I was Born to Drink

Water, we mean water from mountain waterfalls…

This weekend we shared a lot of laughs and fun adventures. We started it off with a very tasty seafood dinner in Opatija with Ms. Duletic and Mrs. Bozanić. This fueled our four-hour drive down the spectacularly rugged Kvarner coastline to the Dalmatian town of Zadar, where we explored the local cuisine, watched the sun set over the Adriatic, and dipped our toes into hostel life.

On Sunday, we went from Zadar to Paklenica National Park, where we climbed 800 meters through scree fields and over boulders (turns out it is possible to do a mountaineering route without a climbing harness) to take in a breathtaking view of rural Croatia and the islands.  

Filled with awe (and Mortadella sandwiches) we made our way down the mountain and took a brief detour to fill our water bottles in a local waterfall.

We love traveling, but work is our main occupation while here. Jack wakes up first (around 0615) and Ian gets up around 0630. Jackson is always the last awake (he is not a morning person). Workdays are eight hours long, with a half-hour lunch break that’s invariably filled with fun conversations with our coworkers. Everybody in the office is close, and there’s a real sense of community that comes alive during mealtimes. After work, we usually must cook dinner, write emails, and plan excursions. We have also instituted a shower schedule to ensure most of us get hot water!

As we are now a week and a half into our work we are finally starting to settle into our tasks. We were all assigned to assist on the Design, Hydro and sales support team. This department is primarily responsible for proof of concept, initial vessel design, and engineering calculations. We were each assigned our own mentor from this team to whom we will report, and we were each given primary projects to be working on over the winter.

·       Ian: Analysis and processing of weight study data for various types of ships to aid in initial vessel design

·       Jack: Capacity calculations for initial vessel design and perform a comparison of Maxsurf vs GHS for stability calculations

·       Jackson: Initial vessel design of a 55ft planing pilot boat: hull form definition, power and speed prediction, propulsion, and hydrostatic calculations

In addition to these projects we are being introduced to ShipConstructor (an AutoCAD program widely used for design and analysis in this office) and supporting additional ongoing tasks on which the team is working. Most recently we have all been tasked with improving structural weight prediction in initial vessel design. The entire office has been wonderful about making themselves available for any and all questions and providing us with continuous support. Huge thank you to Metal Shark Croatia!

Shout out to Daria for providing us with the best travel info (and food) anyone could provide

Shout out to the German couple that broke down our hostel door

Shout out to the waiter putting rocks on our plates????

Shout out to Dražen for turning us on to the Croatian hamburgers