Couldn’t think of a way to phrase the thread title that didn’t sound sound dirty
I’m writing some dialog for a scene where a marine ROV is launched from a large ship on a zoological research mission (basically a Jacques Cousteau or Life Aquatic scenario), and I need some authentic sounding background chatter for the crew as the scene plays out. The ship is a big, rusty freighter anchored near a beautiful tropical island. They’re using some sort of winch to lower the ROV, which is incongruously state of the art.
Anyone familiar with naval jargon have suggestions?
Tension on the line! Haul away! (to the ship, as it raises the submersible)
Hauling! (Response)
Cut the winch! (The Submersible is showing something on the bottom that should be inspected. Stop hauling.)
Haul away! (Okay, go back to work)
All secure! (The submersible is now properly dogged down, and the sequence is over.)
(A dog watch is a two hour watch put into the four hour watch rotation to offset things a bit. If you’ve got it, you can dog it a bit, there’s not as much work.)
I’ll help as much as I can, but I’m going to need more specifics.
Edit: Background chatter? Eh. They sound like construction workers, except for references to getting someone to swab the damn deck because it’s filthy.)
Because it is cur-tailed of course.
:D:D:D
I have just recently started to reread the series, having just finished Desolation Island. Sometimes I wish that manner of speaking had never gone out of fashion.
First of all, is it naval jargon or oceanographer jargon. There is a lot of difference. Oceanographic deployments work something like this:
Most ships have a big crane mounted across the stern called an A-frame.
There is usually also a side-winch
Usually the device is secured to the cable with a shackle, and the shackle is tightened with a lever, such as a screwdriver or marlinspike, and secured with a cable tie or mousing wire.
There is a pulley on the A-frame, and a cable that goes through it, so the A-frame can lean back and forth using hydraulics, and the winch can pull the cable up and down, and between them any device can be lifted up from the deck with the winch, the A frame can lean over the fantail (the back of the ship that the A-frame straddles) and the winch can then lower the the device into the water.
Two lines are looped through the device, usually through a rail or stanchion. One deckhand is on each side of the fantail, off to the side, keeping these lines taut. This keeps the device from swaying from side to side. They have both ends of the line, so they can keep it taut, and then drop one end of the line and pull in the other end instantly to clear the line.
Deckmaster would be the person who has control of the deployment. This might be the Bos’n, who is essentially the chief deckhand.
So some typical deployment chatter might go:
(An hour might go by as the wires and cable are checked and attached, and you can also add as much tech talk for making the laptop talk to the ROV as you could possibly want)
(Device is now dangling over the water where the turbulence from the screws would be, if the screws were turning. Ship is kept stationary with bow thrusters. at this point rather than with stern screws, but any breeze will tend to put the ship broad side to the breeze, which may mean the device will not where you want it. You want it either straight down, or paying out behind the ship. You don’t want it tangled up in the screws, cause that’s bad.)
Often a small package like an ROV would might go out over the side winch, it just depends on how the crew like to do it. Only one thing is ever in the water at a time.
Hope this helps. Give me a shout if you want to talk about this stuff any more.
