Monday 6 December 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Monday 6 December 2010 בס"ד

Woke up at 0545 at the crackadawn, went up on deck, and it started squalling so I laid in with the 4-8s, and helped take in the headsls, brace with the squall winds, and slack gear. Waited til breakfast, then got ready for my first official day as Bosun's Mate. Set up the dropcloth, and learned how to cover up the Panama chocks, and in that process WT taught me about shock loading. He got his list of things to do from the Mate, got out his old lists of projects, and we went around checking out the spots that needed work. Then the call came to set all sail, so I went around sail handling with the 8-12s for a bit. After that, set people up with jobs. Jobs today included:

• Scraping off corrosion, corrosealing, aluminum priming, red oxide priming the starboard Captain's mess airport ring

• TSPing the transom bulwark painted areas after de-munging the grating bench, then mixing 70/30 primer/white and priming the already primed areas

• rustbusting the port cathead, both forward open chocks, and the area of the forward bulkhead outboard of the starboard cowl vent, then wire brushing and corrosealing. NOTE: rustbusting begins no earlier than 1115 and finishes no later than 1300, however, by 1130, the Mate had told WT to avast rustbusting until further notice, so we had the busted areas wirebrushed and corrosealed as they were

• wirebrushing the starboard anchor cable exposed between the wildcat to the hawse, then coating it with linseed oil

• corrosealing the inside of the hawsepipes with a double broomstick-rigged brush

• scrubbing out the waterways on the quarterdeck in sections with soapy water, then fresh water tacking them down and painting them ensign red

• cleaning out the oily grime in Monomoy with bilge cleaner

• fix the exterior light at the forward port corner of the charthouse by the bridge

• clean off the bottom of the skiff with a deckbrush

• scuff up and paint the white gunwale trim on the skiff with Toplac white

• prepare the bamboo deckbrush holder tube for painting

Of those, today we finished the airport inner ring, the TSP and primer job on the transom bulwark, wirebrushing and oiling the starboard anchor cable, corrosealing the hawsepipes, scrubbing out and painting starboard forward waterway, and scrubbing half of port waterway, cleaning oily grime in Monomoy, fixing the light, cleaning the skiff's bottom, painting the skiff's gunwales, and preparing the bamboo brush holder. Throughout the day, we braced many times, and set and took in various fore-and-aft sails. Nadja had me lead a team in setting the main topmst and main tgallantmst staysls. I located, mixed, cut, divided, and distributed all paints and oils used. I cleaned many brushes, and I laid in with jobs a few times when we were short of hands and other jobs were going well. I monitored progress and checked quality of all assigned jobs at different times. I made lists of jobs: past present and future. I learned from WT ways to “motivate” people to do a better job or a faster job without being a bossy dick. These are all things I will be doing everyday and need not write about over and over. It's far too difficult to write down who I put where doing what, so I won't. I very much enjoy the challenges of this new job, and am quickly gaining a new perspective of the ship. All was cleaned up, picked up, put away, and done by 1745, twelve hours since I woke. Had dinner, and still felt nauseous, which I had all day long. I'm definitely still sick, but I'll manage. Not afraid I'll die. Chilled on the well deck and in the forepeak, now bed. Sixth night of Hanukkah.