Tuesday 21 December 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Tuesday 21 December 2010 בס"ד

Woke up at 0515. It's been gradually cooling down now since we caught the trades, making for much more comfort below, and last night it was actually quite chilly! Worked out til 0600, wrote my log, then read until breakfast. Work today included:

• painting the starboard focslehead rail surf gray

• painting the after thwartships focslehead rail surf gray

• painting starboard focslehead ladder buff

• painting another coat of black under coffee station

• painting the canvas of the port quarterdeck strongback pudding white

• TSPing and painting starboard forward bulkhead white

• lashing deck brush holder in

• painting red trim on bulkhead

• painting another coat of tropical blue on the two propane tanks A and B

• grinding down the bolt for the mizzen stay an inch so it didn't chafe the mizzen cap stay, then filing it down and corrosealing it

• sanding down new sponge hotel 80-180

• painting some green trim above the charthouse door

• cleaning, corrosealing, and twice priming chafed spots on wire seizings on the forestay

• scraping the port foresl tack and clew blocks and coating them in block oil

• checking and soogieing the weather pinrail

• assisting in harness overhauling

• overhauling and nipping bunts aloft

• varnishing the spindle on the flyrail 60/40

I got to lay aloft today to overhaul bunts, as WT said I haven't gotten to play in a while. Today was a good day, although it was funny to see how many times people, myself included, would touch the starboard ladder. Luckily no mess was made. After work, I left the paint locker open and prepared paint and other supplies for a 1630 workshop on coatings, sanding, painting, varnishing, etc, done by the Captain. It was a great lesson, and I learned quite a bit, particularly since it was about my dayman job now and I deal with it everyday. Cleaned the one brush the Captain used in his demo of how to cut a line, and then it was dinner time. After dinner, below to read more Glory of the Sea, then played some poker with Davey and Dapper. We tried to teach ourselves Baccarat, since Davey just finished my copy of Casino Royale, and using that book and “Hoyle's Book of Games,” we pretty much got it although the nuances of betting were not well-explained and so after a few hands we gave it up. Read more, edited my Head Herald article for length, then bed.