Day came in light overcast. Fair winds, small seas. St Helena about 300 nautical miles ahead. Crossed the meridian of Greenwich – now in west longitude. From: Luderitz, Namibia Towards: St Helena Date: March 23, 2019 Noon position: 17-40S / 000-39 West Longitude Course and speed: WNW at 5 knots Wind force and direction: SE …
Day came in light overcast, but nice and warm. Wore ship around to port tack at dawn. Sent up stuns’l gear. Set studding sails (stuns’ls) before noon. Everything else much the same. Yard getting worked on. Deck planks replaced. Old t’gallant getting a new clew by the sailmakers. Seas small. Just nice passage making. From: …
The day came in fair and partly cloudy. Small sea, light southeasterly winds. Plenty tropical warm now. The decks are busy with good works. Much like the day before. Sailmaking, new planks, spar making and mysterious projects in the engine room. Navigation class on the quarterdeck at 1000 followed by noon sights for latitude at …
Winds have gone light. Should pick up in a day or two. Yards are just off square. Celestial navigators were out in force today at noon. What chance has the sun? New planks going on the quarterdeck with Carlos and Anne-Laure. Dirk has taken charge of the new royal yard. Erin and I are planning …
Three days out of Luderitz the barque Picton Castle is sailing along with all sail set in a modest Force 3 breeze on the port quarter. We are a few miles south of the Tropic of Capricorn in the South Atlantic bound northwest from Namibia towards St Helena some 1,000 miles over the horizon ahead. …
Once again the day came in overcast and then cleared up by midday. My guess is that has something do with a sea/air differential. Sunday at sea today. Also our first full day in the tropics in some time. New daymen have been stuck out to sailmaking, rigging and carpentry. Carpentry is concerned with making …
The day came in overcast and like yesterday was clearing by noon. Progress being made on the new royal yard. Got the taper in. Erin, Dirk, Carlos and James working on it. Gaff topsail being bent on again. Celestial navigation class scheduled for tomorrow. Having crossed the Tropic of Capricorn this morning, the Picton Castle …
The day came in overcast and cleared slowly throughout the day, becoming sunny by day’s end. Water temperature is also up five degrees Celsius by day’s end. Today we caught a 22 kilo “big-eyed tuna”. It has big eyes. Caught a second fish later but tossed it back being so small. Many birds yet about …
We set sail in strong winds off Luderitz early afternoon yesterday. A bright shiny day on the southwest coast of Africa. Soon we were making 7+ knots under lower topsails and foresail and a couple staysails. As we got offshore the winds laid down as expected and we set all sail. It is some breezy …
Maggie here, writing to you from Picton Castle’s shore office in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. While Picton Castle is in Luderitz, Namibia and our usual Captain’s Log writers are busy getting fuel and provisions sorted out for the ship (and seeing some amazing sights in this old German mining town), I’m here to bring you …
