It’s a beautiful sailing day onboard, heading west, almost dead downwind, braced square with all square sails set. Picton Castle looks like a majestic ship straight out of a film. Hmm, Picton Castle is a majestic ship!
Bacon for breakfast! It’s always a good start to the week when the sweet aromas of bacon waft through the ship as you climb out of your bunk. This week we have three new daymen working under our skilled crew. Joining the sailmaking department is, Clara of Denmark, who stitched away on the new spanker canvas on the main deck, while John and Kimba worked on the quarterdeck finishing off the new main topmast staysail. The carpenter this week, Mandy of Colorado, is learning her way around the carpenter shop, gaining knowledge on the ship’s various tools and helping Carlos fit the new planks on the quarterdeck. Lastly, helping rigger Abbey this week is Rhyanne of South Carolina. This morning Abbey showed Rhyanne the ins and outs of basic rigging, giving a tour of the tar locker, which is where the rigging tools and supplies are kept, and reviewing knots. After which the rigging team set themselves up to send down the starboard fore upper topsail foot rope. Once the temporary foot rope was rigged they gathered the foot rope, nipped it together in a circle and sent it down to the deck in a controlled manner.
While aloft the riggers spotted a large snake swimming along the starboard side of the ship! Rather exciting and amazing to see Mother Nature’s wildlife first hand. Once down on deck, the team rigged up the foot rope on the well deck by fastening it to the shrouds & ladders and hauling it tight in order to work on it. Abbey demonstrated how to serve the wire to Rhyanne as Dustin and Annie performed patch servings throughout. A foot rope is made up of 1/2″ wire, then wrapped in parceling and served, meaning to cover the parcelled wire in marline. This protects the wire which in turn increases its useful working life.
From: Vanuatu
Towards: Bali
Date: Monday, November 12, 2018
Noon Position: 10°31.1’S x 136°14/6’E
Course + Speed: W by N 1/2 N + 3.3 kts
Wind direction + Force: E by N + 4
Swell Height + Direction: 1 1/2m + E by N
Weather: Sunny, blue skies
Day’s Run: 79.3 nm
Passage Log: 2027.9 nm
Distance to Port: 1270 nm
Voyage: 12397.3 nm
Sails Set: All square sails, inner and outer jibs, main topmast stays’l, mizzen stays’l