another student was working the crane. Communication is really important in such a delicate procedure. A lot of things could have gone wrong: we could crash into the walls that surrounded the mooring, we could have lifted the mooring too fast and hurt some of our classmates---but we didn't.

I was surprised when the mooring came out of the water because it was so big. It had looked smaller in the water! It was impressive to me that Privateer was able to get a mooring that large out of the water! The mooring, aside from being huge, was covered with Algae and pretty gross. We are able to get tasks like these done and help people because we have a buoy tender A-frame that can lift 4000 pounds. People are able to reach out to Harbor School for help with work because of this. It's pretty cool.

Some definitions to help out:

A-frame—The type of crane on Privateer (named for the shape)

Mooring—Helps secure a vessel in place

Algae—A type of protist that lives in the water

Bow Watch—A job on a boat where you must inform the helmsman of any vessels approaching the vessel