Another lovely Sunday at sea! This marks our sixth Sunday underway, how lucky are we? Light yet steady winds, bright blue sky holding puffy cumulus clouds, golden sunny rays beaming on deck. Chillin’ out is on the agenda today. Our cook was able to sleep in past 0530 by enlisting three crew members to prepare our meals. Thus far, Val, James, and Aaron have done a splendid job at filling our bellies. The sailmakers, bosun, engineers, and carpenters too are idling their hands after a busy week of ship maintenance.
At 0900 we set our stuns’ls, the crew is becoming more accustomed to setting the mysterious outboard sails. It takes many hands, roughly about 6 people, in order to properly set them. At least 4 – 5 people are required to carry the stuns’ls that are attached to bamboo spars from the main deck to the foc’sle head, where they remain to assist in the setting of the sails.
The rest standby on the well deck to haul the halyards, tacks and sheets.
Once the gear is led and attached to either the sail or the bamboo stuns’l boom, the foc’sle head team, at the mate’s command, launch the spar outboard off of the ship as the halyard line is quickly hoisted. The rotten cotton that is holding the sail together like a wrapped burrito breaks as the wind fills the white canvas it pops open like a parachute filling with air.
Rather an exciting and thrilling task.
On deck crew members enjoy basking in the sun, stretched out on the midships hatch, while their shipmates work away on their personal projects; ditty bags, coconut bowls and catching up on their nautical reading. Lots of talk of our arrival and stay on Pitcairn Island, being that we’re just over 300 miles away, that seems like nothing compared to how far we’ve come.
From: Galapagos
Towards: Pitcairn Island
Date: July 15, 2018
Noon Position: 22°33.7′ S x 124°32.2′ W
Course + Speed: S 1/2 W + 3.75 knots
Wind direction + Force: NExE + 3
Swell Height + Direction: 1.5m + ENE
Weather: Bright, sunny
Day’s Run: 88 1/2 nautical miles
Passage Log: 2,412 nautical miles
Distance to Port: 337 nautical miles
Voyage: 5870.3 nautical miles
Sails Set: All square sails, flying jib, all three stuns’ls