Is it really so nice to be a Jakob (Charlie watch officer)?

Date: 13.04.2024
Geographical Position: 47°42.6′ N 011°36.8′ W
Etmal: 182 nm
Total: 11533
Ship: Regina Maris

Right now, we are in the middle of the handover, where some students who went through an application process have taken over jobs like project leader or nautical crew. Thus, there is also a watch officer, which is the job which I have and I am going to tell you about.

The schedule of the officer

My day started at 04:30 in the morning when I got woken up by the Bravo Watch. I’m an officer of the Charlie watch which goes from 5:00 to 9:00 in the morning as well in the evening.

In my opinion this is the best watch of all watches because it has all the sunrises and sunsets, which are always beautiful to look at. On top of that, I really enjoy the sleeping rhythm you get through the watch because you don’t have to stay awake until 01:00 or stand up then for doing watch until 05:00. You can simply go to bed at 21:00 in the evening and then you have to stay up at 05:00 in the morning, which means you can get seven hours of sleep at night easily.

What a day in the life looks like…

When I am awake, I go up on watch and do the watch handover with the Bravo officer (Mattis). This means the Bravo officer tells me all the important, special or funny things that happened during his watch in addition to all recent developments about sails and the engine room.

Last but not least, we have created a handover tradition which means that we play one round of „bowmasters“ on the board iPad between each other. When this round is completed, the watch handover is officially done and the Bravo Watch can go back to bed.

When my watch is happening, I have responsibility of everything that is happening. I decide which sails get set, which course we steer, analyse the traffic that is around, which weather we will see and much more. In total it’s a very nice job to have, being the Charlie officer.

Greetings:

Julius: I’m looking forward seeing you soon.

Leo: Viele Grüße und bis in einer Woche!