With Picton Castle in drydock, the Bosun School students are working on yards and rigging.
As you may remember from previous Captain’s Logs, we sent down all yards on the fore and main masts except the course yards. Picton Castle’s royal and t’gallant yards are made of wood, her upper and lower topsail yards (as well as course yards) are made of steel. Students have been working on overhauling the steel yards, busting the rust as necessary and preparing the yards for coatings. Niko and Ashling were working on applying a product called Blue Steel, which is a rust converter primer (not to be confused with the Zoolander pose of the same name).
All of the standing rigging was removed from the yards and taken into the warehouse for overhaul. Bosun School students have had lessons in worming, parceling and serving. We worm, parcel and serve in order to protect wire or rope from corrosion and chafe. It’s easier, less expensive and more practical to replace the service that protects the wire rope than to replace the wire rope itself. Worming fills the channels between the strands of wire rope with lengths of smaller line, parceling means to cover the rope and worming with thin strips of light cotton material (we sometimes use thin canvas or even old bedsheets) wrapped around them, then serving covers the whole thing in tightly wrapped tarred marline.
