Rocking and rolling on the MV Rickmers Singapore

“Don’t worry, those ships are so big you won’t feel a thing!” Well Dad, I’m feeling every movement of this one. We are rocking and rolling our way across the Atlantic Ocean.

The MV Rickmers Singapore is a much smaller ship than our Pacific vessel, the CMA-CGM Hugo , at a mere 193 metres and 30,000 dead weight tonnage in comparison to 334m and 101,000 tdw, and boy does it make a difference.

I’m no ocean expert, but looking out from the porthole the waves look about the same as the Pacific to me. Yesterday there was a three metre swell. We got up to a five metre swell on the Hugo. So why do I feel so dizzy and queasy on this crossing?

It must be because she is a smaller ship in length and breadth and is carrying a lighter load. Indeed, there’s not a lot of cargo to see from the deck, she's only thirty percent full. The shipping industry has been hit hard by the global economic crisis. Apparently there is some ‘general cargo’ in the hold below (steel plates, machines, yachts) but I can only see some precariously lashed old wooden planks and a rusty metal tub of a river dredger from Louisiana.

In my turbulent rock and roll sleep I have had plenty of time to come to understand the finer points of the Singapore’s moves on the ocean. In my delirium I categorised these moves as follows:

The rattle: Default background movement whenever the engine is running. Causes doors and fittings to rattle continuously. Often not noticeable over the ship’s other moves. On it’s own, for example when being piloted up a river, can gently rock you to sleep as on a train.

The roll: This is the standard ship move, rocking gently from side to side. There is a sliding scale of roll, like a marine Richter scale, which requires various levels of falling-over prevention, from the wide leg stance (the higher the scale of roll, the wider the stance) to the grab (especially useful in the shower).

The rolley roll: This is a horizontal version of ‘the roll’, usually experienced in bed, and involves a whole body roll from one side to the other, often knocking into your loved one on route. Can cause sleep loss and a sore back.

The poltergeist: This occurs at the higher end of the scale of roll and can cause things to fall off shelves, cutlery and food to slide off the plate and cupboard doors to open.

The phat air: This one is more of a pitch and fall than a roll. The ship suddenly feels light, it sounds like the engine has come out of the water and that the boat is flying. It then reconnects with the water with a thud. It lurches your stomach and brain into the air at the same time, giving a momentary head-rush followed by light-headedness and nausea.

The washing machine: Is a combination off ‘the roll’ and ‘the phat air’. It starts off as a roll, then develops into a weightless phat air followed by another roll to complete a 360° revolution, taking your stomach with it and leaving you feeling all washed up.

The fact that I am able to look at words on a computer screen to write this is an vast improvement on my condition yesterday. Yesterday mainly consisted of staring at the horizon, reading a book in-between, lying down to watch a film and lining my stomach to help prevent nausea. The Atlantic forecast is peppered with STORMS (always written in capitals on the chart), which we will have to dodge. I hope today’s improvement means that I’m finding my sea legs and will be able to dance the merry MV Rickmers Singapore dance all the way to Antwerp.