Day 9 - "Would you like a beer?"
Day 9 commenced with a visit to the WUT University, who were the key partners in making this entire trip possible.
We first had a formal welcome, where we all sat in a conference room and were talked to about how both parties were grateful that the trip took place. Amongst the numerous faces, it was quite clear to spot that there was one professor from WUT who was not Chinese; indeed upon hearing him speak it was apparent that he was Welsh! This was Prof Price, originally from UoS, and a colleague of Prof Tan!
We were then taken around certain facilities, including their engine room simulator (with actual engines!), small bridge simulator, and their driving simulator. As Ship Science students, you may not think that we'd be very interested in a driving simulator, however seeing our friends attempt to drive in a manner akin to the Chinese drivers we have seen, and then end up catastrophically careering off a cliff into the unending abyss below, certainly had its appeals. Side note: I did quite well on the sim, until I approached a bend a bit of fast and hit a virtual tree, however this took around 2 minutes until this happened. James on the other hand started off and immediately drove off the road and died (virtually of course). (Side side note: that may be because I left the car in a slightly precarious position when swapping drivers).
We then had a quick look around a small museum that the University has about historical and current ships. One thing that I think Southampton could learn from this visit is that people enjoy seeing physical models. It's all very well having posters and pictures etc, but nothing quite brings an idea to life like seeing a physical representation of the real thing. In my experience with the Hydro team, I had seen photos of the original boat from every angle, but until I saw it in reality I had not grasped its size at all; and I feel that by having more models/student projects displayed on campus it will engage both students and visitors alike, and create a more fun and educational atmosphere, and help to continually remind us all why we're here.
Next we had lunch, which interestingly was a Chinese takeaway (which I did find very tasty after I'd removed the vast quantities of chillies from the noodles!). As we ate lunch we also had a demonstration of a crisis management system that the University had developed. After this, we went off to a container port, much akin to Southampton but with more ships (but each with less capacity). It was really good to see how the ships were loaded, and the way they would start from the middle, and then work their way outwards, presumably to reduce the bending stresses acting on the ship. Each ship could take around 400 containers, and would take 7 hours to load, which works out to a container every 63 seconds, which is pretty fast!
Our next stop was a shipyard, which was very close to a military base, and so we were not allowed to take any photographs. This particular shipyard was much like the previous ones, only smaller in size, probably due to the inability for the Yangtze River to accommodate particularly large vessels. We were also being followed around by shipyard employees, who would often tell us to stop and turn around, as we were getting too close to the military section.
Following this, we headed towards the river, where we had been booked on a river cruise which included dinner. The cruise ship was the typical style that you might see on the Thames, or other similar sight-seeing vessel, with the lowest deck dedicated to eating, the mid-deck was an indoor lounge, and the top deck was an exposed viewing platform. The city skyline was pretty, and had strings of LED lights attached to them. These were clearly synced to some city-wide mainframe, as they would all do the same patterns at the same time, and they would link up to form more complex patterns in the light. Some very nice photos were taken of these, and it made for a nice relaxing evening. However, the cruise itself was not very long (about half an hour), which was enough time to see the lights, but it would have been nice to have seen a greater expanse of the river.
Finally, we made our way back to the hotel, and turned in for the night. Our various quests to find the pool were rapidly becoming hindered by hotel staff being either unable to understand the word "pool", or picking up the phone whenever we tried to talk to them, and so eventually we gave up. Tomorrow we're looking forward to going to another University, and seeing the Chinese Navy submarine and surface fleet museum, something I'm particularly interested in!
Oh, and in answer to the question posed in the title:
We were then taken around certain facilities, including their engine room simulator (with actual engines!), small bridge simulator, and their driving simulator. As Ship Science students, you may not think that we'd be very interested in a driving simulator, however seeing our friends attempt to drive in a manner akin to the Chinese drivers we have seen, and then end up catastrophically careering off a cliff into the unending abyss below, certainly had its appeals. Side note: I did quite well on the sim, until I approached a bend a bit of fast and hit a virtual tree, however this took around 2 minutes until this happened. James on the other hand started off and immediately drove off the road and died (virtually of course). (Side side note: that may be because I left the car in a slightly precarious position when swapping drivers).
We then had a quick look around a small museum that the University has about historical and current ships. One thing that I think Southampton could learn from this visit is that people enjoy seeing physical models. It's all very well having posters and pictures etc, but nothing quite brings an idea to life like seeing a physical representation of the real thing. In my experience with the Hydro team, I had seen photos of the original boat from every angle, but until I saw it in reality I had not grasped its size at all; and I feel that by having more models/student projects displayed on campus it will engage both students and visitors alike, and create a more fun and educational atmosphere, and help to continually remind us all why we're here.
Next we had lunch, which interestingly was a Chinese takeaway (which I did find very tasty after I'd removed the vast quantities of chillies from the noodles!). As we ate lunch we also had a demonstration of a crisis management system that the University had developed. After this, we went off to a container port, much akin to Southampton but with more ships (but each with less capacity). It was really good to see how the ships were loaded, and the way they would start from the middle, and then work their way outwards, presumably to reduce the bending stresses acting on the ship. Each ship could take around 400 containers, and would take 7 hours to load, which works out to a container every 63 seconds, which is pretty fast!
Our next stop was a shipyard, which was very close to a military base, and so we were not allowed to take any photographs. This particular shipyard was much like the previous ones, only smaller in size, probably due to the inability for the Yangtze River to accommodate particularly large vessels. We were also being followed around by shipyard employees, who would often tell us to stop and turn around, as we were getting too close to the military section.
Following this, we headed towards the river, where we had been booked on a river cruise which included dinner. The cruise ship was the typical style that you might see on the Thames, or other similar sight-seeing vessel, with the lowest deck dedicated to eating, the mid-deck was an indoor lounge, and the top deck was an exposed viewing platform. The city skyline was pretty, and had strings of LED lights attached to them. These were clearly synced to some city-wide mainframe, as they would all do the same patterns at the same time, and they would link up to form more complex patterns in the light. Some very nice photos were taken of these, and it made for a nice relaxing evening. However, the cruise itself was not very long (about half an hour), which was enough time to see the lights, but it would have been nice to have seen a greater expanse of the river.
Finally, we made our way back to the hotel, and turned in for the night. Our various quests to find the pool were rapidly becoming hindered by hotel staff being either unable to understand the word "pool", or picking up the phone whenever we tried to talk to them, and so eventually we gave up. Tomorrow we're looking forward to going to another University, and seeing the Chinese Navy submarine and surface fleet museum, something I'm particularly interested in!
Oh, and in answer to the question posed in the title:
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