Work aboard the R/V Armstrong during an ADEON sea trial continues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but for individual researchers (with the exception of the Chief Scientist, who is always on call), 12 of those hours are free time. A part of this free time is, of course, spent sleeping, but are ADEON researchers doomed to suffer boredom for the rest of the day? Absolutely not! An individual’s time aboard the ship, when not on watch, can be occupied in a variety of ways; doing other work brought aboard (for example, I’m working on finishing a journal article), working out in the ship’s gym, watching movies, or playing games.

A game commonly played by those working aboard research vessels (and ships in general) is a card game known as cribbage. Created in the early 17th century, cribbage has a few characteristics that make it truly distinctive, including the cribbage board, used for score-keeping, and a feature of play known as the ‘crib’, which is a separate hand whose points go to the dealer. In cribbage there are two distinct scoring stages (the play and the show) and a unique scoring system including points for groups of cards that total 15, pairs, triples, quadruples, runs and flushes. The objective of the game is to be the first player to score 121 points. The game has relatively few rules, yet yields endless variety and suspense during play as each round of the ‘play’ phase depend on the cards you hold, which cards your opponent has played, and the cards that remain in the deck that might help the hand you hold.  Luck plays an outsized role in the outcome of cribbage, so that it is not rare for novices to beat experienced players. During ADEON Cruise 4 many, many games of cribbage will be played by a number of those aboard. Jen may even win one of those games against Tony (but probably not).

Anthony Lyons, ADEON Phase IV lead