The day comes in fair and partly cloudy, small seas and a light SELy breeze. Picton Castle is braced up sharp on the port tack, slipping along gently at three knots. The sun is rising in the east (as it its ussual daily endevour) and poking through some clouds that stack up along the horizon. At this dawn at sea we have a large Japanese LNG tanker about 12 miles on the port bow headed WSW, perhaps bound for the Gulf of Mexico somewhere. This mighty ship is crossing ahead. She is ‘hull down’ meaning we can see the tops of things but not the hull, which is obscured by the curve of the earth. Did mariners ever think the world was flat? I don’t think so. Some day these ships may well be a thing of the past. And maybe not that long from now.
Here just after dawn the stars are long faded. The 4 to 8 watch has gotten going on the morning routines. Starting with a cup of tea or coffee they then head off to get a pull on braces and halyards that have slackened a little overnight. The watch is on the lookout for any errant flying fish that may have flown aboard in the day. By ancient custom it is required that a sailing ship captain should make a breakfast of the first self-sacrificing flying fish on deck in order to ensure a succeesful voyage. Superstition? Maybe, but this has been proven effective on previous voyages to date…
Today is Saturday at sea. Among other things this means that Donald makes lunch and then steps out of the galley, and gets a break until early Monday. Ever so well deserved a break this is. No one onbpard works harder or steadier or more effectively than does Mr. Church in his galley. The crew will challenge themsleves to get a few meals out before day’s end Sunday.
While celestial navigation – with arcane sextants, chronometers, sun and stars, mysterious sacred books and mystical incantations – is nothing less than fascination (to some) the misson before us all on board this 300 ton barque just now is seamanship. Let GPS tell us where we are for now. The GPS can do that well enough but cannot take in a flying jib in a squall. The first order of business being sail handling, and getting good at that. So drill we will. Practice will improve us as we sail in these easy benign conditions around the Picton Castle. Conditions will not always be so.
Coming out of three years of layup due to Covid and six months high and dry and cold over wintering on a broken wind blown drydock, the ship, while strong and solid, is a bit scruffy. But some months at sea in these tropics will put that away. The beautiful bridge-rail cap made by Peter Whippy (seventh generation Nantucket shipwright in Fiji) of lovely rosowa wood, so recently grey and grim, is now golden and gleaming again. The stanchions supporting the rail are of Fijian mahogany. Just now covered with old blistering varnish flaking off – or nothing at all – will soon get scraped, sanded and brightened up once again. These pilars were modeled after those on the stunning clipper Cutty Sark. Next: main pin rails, fife rails, teak jib sheet pin rails, the mahogany deck chests, the tar and rig slush locker, the galley house trim….. and tar the rigging of course, too. Plenty to keep a sailor busy here.