Our steaming continues as we start to cross the Bay of Biscay in the last few days of our passage.
The weather has turned quite pleasant, sunny, warming up, and the seas have laid down. This has given us a chance to dry out the whole ship after so much wet weather on this trip. Also, with the onset of clear weather the paint brushes have come out! And many hands have been busy today with spot painting about the ship to insure the preservation of the steel.
This afternoon we ran a man overboard drill, launched the boat and recovered the buoy (thrown over to represent the MOB) in five minutes flat.
As the calms come and go the watch on deck sets as much sail as will fill to help speed us on our way, when steaming as we are all of the fore-and-aft being set can give the ship up to a half a knot more speed.
As the breeze dies away or comes ahead the watch take sail in again to avoid chafe from slating against themselves or the stays.
SHIP’S WORK: Wash and paint superstructure, well deck bulwarks and T’gallant rails, tighten up Main T’gallant yard slings, replace port Main sheet, slush new ratlines, continue on galley house dutchman
FROM: Lunenburg, NS, Canada
TOWARDS: La Rochelle, France
TIME ZONE: ZD 0, GMT, UTC, Zulu, etc.
NOON POSITION: 46°05.4’N / 007°50.4’W
DAYS RUN: 171nm
PASSAGE LOG: 2708nm
DISTANCE REMAINING: 280nm
COURSE AND SPEED: E, 7kts
WIND: Calm
WEATHER: Sunny, air temp: 18°C, water temp: 14°C
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: 2 – 3 ft, mixed
SAILS SET: None