Duties and amusement on night watch?

[AntarcticPilot]

I don't think the difference is time, but money. Sounds like you are from the private sector, and oil and gas related, where money and people are no object. Antarcticpilot, i am guessing, and myself are from the research scientific sector where we are limited by funds. We ran a 68m RV with sometimes just 5 scientists, unless we could cram it with students.

No, I was then working in the commercial sector, in about 1974. I forget the exact parameters of the rig, but it was a DFS 4 recording set up with 24 or (I think) 48 channels. Navigation was a Motorola NavSat system - for those used to hand-help GPS, it was the size of a filing cabinet, and acheived the almost miraculous accuracy of 50m! The recording system took up all of one side of the room, and recorded on 1600 bpi magnetic tape - which needed changing every 5 minutes or less! Not a good job when you were feeling pretty seasick.