by Finn
Internships. On Board we also have these, such as at home. You can choose between three different. We have provision, engineer and boatswain.
At the end of the last leg of our journey we had the chance to choose two of those three possibilities and now a few have already got the luck to take part in an internship. But not every Internship fitted in the Atlantic leg but we will still have a chance to do that later.
Since everybody should participate in the lessons, you are excused from watch for one week. So when you have your internship, on Monday you have for example school, on Tuesday internship, on Wednesday school, ….
Of course in every internship you learn something different but the main idea of them is to get a deeper understanding in a specific part of the work on board. Basically you just follow your assigned crew member but in reality you are allowed to do a lot of things by yourself.
In the engineers internship you are told how to stop and start the main engine or the generator. You also have to check the daily usage of diesel and fresh water and check the osmosis machine. Everyday the steering construction needs to get oiled and also the bilge alarm and fire extinguisher system need to be checked regulary. Something special about the engineers internship is that you have one hour a day of theory, about a topic you can choose.
In the boatswain one, it is quite similar, you do a lot with special ropes to tie things like sails, about 2 meters long ropes with an eye at one end of it, so there is a little loop. My personal job was to make a splice in the end of our mooring rope. Since the eye, which you throw over the bollard to make your ship secure, was really damaged, we had to form a new one. And for that you have to form a loop at the end and connect the ends. That works with a splice. You take a few of the smaller ropes, out of which the mooring rope is made of, and braid it into the line. It sounds very complicated and it was very complicated, but it was also very cool since we had a big part of the line which could be thrown away and a few of us could save us a little bit as a souvenir.
As provisions intern, you have to search out the ingredients for the galley. And for the following journey they had to check what we still have on board and what we have to order when we arrive in the new world. That was quite a struggle, because they have to open the under bunk and under under bunk.
Every Internship lasts at least three days and in the end we can get an official document, which we can use for example, if we want to work in boat building.
I personally can say, that an Internship on the Thor Heyerdahl is something completely different as at home, for example in an hospital, but in a positive way, because you can use your knowledge on the rest of the Journey.