Friday 29 October 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Friday 29 October 2010 בס"ד

Woke up at 0330, and was assigned wakeups and final shipcheck. First hour was quiet, and we discussed the Mr. Noodle flavoring packet thief, who opened up the instant noodle packets but only took out the flavor packets. Second hour, we unlashed the deck in preparation for a good thorough deckwash. We caught a wahoo and a mahi, and then did a deckwash with soap, galley wakeups, and soogie. Then I went aloft with others to cut the mainsl robands and nip the sail and then we took down the mainsl in its gear so that it could be swapped with the foresl so that the foresl could be repaired. I was taken off of wake ups so that I could do this, since I'm an aloft-goer. Back on deck, I attached the clew, tack, and sheet shackles to each other and moused them with twine so the lines could go back in place without an actual sail. Then windexed all the glass I could on airports, windows, and skylights. Final shipcheck, then stood down. Had breakfast, and went below and passed out. Woke up, had lunch, sorted photos, wrote in my log, and read the ASTA Sail Tall Ships directory of ships some more. At 1600, I wirebrushed, cleaned up the scale chips, tacked down, and corrosealed part of the port breezeway bulwark that had been started on the previous watch. Then it was drizzling so I scraped some paint drops off the well deck. Put away the power tools totes, and then we had a discussion about sail handling tactics for different hypothetical wind scenarios. I was third helm, steering WxS 1/4S, then W 3/4S, then had dinner quickly before returning to helm again. The wind then shifted aft, and we changed course again, this time due W. After helm, took in all fore-and-aft sail except the outer jib. I plotted position and determined our course made good true (CMGT) and our log (speed over water) based on our charted positions, and our CMGT was 270 and our log was 6kts. We were then on standby on the quarterdeck, because the wind had been shifty, but it didn't shift again. After watch, I gave Nadja a copy of “Around Cape Horn,” and then we all did our workout on the well deck. Then bed. Shabbat Shalom.