The Barque Picton Castle is sailing northwesterly towards St. Helena Island some 1,000 nautical miles ahead. Luderitz, Namibia is 360 nautical miles astern and Cape Town, South Africa is about 770 nautical miles on the port quarter. Seas are modest now, under three metres most of the time and a decent force 4 breeze is pulling us along. It’s getting warmer too.
Thursday April 4:
The day comes in warmer and overcast, winds fine on the port quarter. We are seeing ships again as the Red Sea is not attracive to ships just now and we are on the path from Cape of Good Hope to many other places such as Venezuela, the Gulf of Mexico, Panama Canal and so on. Oddly, last night we saw a 998 foot long ship just drifting. No sign of distress, so maybe just drifting while management figures out where she should be going. Or maybe there is a port bottle-neck somewhere and they are waiting it out. We don’t know.
At 0600, Julien fires up the generator and deck washdown commences. The quarterdeck will be taken over by sailmakers soon. Sun broke out midday. By 1500 we were under both royals making 7 knots. Seas 4 to 8 feet. Sail repair on the quarterdeck. New heavy canvas hatch cover getting seamed up as well. All’s pretty fine. Working up our workshops. Right now the workshop is just sailing and steering the ship in fine tradewinds.
Friday April 5:
Day comes in overcast and getting warmer. We crossed into the tropics yeterday at 1800. We are now north of 23 South Latitude. We were on a port tack well off the wind. Winds backing some more into the East, so we wore ship around this morning to starboard tack. Crew did this handily. We are enjoying the warmth. Keen for some blue sky though. Sail repair, seaming of a new hatch cover, installing a new (old) hand coffee grinder for Mr. Church, bending a new jib on, that sort of thing. Sailing nicely at 5 and a half knots.
Carpenter Dan making small wood fixes in the head and here and there. Engineer Julien painting up the shiny engine room, Bosun Line working on sails. Violet making an eye splice in a big eight-braid hawser, “Chain Locker” Julian scraping extra pitch off the deck from new caulking seams, always best to do this under cold water. Spring setting up for a celestial navigation class. Pizza for lunch.
By mid afternoon sun is out, royals set and we are rolling down to St. Helena in fine sailing conditions. 800 miles to St. Helena.