Saturday, March 27, 2010

Breaking the fore topgallant mast

Did yet another drill for MOB, this time there was more of a focus on B watch and what they would have to do with the weather conditions we currently had. Deciding on what to brace where and what lines to put slack in and such.

After that we ran through another drill of parade tacking, smoothly moving all the sails to one side or the other. I understand bracing the yards and that on some you have to cast the gear so nothing pops and I understand how to move a staysail. The head rig I don’t get as much, and since we did everything all at once it was more confusing, also both courses were set and they have sheet and tacks that are in odd places that I don’t fully understand yet.

C watch went back to their watch and the rest of us moved the topgallant mast from the channel inboard to the deck because we’re going to try and fix it. Robin talked about it for a bit asking if we thought we could fix it, would it be worth it and would it work, and yes it will. The best part of it all was when we actually broke the mast in half, tied the gantline near the royal sheave, hauled away on it a little until it lifted and cracked some more. Then Dan just pushed it over and crack the whole thing in half, it was awesome.

Right before my watch started John stopped some kind of porpoise, they were dolphin sized, really dark and had a rounder nose, there were at least 5 of them. Then after my watch had started and B watch was up on the main course furling they stopped a fin that might have been a shark.

We spotted a few other cool ships during our watch as well, some kind of oil city, was on the horizon, never really figured out what it was, a big cargo ship and lastly a ship doing sonar for the Navy, they radioed us and check our position to make sure we weren’t going to head their way.

We have dinner dishes at night and we never seem to be able to actually finish them during watch, but for the past two days Michelle hasn’t been feeling so well and we let her have bow watch most of the watch.

Dan and John.
John, Dan and Cory.
Dan finally cracking the mast in half.

Robin and Dan talking about mast repair.

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