Shakedown cruise
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship's crew with operation of the craft.
In the travel industry a shakedown cruise is undertaken to test a ship's systems, both mechanical and human. These test cruises are sometimes made with passengers traveling at a discount.
The term can also refer in a generic sense to the process of testing out any new technology or systems.
[edit] Trivia
- After a shakedown cruise to Puerto Rico and back, the USS Somers sailed out of New York harbor on 13 September 1842 bound for the Atlantic coast of Africa with dispatches for the frigate Vandalia. On this voyage, the ship was acting as an experimental schoolship for naval apprentices. The Somers was a brig in the United States Navy during the Mexican-American War, and became infamous for being the only U.S. Navy ship to undergo a mutiny which lead to executions.
- The USS Triton, a nuclear-powered radar picket submarine, was the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation while on its shakedown cruise in early 1960. Triton is the only U.S. Navy ship to receive a Presidential Unit Citation for its shakedown cruise.
- Rocker Jay Ferguson composed and released a single in 1979 entitled "Shakedown Cruise," which narrates a particularly trying series of events for a bedraggled sailor. Guitarist Joe Walsh plays lead guitar on the track.
- A 2005 film entitled Apollo 7: Shakedown Cruise details the Apollo 7 mission, which marked several firsts in the American space program. It was the first manned Apollo mission to be successfully launched and also the first three-man operation.
