Thursday 23 December 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Thursday 23 December 2010 בס"ד

Got a 0515 wakeup, out of bed at 0600. Stretched, wrote my log, and read before breakfast. Work today included:

• PRIORITY #1: finish work in the headrig by priming port foretopmst stay sheave, painting buff on primed areas and second coat of penetrol on stem plate, clean up starboard sheave, corroseal, prime, paint buff on primed starboard spots

• paint stone the new sponge hotel and its doors

• TSP and paint buff the focslehead break overhang

• coat of corroseal and primer on propane tank C

• coat of tropical blue on propane tanks A and B

• paint black overlap on certain wire seizings throughout the ship that I put in an itemized list

• paint white the forestay wire seizings

• scrape port forsel sheet block, oil blocks (cancelled when we braced more square and they were outboard of the ship)

• wirebrush and clean exposed metal on capstan (possible now because the tack wasn't belayed to it), and corroseal and prime spots

• wirebrush, corroseal, prime starboard headsl sheet padeyes

• 180 scuff two port flyrail spindles 50/50 and 70/30 varnish

• ospho the rust off the bulwark across from the engineers port watertight door

• sand and penetrol two new deck brush bamboo holders

A bit of sail handling after domestics meant work didn't get started until about 0930. Shawn volunteered to do the propane tanks. Worked until 1700. It was posted in the scuttle that there'd be no ships work tomorrow because it is Xmas eve. Read Sea of Glory until dinner. At dinner, WT gave me a cold beer and a pat on the back, a very nice gesture. After dinner I got to work illustrating some Xmas cards that I'll give to some of my fellow shipmates, as is their custom. Did that for a while, and finished the evening with an introductory explanation of “What Jews Believe” when asked by a shipmate, “Why don't Jews celebrate Xmas?” Then bed.