I'd first sailed on 'Caledonian Sky' in 2015, on a cruise titled 'From the Coral Sea to the South China Sea' which gave rise to a series of posts labelled 'Caledonian Sky’.
Clicking here displays all these posts in reverse date-of-posting order.The post here describes itself as "more than you wanted to know about the ship", but note that I don't know what changes may have occurred during the subsequent refit of the ship. Another post from that cruise here describes various visits to the bridge and one visit to the Engine Control Room during that trip.
A visit to the Engine Control Room of 'Caledonian Sky' in 2015.
During my second cruise on 'Caledonian Sky' in 2020, there was still an 'Open Bridge' policy, and I made three visits. On 15th February, we were on our way to the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu.
On autopilot, heading for Tanna, on 15-Feb-2020 ('Caledonian Sky' Bridge 2020)
When I returned to the bridge on 24th February, we were heading for Rabaul on East New Britain (part of Papua New Guinea).
ECDIS screen as we head through St. Georges Channel heading for Rabaul ('Caledonian Sky' Bridge 2020).
My last visit was on 26th February, as we made our way towards Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). As usual, we were on autopilot, with a least one person keeping watch. Suddenly, the calm was broken by three different electronic alarms wailing. I tucked myself in a corner of the bridge, hoping they wouldn't decide to clear the bridge. First, they silenced the noisy alarms. Then, I noticed that the 'swish' of the air conditioning had ceased and that certain indicators had gone blank, so I assumed some sort of power failure.
"Some of the indicators had gone blank" 'Caledonian Sky' Bridge 2020.
There were a few telephone calls and other crew members arrived, including the Captain but the usual air of studied calm continued. The only real change was that one of the crew moved to the Anschutz autopilot console and controlled the small 'conning wheel' whilst carefully studying the heading display so I assumed we were temporarily under manual control.
'Caledonian Sky' Bridge 2020 with the ship being steered manually from the Anschutz autopilot console on the right.
After a few minutes of murmured conversation and more phone calls, we were clearly back on autopilot and the crew member abandoned his position by the 'conning wheel'. The air conditioning restarted and the Captain retired to his cabin, a few yards away. The incident was over.
My pictures
'Caledonian Sky' Bridge (2015).
'Caledonian Sky' Bridge 2020.
Engine Control Room, 'Caledonian Sky' (2015).
