Furl Practice and Main Top

Deck wash was a little out of the ordinary today because A watch handled the hose, Grant, Michelle and I. At the end of the wash we closed the hose so no water came out and dragged the charged hose all the way to bosuns, down through the main hatch, through the galley and down the ladder. We also did it all crouched down as if there really was a fire, yay for the A action watch.

This morning we did some practice set and furl of sails. We went over the whole processes, going aloft to un gasket the sail, casting the gear, sheet home and then hauling on the halyard. To strike sail you do about the opposite, ease the halyard, haul on the clew and gear. We did the fore topgallant and topsail, I helped furl both of them.

Ryan left shortly after that, he was here a over a month, really great volunteer, we all really loved him. He’s going to go be bosun on the Denis Sullaven so we should see him in at least the first three ports of the tour this summer.

B watch went and learned a Williamson turn in the small boat.

Brooke, Jesse and I went aloft again to finish off the tightening the shrouds on the top that we has started yesterday, everyone else was in the head rig finishing off putting the jibs up. Jesse is really strong, far to strong in some cases, Brooke and I had a go at tightening and then Jesse came along to check them, then there was a thunk, we looked around, everything seemed okay so he went on to another come along. This time there was an even louder deeper thud, we checked more closely this time, Jesse broke the after most cross tree on the main top.

The rest of the day was spent fixing that, only problem was that there were a lot of tours going on then, we couldn’t shut that down or have them go around so the flying jib was set up under the top as a net to catch anything.

Sadly I wasn’t there to see most of the processes because Brooke, Peter and I had to go for a drug test, everyone loves to pee in a cup. On the way back Cory taught us the Williamson turn in the small boat, it’s a way of turning the boat around in a man over board drill so that you end up coming right at them.

The broken crosstree from the main top came down smoothly at the end of the day, we don’t have the best wood to replace it, but we have something good enough.

Flying jib to catch anything.

Jesse and John on the top.

Lowering the cross tree.

Cory and Dan pulling it down.