Finally a nice enough day that we could work outside. After a deck wash that was needed greatly we put some chafe gear on, Brooke, Sveta and Cliff tightened up on a dock line by putting it through the windless. I started to unlash the cannons and then Kat and Grant put them back in place.
Katie was in the engine room with Peter and fiddling around with generator and engine batteries. One was in really bad shape and you could even hear it boiling on the inside, Katie also got splashed with some battery acid, ouch.
Kat was in the rigging putting mousing on; Grant put the ratlines back on the mizzen top futtocks and later did some things in bosuns.
Brooke and I were sent to sand and oil the helm drum, it had varnish on it so it was going to be a long processes of getting all the varnish off. On top of that there is the line wrapped around the drum, so we had to take that off before we could even start. It was a really interesting processes, remove all the junk from the raised grate like the lifeboats, remove the grate and unhook a bunch of stuff. One of the reasons why the helm was so hard to steer was because some of the gear was rusty, we plan on getting new ones, but we might not get them before Monday when we plan on moving the boat again.
So now that all the line was removed Brooke and I could finally start sanding. We started with 60 grit, after awhile we realized it wasn’t doing a whole lot, just scratching at the varnish. Sveta brought us a heat gun and some scrapers and that’s what really did the trick. After lunch Brooke went to take Josh to get provisions and Kat jumped in on helping sand the last bits.
Tacked twice, wood bleach and then it took a really long time for the water to dry from when we rinsed it. Finally after dinner we added a nice coat of oil, it was really thirsty. I’m really proud of how well it turned out, it sure is a pretty helm drum. When we do finally put the line back on we are going to add a whipping at midships, the exact middle of the line so you know everything is line up evenly.
At the end of the day I have a few minutes left so Sveta had me re lead the mizzen staysail line.
Hey! Say hi to Cliff from me. I'm not sure I made a very good impression on him, but I hope he doesn't remember me too badly. He's a great guy, I wish I'd taken more time to listen to what he had to say.
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