Doings aboard the PICTON CASTLE in Shelburne

By Captain D. Moreland with D. Lorenzen

Aboard PICTON CASTLE at Shelburne…

The last Log entry carried on about our doings in Lunenburg with the World Voyage crew here. All very busy here working on boats, capstans, baggywrinkle and the like. This log is about what is happening on and in the ship at Shelburne Ship Repair 90 miles away in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.

The shipyard gang of Dan, Leo (on leave for the moment), Julien, Ollie, Spring (on leave), Line (on leave), and Liam make up the crew there. All under the genteel eye of Dirk.

Here in Lunenburg, we have it on good authority that the following tasks, items, events and such like, have been taking place aboard the Barque PICTON CASTLE on the lift cradle at Shelburne Ship repair, now stuck up there high and dry since late October. The ship was ready to launch by Nov 1^st but then the hauling/launching broke down. That last point is in case you have not been following the trials and tribulations of our ship and voyage lately. This is why we are not sailing near Tahiti somewhere right now.

Well, it has been a full-blown snowy winter hereabouts in Nova Scotia this March – even as a statutory spring is ALLEGEDLY approaching. Rational thinkers are doubtful. Seasons tend to linger here anyway due to the proximity of the Gulf Stream. The GS keeps things warm longer later but the ocean also keeps things cool longer later. So, it being late winter here, there have been snowball fights, shoveling of snow, construction of facsimile snow type persons, and more shoveling of snow. There has also been considerable proper cosmetic and maintenance projects accomplished aboard our good ship, high and dry. All good stuff to do, and yes, all stuff we would be doing at sea anyway while rolling down the warm balmy tradewinds under sail in shorts and tee-shirts, but here we are….

The 8-berth bunk room for Da Boyz of PC just ahead of the salon, aka “brocave”, has been scrubbed, scraped, painted out and varnished up nicely. We will see how long THAT lasts!

All the four ‘heads’, aka marine toilet rooms and showers, are getting spruced up and painted out. Good to do, and hard to do as well in winter conditions. Gots to stick a heater in there for a while to get the damp out and all the steel warmed up before you can prepare and paint properly. Also, it cannot be too far below the freezing point outside the steel plate as condensation on the inside will shut down any attempts at good painting.

We have made a small change, an improvement perhaps, to the first step/landing at the top of the main salon companionway. Formerly your first step headed below was onto concrete. Now we have installed a solid piece of heavy Fijian tropical hardwood with tread cut in to make up that first step at the top. They grow the stuff there. Looks nice and should be a good grip for feet. The entire watertight companionway, the hatch, the “kosteskab” (aka Danish broom locker) and all, have been painted out, too. Looks nice.

We painted out our new welldeck waterways and remaining welldeck bulwarks in a surprise attack operation when nature briefly presented us with the right conditions: a succession of dry, sunny, days with no frost. Rare enough in a Nova Scotia winter. We had planned for this and jumped at it when the timing and conditions presented itself. And while we were at it, we painted the port breezeway aft accommodation cabin trunk, too.

In the engine room all the machinery and most pipe work have been painted up nice.

Areas of the inner surface of ship’s side in the engine room were prepared and painted: shaft alley and the area aft of the port fuel tank too. Again, any day without frost outside is anticipated and taken full advantage of.

The fire and bilge mains in the engine room were painted in their correct colour schemes, deck fire hydrants included. Yup. Believe it or not: the colour for marine pipe work is regulated to an international standard. It makes sense to colour pipes that channel fresh water, salt water, bilge water, sewage and fuel differently, no? Easier to trace pipes this way. Another one of those many pieces of information a mariner needs to accommodate. Our ship, although small in comparison to today’s behemoths, still provides us with a rich depth of complexity. A small but whole world, sailing upon an ocean, one we set out to explore, understand and make our own. A ship at sea is a world unto itself. With all that this implies.

The valiant little Norwegian hand-crank start SABB single cylinder engine and generator has puffed into life again, and its exhaust pipe got a chimney sweep from exhaust manifold to top of the stack. The SABB water cooling goes through the main engine to both dissipate heat and to warm up the main engine before starting, kind of like a glow plug, as it does not need seawater to keep its operating temperature down. This was pretty useful in cold Norwegian waters and here just now. So, for Julien, a keen and capable engineer if ever there was one, the sound of the chugging and puffing little chunk of steel is like the sweetest song. He’s been running it for long periods. Just to make sure, you understand. Some might say that he was in fact fussing over it. I think he misses the rumble of an engine every now and then. And who would blame him? Maybe he is in love. It happens.

Seems like this bit of cool machinery racket fires up inspiration in him. When coming down into the engine room, one notices that the aluminum diamond-plate that forms the engine room’s walkable deck is starting to shine. The floor plates are getting SPOTLESSLY clean. Apparently, vinegar is the thing, not heavy degreasers or chemicals (we will have cases of the stuff aboard when we sail). And a stiff brush wielded with some elbow grease. As a department head Julien puts excellent thought into his work. With outstanding results. The engine room has not seen as good loving up for some time. COVID.

In the chart house up on the quarterdeck, all navigation and communications gear has been fully tested and put on-line. The Satellite Compass and AIS internal firmware, which rely on GNSS data for providing reliable intelligence to the mariner, have been brought into the current epoch. Yep. Correct jargon. Every 16 years, our global satellite ephemeral data “rolls over” (simply put, this means “expires”). Terrestrial equipment then loses track of the correct date. Kind of a small-scale and deliberately introduced Y2K bug. Only it’s not a bug. And not Y2K. But you get the idea. A correct date is required for the equipment to compare satellite data reliably, and to make sense of where they are in relation to other things. Same as all of us who are making decisions impacting our lives every day would not want to base them on news that was a decade or so old.

Back in the main salon, Dan removed those long-decommissioned halogen cup-lights in the overhead and covered up the cavities. They consume a beastly amount of electricity when on, taxing our clever battery system. These lights were installed one hundred and nineteen years ago, for a film shoot. And they have been with us ever since, never switched on, spreading their darkness.

And “if you have thought that the Shelburne Gang were a frosty and stand-offish lot, think again” sez Dirk. “We like the warmth and congeniality of a social get-together just like the next salty soul. Which would put us closer to “gregarious” on the internationally recognized Mingle scale. ‘Couthy’, in the Scottish tongue.” Also said by Dirk.

Now Shelburne is a QUIET town. Not in summer, of course, when it gets it share of visitors from all over. But in winter time, it is sleepy at best. Very limited variety on the social calendar. The bowling alley closed a long time ago. It’s still there, mothballed. But closed. And if you are not into hockey, you are sheer out of luck if you prefer a bit of activity to go along with your mingling. So, what does that leave us with?

On Water Street, in the heart of town, is Shelbourne’s equivalent to Lunenburg’s pubs The KNOT and GRAND BANKER. Live music is not unheard of here. So, Friday is social evening at the Ship’s Galley in town. It’s Open Mic. And a hearty feed.