Saturday 15 January 2011

Picton Castle at sea; Saturday 15 January 2011 בס"ד

Woke up at 0715, breakfast, work. Jobs this morning included:

- harness freshwater overhaul

- two oars from yesterday have blades scuffed and paint PICTON CASTLE in black

- put remaining hawsers in the chain locker

- downrig the fish tackle and stow in chain locker

- wirebrush and corroseal parts of the bowsprit

- primer on main lower topsl sheet cleats

- primer on section of starboard breezeway tgallant rail

- wirebrush and corroseal other section of starboard breezeway tgallant rail

- wirebrush and corroseal starboard aft Panama chock

- coat of white on starboard midships Panama chock

- scuff up chock plugs

- scrape and oil fore tgallant sheet blocks

- weekly greasings

There had been a miscommunication between WT and me about the Panama chocks... I had had them painted white yesterday, but he wanted the chock plugs painted white, and this was not rectified until I had installed them with Lauren. Not a big deal, just took em out and cleaned them up and scuffed them, and we'll paint them on Monday. Lunch at 1200, then read more War and Peace. I finished Part I, with total comprehension of events, characters, etc, since I read it pretty much three times over and wrote down every character's names and occurrences so that I could cross-reference who the hell was who and what they did. I started into the first several chapters of Part II. It would probably help if I knew more about the Eastern European campaigns of the Napoleonic wars, but I don't yet. A funny thing (or at least I thought so) happened today when Siri's sister Hege (who is sailing with us to Cape Town) came up to me and asked me about shipswork and what I do, since she's on 4-8 and doesn't see so much of it on watch. I told her all about the basics of metal treatment (rustbust, wirebrush, corroseal, primer, paint, etc) and then of wood treatment (scrape, sand, penetrol, scuff, varnish, paint, etc) and she said to me, “I've heard rumors of... 180.” I just thought that was a very funny rumor to hear. While reading, I asked Meredith what “accoucheur” meant (childbirth person, midwife or something like that), and I asked Robert what “Hapskriegwurstschnappsrath” meant (war sausage liquor something or other), since they were in the book and I had no clue. After dinner, a hangout in the forepeak, discussing toothbrushing. Bed.