Aboard The Bounty: Rigging Photo shoot, Coils and Hull

After our usual deck, tween wash and up and overs Rebecca, aka the Coil Nazi taught us how to coil the lines properly to her standard. The coils are suppose to be all lined up even with each other, an even distance off the deck and with the tail end hanging nicely and not touching the deck.

While we were waiting for everyone to come up we got pirate names from a book, kinda randomly chosen, so I’m Black Boot Queenie.

Rebecca went by and flung off all the coils that had to be redone. Spent a good time re doing all those coils, navy flex is the worst; it really can eat into your hands while pulling a length to make the coil.

Rebecca and I also put up Christmas lights in the galley, so pretty! We did it while Chuck was gone so when he got back he was really surprised.

I helped Katie get set up on the stern again so that she could finish that up while I did duty things. Didn’t take her that long and afterwards we moved our staging forward on the starboard side up next to Ashley and Peter’s from the day before. We floated it on the water instead of hauling it up and carrying it because the staging is heavy and annoying. We’ve moved it so many times I want to kill it! Got the staging set up down near the water line so we could repaint the hull, took a few tries and some adjusting but got it down there. One time when I went down on the Jacobs ladder to test it out I almost slipped into the water because it was uneven and was sliding forward. Thankfully I was still holding on to the ladder and had some practice climing up the manrope.

Once we got everything down there Katie, Peter and I went to work sanding. I also nick named Katie, Monkey Toes, because she’s so good at reaching things in precarious tippy places. Sanded, which most of the dust ended up on Katie, wiped down with mineral spirits, then painted it with black oil paint. That stuff is really sticky, and will not come out of some things, don’t want it to drip in the water either, that is very bad. I did end up getting a few flecks on my feet.

That’s another thing, because the staging has to be so low so we can pain right above the water line, it sits right above the water. We get to put our feet in the water, so nice, except that the aircon water vent thing was pouring out between my feet so one foot was warm and the other cool. When a big boat would come by and leave a larger wake a small wave would come by and splash us now and then. One time I saw it coming so I made sure to stand up, good thing I did, otherwise my butt would have been really wet.

At the end when there was one spot I needed to paint and couldn’t get at because the knee of the staging was touching it Katie had to lower me a bit, I saw it coming, but it was a big jolt and I had to scream. I actually really like working with Katie because we get our work done and we do it really fast.

Katie put things away and Peter and I tried to hurry up and finish our work because it was after 4, capstan time. I don’t mind working a little over because then the job gets done and as Peter said if some day we finish early he’ll just let us off sooner, very teacherly of him, haha.