If you have been following the saga of this sail training ship, the Barque Picton Castle, you probably know that the ship has been stuck up on the drydock at Shelburne, Nova Scotia for months now, instead of heading off to sea on this long anticipated global circumnavigational voyage. The hauling winch broke just before we were to be launched. It is being repaired. We will offer something more on this subject perhaps another time. This is a story about our wonderful Picton Castle crew and trainees.
We have had an excellent gang here in Lunenburg working on various projects like boats, some sailmaking and repairs, learning some rigging and such. And bowling. This Captain’s Log is about the gang at the ship in drydock and what they have been doing on the ship in Shelburne. Most of what they have been up to we would be doing at sea or in ports far from here. Work in a ship is never ending and ongoing. It has ever been thus.
Onward.
The Cast at Shelburne
The watch onboard at Shelburne includes Dan, Leo, Line, Ollie, Engineer Julien, and Spring under the leadership of Dirk. This gang of stalwarts have done many excellent things for our dear ship.
Here we go…. a few of the jobs taken care of.
The Scullery
The scullery is an on-deck compartment carved out of the after end of the superstructure with a triple sink and hot fresh water, devoted to galley washing-up. The crew wash all the plates and eating utensils here as well as keep coffee cups on hooks. The idea was to let the galley be dedicated to where we cooked but keep it clear of too many people and mess by washing up dishes elsewhere. Thus, the scullery. It has served us well. It’s also a form of a “shack-locker” where we keep crew snacks and what seems like an eternal coffee/tea station. A bit of a hangout in the tropics as well. Despite cleaning this area, it got pretty grungy over Covid but now it has been all spruced and freshened up. Including a new counter. Looks nice again.
The Mate’s Cabin
When I bought the ship in 1993 (yep, that’s when it was) this cabin worked just fine. Time had come for an overhaul. How many bedrooms stay the same for 30 or 40 years? The plan was to do this job in Cape Town, South Africa on the voyage, but carpe diem. So, it got cleared out, steel work looked after, and the entire space renewed and fitted out anew. Portholes overhauled, new paneling, new bunk boards, better stowage. All good and sweet again. Looks nice. Smells good too. Dan, with a background in building sets for film and theatre, has done a knockout job on this.
Spurling Pipes
These are big heavy pipes that fairlead the big anchor chains from the windlass on the foc’sle head down through the deck, the foc’sle, and into the chain locker. We had put these in new in 1996 but time was up. So now these are brand new “sched 120” pipe (very thick) and should last even longer than the last ones. They will outlast me by a long shot.
The Cook Donald’s Cabin
The sainted Ship’s Cuisenero (that means ‘Chef’) Donald Church, of the Isle Of Spice Grenada, has called this cabin off the foc’sle home away from home for ages. Since 2007, in fact. While replacing the starboard spurling pipe and some plate renewal we figured this was the time to up the game here too. We had to gut it anyway. So, in consultation with Mr. Church, this cabin (aka “Roving Embassy of Grenada” and favorite hideout spot for ship’s boy Dawson) got redesigned and fully rebuilt. Better storage and nice woodwork. I am pleased to say that he is pleased as well. Again, a job for later that we did now.
Pin Rail and Galley Rebuild
Before winter set in hard, Morgan of the Dory Shop (www.doryshop.com) finished off the port forward pin rail with some beautiful hardwood we got in Fiji. Most of the pinrail had been replaced earlier in Fiji by Peter Whippy’s shipwrights. This replaced the red oak rail we put in in 1996 as well. I never thought that this red-oak pinrail would have lasted as long as it did. The new Fiji rosewood pinrail looks gorgeous now. We have just oiled it for the time being. When we get out in the sunny tradewinds again, we will scrape and varnish it up proper. The exterior bulkheads on the after sides of the galley got renewed too. Needed doing at some point. Done now. Looks good.
The Battery Compartment, aka Battery Box
Picton Castle is what is called a “DC ship”. This refers to our electricity onboard and means that instead of running an AC (alternating current) generator all the 24 hours a day, noisy and smelly, we operate our generator only about four or five hours a day to charge some big deep cycle DC (direct current) batteries and yet still have electrical power all day too. We can run limited power tools and even start fire and bilge pumps without first firing up a generator. We like this system a lot. Cleaner, so much quieter and much less diesel smoke. It also forces us to not load up on electrical devices just because we have a generator going. Because we don’t have a generator going. But we can always fire one up if we want. Who wants to sail along listening to a generator all the time? But it does mean that we need these batteries. And they need proper storage. Hence the Battery Box just in front of the engine room. So, for the second time this has been completely renewed with all new racks, new floors and sides, all fibre glassed and painted too, well vented. This was done mostly before drydocking but I thought it was interesting. The gang did a very nice job. These batteries last about three years. Pretty good. Spring has made the battery box renewal her particular mission and has done a truly outstanding job of it.
The Freezers
We have three big built-in freezers that keep us in good food over thousands of miles. These were custom crafted for our first voyage. Thick with insulation these are. And now completely overhauled and cleaned. They were in fine working condition after some overhaul but now they shine. It is pretty well amazing what ship’s cook Donald can pull out of these freezers after weeks at sea.
The Semi-Dory
We carry a 19 1/2 foot long lapstrake motorboat we call the “semi-dory”. It is our spare skiff. Like a spare tire. It is not as big nor can it carry as much as the regular skiff (which can hold ALL) but it fits the starboard boat davits and we carry it in case we were to lose the bigger skiff somehow. The semi-dory can carry 10 people and is an excellent boat. It usually sits up on top of the galley collecting stuff that does not belong in it. But now it has been sweetly scraped, scrubbed, sanded and painted. We did this under a tent near the ship. Leo, the eternally cheerful Leo, has made this his precious baby and it shows in the shine.
Other miscellaneous crew jobs
In addition, the crew in Shelburne, when weather permitted, painted the aft cabin trunk, the inside ladder up to the chart room, painted out the entire chain locker, painted the town blue, painted bulwarks around the well deck, the ladders up to foc’sle head, passageway wood trim varnished and area repainted, made a box for one of our spare ship’s compasses, the foc’sle got painted out. And the companion way down to salon got all shined up including removing the hatch cover and rebuilding the landing so it shines nice too. There is a beautiful old teak rail down to the after-bunkroom that got scraped and revarnished.
Miscellaneous welding jobs
Freeing ports, bulwarks here and there, new galley top ladder, new foc’sle ladder, new plating in foc’sle sides, new steel around watertight doors, new lips to watertight hatches, fixed up the waterways and more stuff like that.
The Engine Room
This work in the engine room is a longer technical tale for another time – but in addition to machinery and systems overhaul, a lot of cleaning and spiffing up. Can’t run machinery without cooling water while hauled out, but Chief Engineer Julien had it all nicely online before we went up. With the excellent drive and energy of Spring they are getting the place nicely painted and building new lockers with some of their time.
