Picton Castle made great headway last night, averaging 7 knots, staying on a southwest course falling off when the wind picked up. The advantage of being the only vessel for 1000+ miles, we have ample ocean room to play with.
This morning the rigging gang headed out into the head rig with tar buckets tied securely to their harnesses in order to slurp some tar on the rig. The sailmakers busted out their sewing palms and needles and carried on with stitching the bright white canvas for two royal sails. Today marks the last day of the rotation for these daymen, Monday a new group of crew members will have the chance to get their hands dirty with the riggers or enjoy their days under the warm sun on the quarterdeck to sew canvas as sailmakers. The well deck was busy as ever, Colin of Nova Scotia, Canada was at the wheel of the wire bench grinder cleaning tools etc. Vaiufia of Tonga was busy keeping the paint locker organized and our Chief Engineer Deyan of Switzerland was welding a replacement piece of steel into the carpenter shop door frame.
At 1358 keen navigators took to the quarterdeck, sextants in hand, to catch a noon sight of the sun. Then relocating below decks to the main salon where they could work out the math, read the nautical almanac and calculate their latitude. The mates have begun to get the crew involved in filling out the passage log. Every hour the log book is documented with such information as the latitude and longitude, course and speed, weather etc. This has been a great exercise for crew members to get involved with, knowing and understanding the world that goes on around them makes them become more aware of their surroundings. Today is the last day for the watches to prep for tomorrow’s Seamanship Derby, team uniforms are getting underway, lead seamen are encouraging their watches to practice knots and splices. It’ll be a great afternoon of good old-fashioned seamanship display, along with bribing, stealing and sabotage (all in good fun, of course).
From: Galapagos
Towards: Pitcairn
Date: June 30, 2018
Noon Position: 10°05.4’S x 104°26.9’W
Course + Speed: SW + 5.7′
Wind direction + Force: SExE + 4
Swell Height + Direction: 2m + SExS
Weather: Sunny, light showers
Day’s Run: 136.2nm
Passage Log: 136.5nm
Distance to Port: 1712nm
Voyage: 4462.7nm
Sail Set: All sails are set