The Gale continued on through the night, pushing us further to the north east. But just before noon the wind started to abate, the rain showers cleared off and at the watch change the wind was down enough for us to set all sail. With all of our sails being cotton canvass we need to dry them whenever possible or they will start to mildew and rot, with all of the wet weather on this passage that’s been a challenge, but this afternoon provided a good opportunity get everything set and dry.
Speaking of sails we also began our ditty bag workshop this afternoon. In the age of sail it was very common for ships to carry a sailmaker and make all of their own sails at sea, even the last of the windjammers into the 1920 still carried a sailmaker and made their own sails. Even 40 years ago a few ships still went about this task, but now PICTON CASTLE is the only one. This is a task that requires a lot of constant effort to keep making and repairing sails and getting as many hands involved in the work as we can helps a great deal. Here is where the ditty bag comes in, all of the hand work skills required to make a proper working sail are all the same handwork skills that go into making a sturdy canvas bag to hold a sailor’s tools, so in teaching the process of making a ditty bag the ship gets more hands able to lay into sailmaking work and all of our sailors get a proper little bag to hold their growing collections of tools.
SHIP’S WORK: Rig up overhauled Inner Jib sheet pennants, rig temporary Outer Jib sheet pennants and begin overhaul, ratlines on the foremast, replace weather fax aerial tagline, sailmakers continue on Flying Jib tabling.
FROM: Lunenburg, NS, Canada
TOWARDS: La Rochelle, France
TIME ZONE: ZD 0, GMT, UTC, Zulu, etc.
NOON POSITION: 45°30.2’N / 013°38.1’W
DAYS RUN: 130nm
PASSAGE LOG: 2450nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: 525nm
COURSE AND SPEED: NE, 5kts
WIND: SSE, Force 4
WEATHER: Sunny, air temp: 18°C, water temp: 14°C
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: 4 – 6 ft, S’rly
SAILS SET: All Sail