News: WA Bulletin 2012/02 Saturday 4th February 2012

WA Bulletin 2012/02 Saturday 4th February 2012

• Contents : Membership Lists; New North America Branch; First meeting of WA Kent Group; Costa Concordia; All Hands 2011/3; Subscriptions; Website Usage; Website Tips.
• Broken website links: Should you come across any website links which do not work please notify me by email >> Chris Clarke
• To use the links below, first login then press the Ctrl key on your keyboard whilst you click the link in this bulletin.
• Thumbnail pictures: double click on the picture which will cause it to load up full size in another window.
• Please read "Website Tips" at the bottom of this bulletin and if in difficulty go to the online Help Forum.

Annual Membership Directory

In December 2008 the total number of WA members worldwide was 217. The number of WA members today is now 460!

This link >> New members will take you to a page where you can download the following:

• 2012 List of Members in alphabetical name seqence.
• 2012 List of Members in alphabetical country sequence.
• Annual lists of joiners since 2008.

New North America Branch

Jim MacIntyre has been busy setting up and signing up members (existing and new) for our newly authorised North America Branch which currently has a total of 38 members in Canada and the USA. Yet another great effort by Jim. More news about this exciting development in future bulletins ……….

First Meeting of WA Kent Group

Alan Jordan has done a fantastic job organising the new WA Kent Group. The group's first meeting at The Red Lion, Lenham, Kent on Saturday 21st January was very well attended including wives of several members. I hope to have a report for the next bulletin.

These Grup meetings are entirely informal e.g. pub lunches. If you are keen to begin a similar goup in your locality (city, county/ cross-county) please let our Secretary John John Turner or any other Executive (or Branch) Committee Member know.

Costa Concordia

There has been great shock and sadness around the world at the tragic grounding andoss of life aboard the 114,000 tons cruise liner Costa Concordia. Media reports suggests an inexplicable disregard for safe navigation which went against all we learned as a ship's officers. The golden rule I recall was 'Never closer to danger than 2 miles'. But 300 metres? It beggars belief that an experienced Master or watchkeeping officer could contemplate such a thing.

This link to our website >> Costa Concordia Grounding contains a fascinating downloadble pdf file illustrating the cruise liner's grounding, including the track taken.

This link >> Costa Conordia AIS data to the Navicom Dynamics website displays a moving reconstruction of the event based on the actual live AIS data recorded in real-time.

The following explanation of the reconstruction was kindly provided by Anthony Ireland who knows far more about such matters than I do. After leaving Warsash as a cadet in 1960 Anthony sailed with Clan Line, Union Castle and B & C, eventually retiring as a Gibraltar pilot in 2006.

"Click on the link below to watch a fascinating and accurate picture of the actual track of Costa Concordia as it approached Point di Castellari about 20:35. You can see that they were steering directly toward Giglio Island at 15.5 knots. As they neared the point, the ship began to execute a nearly 60 degree turn to the north. Although the Rate of Turn (ROT) data did not seem to be working, it is interesting to watch the turn develop, at the last minute, apparently with hard over helm that caused a significant "advance" toward the rocks on the Point. (Advance is the track a ship continues to maintain sideways when a hard turn is executed. ((A skid)) It is exacerbated by full rudder and a high rate of speed). After striking the rocks, the ship continued to lose speed until it seemed to be almost dead in the water just north of its final resting place. It appears that there was some power available to make an almost 180 degree turn and slowly thrust the vessel sideways toward the beach, possibly aided by wind or current. Note the differences between the compass heading (HDG) and the Course Over Ground (COG).

This data was obtained from the Concordia's AIS transmitter, a device required to be carried on all large ships, that transmits the vessel's position, as determined by GPS, to other vessels and shore monitors by means of VHF radio. The abbreviated data shown in the square box is just a small part of all the information that is available. The position data can be plotted on a navigation chart showing time intervals as seen here in the picture.

A sad story indeed. You may draw you own conclusions about what happened."

New Gallery photos

Brian Cox (1955) has provided 14 photos which will stir memories of the life of cadet's at Warsash in the 1950s. Go to his named sub-gallery.

