New Crew

A long but good day, lots of things got done. I painted the yellow under the half round and got interrupted a few times because Dan wanted me to help Jesse bend on the royal sail. We ended up not getting to do it because things weren’t dry, NP1 around the yolk and the yardarms.

The mast got more finished, copper and sheaves all put in, I got to slush the mast, linseed oil and tallow, gross fun. Ryan finished up installing his cable from the mizzen down to the main mast that holds the mast up. The rig was tightened some more and Katie pained some more of the red cap rail.

Got two new crewmembers that are going to be AB’s, John and Michelle.

Seamstress

A lot was done on the mast and yards today. Sveta was still hard at working putting the royal back together, making a pattern for the leather and Kat was on the topgallant painting it. Grant and Jesse were on the foretop all day, they were tightening the lanyards up there and doing a lot of seizing.

Sanded the sheave holes in the mast, painted them and helped Katie install copper for the sheave holes in the yard. Asked Dan for another job and was sent to do more seams in the deck because apparently someone told him I’m a master seamstress, not only on the deck but clothing wise as well. He has some buttons he made that he wants me to sew on to his pea coat. I also put another coat of oil on the starboard foredeck.

Robyn, the woman doing the magazine article about us, got to sail on the Lynx today, got some great shots of them. We did a cannon exchange with the Lynx when they came back in and that was great. She has some amazing photos from her time here, but she can’t give them to us yet because then they’d all over facebook before they got published.

Fore topgallant mast.

Sheave hole.

Katie and Grant reloading.

Cleaning up on the foretop.

Finishing stanchions and rig

Another day on the stanchions, Ryan and I tightened them up, added another nut and then I filled them with roofing tar. I cut copper discs to be placed on top, but we are holding off and hopping to get some copper screws. As Ryan says nails don’t have a place on a boat, everything you put on a boat has to come off at some time or another.

Brooke and Sveta worked on the royal yard, Grant NP1-ed the mast, Ryan and Lee when he arrived tensioned some stays for the fore mast and Kat was working on another topgallant yard.

Had dinner with the Lynx on the veranda.

Stanchions, mast and yard

A productive day on the foredeck. After Grant showed me how to check the fire extinguishers and all the safety stuff I helped Ryan with the starboard fore pin rail. We took off the copper tops, dug out the dolphinite, drilled out space to fit the socket wrench in and then Dan came by and helped tighten the nut. When Dan was tightening it at one point he lost his grip or something and ended up on the deck.

Katie, Kat and Jesse worked on the forward shroud lanyards. Brooke, Grant, Cory, Laura and Sveta worked on the mast and yard, getting it back in shape.

Day off with the do

Haven’t had a day off where I had duty in a really long time, was good just to hang out on the boat and not do a lot. I did do laundry, cleaned my bunk and aired out my sleeping bag, so that’s something.

No more sewing the topgallant!

Today was suppose to be another day a loft and spent oiling a lot of the deck, but that didn’t happen because of the weather. Before we even had morning capstan we struck the brows, moved heavy d back in place and set a few more fenders. We started to remove things from the foredeck but stopped because we saw the big rain clouds coming.

I ended up back on the sail and finally stiched it all, Sveta told me to put my initials in it… so I did. Dan and Ryan worked on getting the royal yard back together; the rest of us serviced the gear from the topgallant yard. At the end we oiled a little bit of the deck.

Tonight Cory and a friend of his showed up as well as a lady who’s here to help promote the ship or something.

Down rigging fore topgallant and fore topgallant mast

Lots of exciting things today. We got the fore topgallant down before lunch, had it on the deck by at least 10:30, last time the royal took us all day. Dan had a diagram of the yard drawn and walked us through all the steps while we were on deck. Jesse and Sveta were more in charge while the rest of us helped out. We attached the gantline to the yard leading it starboard, took off the peril beads, moved the foot ropes forward of the mast. After that I headed to deck to help from there, but then they took off the lifts and braces and that was the basics of it and then eased to deck. Dan placed it on the deck but it was still leaning up against the course yard to Jesse had to go and push it along until it came off and then it was on the deck.

After that Dan again had a drawing and explained how we’d get down the topgallant mast, a little more complicated of a process because there are more things attached. Grant and Katie put tallow in a hole that we lead the heel rope, we also took off some nuts to remove the Dublin bars.

After lunch I’m not too sure exactly how things went aloft because I wasn’t up there, but the heel line was put through the hole with the tallow, a tag line was attached. We lowered it a bit then shrouds and backstays were fast off, lowered some more, fiddled with more things and finally lowered it to the deck.

While we waited Jesse showed us how to put in the lanyards for the shrouds on the main, pretty easy, lead them in, add some tallow, tighten, tighten some more and add seizings. There’s another step but we didn’t get to it.

Was a really great productive day, but everyone is sunburned, Ryan is the worst.

To many people on the cross trees.

Peter, the look out.

Grant not breaking his neck like the rest of us.

Jesse and Kat easing the mast down on the heel rope.

Shrouds down.

Ryan guiding the mast from the fore course.

Dan catching the mast.

No mast!

It's down.