Floating High on Tuborg

I'm currently working on a ship which is in a floating drydock in Denmark.

I don't ever remember seeing one of these floating drydocks on the inland waterways, presumably because they need quite a lot of water depth.

In essence, you float the ship above a larger "U" shaped compartmentalised vessel, called a floating drydock, which has already had its compartments flooded with water and partially sunk.

The floating drydock then has all the water pumped out of its ballast tanks, so it starts to become buoyant and rises.

The lifting action then raises the ship out of the water, literally, high and dry, so that it may be worked upon.

The advantage of floating drydocks is that they can be moved to where they are needed and don't need large amounts of earth to be dug out, so are advantageous if land is scarce.

 The ship is largely reliant on shore power and umbilicals for fresh water and waste.

As the engine and generators are raw water cooled, it's not possible to generate all our own power, although we can run the smallest auxiliary generator by using sea water cycled through the fire hose.

 As I've said before, life occurs in cycles and often has repetition and subtle links to it's past.

It doesn't seem that long ago, that we were cruising the Nene and passed the Carlsberg brewery at Northampton.

Today, Tuborg, who are part of the Carlsberg group,  officially release their Julebryg or Tuborg Christmas Brew.

Its supposed to be released on the first Friday in November, but in actual fact, it was released this year on Friday 30th October.

This is known as J-day and is usually the source of much rejoicing in Denmark.

Normally, as part of the promotion, the first "pint" is usually free in most hostelries.

The beer is only available for 6 weeks each year and is a strong Pilsner (5.6%).

For the beer aficionados out there, Tuborg Julebryg is a bottom-fermented, wiener beer brewed on lager, münchener and caramel malt with English liquorice.

The beer is dark-golden with a fresh aroma of caramel, grain, liquorice and blackcurrant.

There, I'm glad I got that out of my system.