• >> Warsash courses > Member's own photos > CoxB55.

Jerry Holgate (1971) has added more photos taken aboard the vessels he sailed on in the 1970s. You'll find them in the following sub-galleries:

• >> Life at sea > Shipping Companies > Denholm Ship Management Ltd
• >> Life at sea > Shipping Companies > British and Commonwealth
• >> Member's own photos > HolgateJ71;
• >> Life at sea > Port and dock scenes.

All Hands

The latest edition of our journal is on the website for you to download here >> All Hands (2011/3); printed copies were mailed just after Christmas.

If you would like to change your preference to an online version instead of a printed copy all you need do is to set the All Hands indicator in your website Profile to zero. This saves printing and postage costs, which increased considerably in 2011. The benefits for members are a) all internal pictures, not just the cover pictures, are in colour, and b) it is available online earlier than posted copies.

To read how to set the indicator go to sub-forum >> Member's Profile then load the Topic Profile - opt for online or printed All Hands. Anyone belonging to our Australian or New Zealand Branches choosing to rely on the online copy please also let Neil Martin (Australia) and Darrell Daish (New Zealand) know.

Reminder to change your annual subscription Bankers Orders

The Membership Secretary Reg Becourt reports that some members have still not yet set up a new bankers' order to pay their £15 annual subscription from 1st January of each year. If you have not yet got around to doing this please will you do so at your very earliest convenience. WA and Branch committees ratified this change at their AGMs in the autumn.

Reg Belcourt has explained the 2012 fee increase in a letter and two forms (see below). You can download these documents via the following links if required. Except for the Australian Branch, the New Zealand Branch and those living in North America where payment is handled seperately, if you have not yet done so please complete and return the forms as soon as possible to the WA Membership Secretary whose address is on the letter.

Letter 17 September	From WA Membership Secretary
Bankers (standing) Order form	Complete and send to your bank
Confirmation of Standing Order	Sign and post to Membership Secretary

Website usage

• The average daily number of unique visitors to the website in January was 105 (115 in December).
• The Warsash Association website now contains: 4,131 names, 163 News articles, 27 Events to date, 14,444 photos in 248 Galleries and 2,575 Forum posts
• Website uptime in the month of January 2012 was 100% (independantly monitored). There were no outages of the host server (computer) in the month.

	2012 Monthly Average Number of Website Visitors YTD

Kind regards,

Chris Clarke (1959)

Website Tips

Your first actions after logging in:

• List recent messages and photos created on the website using the function "View" in the top right corner of your screen.
• Click on "View - Posts since last visit".
• Click on "View - All photos last 4 weeks".

Lost your password?

• Generate your own new secure password via the website click "About this website/ Unable to login?" in the drop-down menu.
• This will email to you a link to change your email address and then another email to let you know the new password which has been generated.
• Remember - passwords are case sensitive.

Gallery hints:

• The pictures you see in the galleries are only thumbnails. Hover your cursor over the thumbnail and the caption appears.
• Click on the photo and it'll load up full size showing the caption and ID (Username) of member who uploaded it. Click Username and the member's profile loads up.

Step by step website instructions

• Click here >> Forum Home then place your cursor on the forum "Help".
• Lessons from the "Help" forum are sent out periodically from the website.

Maintaining your own personal details

You will recall our website is what's known as an 'interactive' site, which allows members to create and maintain their own content e.g. personal details, Forum messages, Gallery photos. As an organisation with 440 members worldwide run solely by a handful of volunteers it is important that online members maintain their own personal details.

Each of us from time to time will change our home and email addresses. To help our Membership Secretaries, if you are able to please keep your personal details on the website up to date. Instructions are in the Forum (hover over the 'Help' link and select 'Member's Profile'). If not please remember to let the WA Membership Secretary or Branch Membership Secretary know whenever your details change.

Several email addresses have recently 'bounced' which means those members will not receive website bulletins and other information until they are corrected. Please always keep your email address in particular up to date on the website. If you have any difficulty let me know at wawebmast@warsashassociation.net and I will help you.