Back in the age of sail a ship was a vessel that had 3 masts and carried square sails on all 3 masts. The Picton Castle is a Barque, which is a vessel that has 3 masts but only has square sails on the Fore Mast (the front mast) and Main Mast (the middle mast) but no square sails on the Mizzen Mast (the back mast). I still haven't managed to get a good picture of the ship itself, but I will. I wondered around the other day and took a few pictures on deck so you could get an idea of how much space I'll be living in for the next 7 months.
Here is the bowsprit, the yellow part, and the jib boom, the brown part. The 2 sections are called the head rig and hold up to four head sails, although only 3 are rigged right now. The head rig extends about 25 feet from the bow.
This is the fore-castle deck, pronounced foc'sle deck by sailors. The round red thing in the middle of the deck is the capstan, the only winch on the ship. It's used to haul fore tacks when trimming the sails or for hauling dock lines tight for the bow. Behind the capstan is the windless (red and green). There are 2 handles that attach, sticking out to port and starboard. 5 people on each side pump the windless up and down to weigh the anchor(s). Each up and down cycle hauls in about 6 inches of anchor chain, which you can see running on both sides of the capstan. For a bit of scale, each chain link is about 6 inches. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of work to haul in the anchor. The windless is, physically, the hardest job on the ship and the captain has ordered that anyone over 50 is not to work the windless because he's afraid we'll have heart attacks...
This one is standing at the edge of the foc'sle deck ladder looking aft. The fore mast is the large yellow spar on the right and the main and mizzen masts can be seen as you move aft. This gives some sense of the rigging. In the lower center are the starboard clothes lines. They are permanently rigged since we will have to do our laundry on board while we're at sea.
Here we're looking down the port foc'sle ladder at the bottom of the fore mast and the fife rail. The fife rail holds the belaying pins for about 1/3rd of the lines for the fore mast. The open hatches behind the mast allow some air and light into the salon, which is below this deck. This area of the deck is called the well deck. The wall behind the open hatches is the forward wall of the galley.
Now we're standing to the right of the galley, looking forward toward the fore mast and foc'sle. The open door leads into the carpenter's shop, which is just a bit bigger than a closet. There is a berth to the right that the carpenter and cook share and then forward of there is where the professional sailors bunks are.
This one is a shot of the main mast and yards, taken from the foc'sle deck. The mast is 100 feet tall. I'm not sure if that is measured from the deck or from the water. The yards are the horizontal spars and they hold the square sails. The bottom one is the main yard, which holds the main sail. We have split top sails so the 2nd one up is the lower top'sle yard and the 3rd is the upper top'sle yard, then comes the t'gallant (top gallant) yard and top one is the royal yard. That one is call the royal because, back in the day, only royal navy ships used that sail. The sails are all named for the yard from which they hang, hence the upper top'sle yard holds the upper top'sle; however, this doesn't apply to the royal, which is just called the royal, not the royal sail. I'm not sure why on that one. The lower 2 yards are fixed at their hight on the mast and we drop the sails from the yards. The upper 3 yards are raised and lowered on halyards (haul yards). We drop the sails first and then raise the halyards for those sails. The bottom 3 yards are steel and the upper 2 are wooden; all are heavy. You may have noticed that I'm using sailor abbreviations. That is not to prove how cool I am. I called the t'gallent the top gallant once and I was laughed at because, I guess, us sailors don't talk like that! I have loosed and furled sail as high as the t'gallent but I have not been up to the royal yet.
This is a bad picture of the galley but folks were making dinner so I couldn't really ask them to leave. All 3 of these guys are on my watch and in my division while at anchor. While on shore our cook has had some time off and so crew has been taking over the cooking quite a bit. It's been fine but there has been a lot of good natured kidding around about it. As you can see, the galley is not very big but we have a nice big LP stove with 2 ovens so it's pretty good for cooking for around 50.
Here I am standing at the companionway to the salon, looking aft. The green area is the cargo hatch and this area of the ship is called midships. We muster (gather) here whenever the captain or mate want to talk to the crew on board. The captain says, "Muster midships" then everyone who hears him say that calls out the order and everyone who hears that calls it out, so that everyone gets the order and reports. This shows a lot more lines along the starboard pin rail, all of which are duplicated on the port side and forward as well. The ladder goes up to the quarter deck.
This is just below the quarterdeck on the main deck. This area is called the breezeway and runs down both sides from midships to the stern, or back of the ship. The room in the center is called the deck house and part of it is 2 stories high. From midships to the door you see is the chart house and captains quarters. The door leads to the engine room.
Following the breezeway back we come to the Aloha deck. This is where dinner is served when the weather is fine. The water jugs are usually in a holder right about where I was standing when I took this picture but it was being painted. We scatter all over the ship to eat when the weather is fine but a lot of crew eat here as well.
Lastly on the main deck level is the scullery. We have a rinse sink outside on the rail so everyone rinses their own dishes in salt water, then we wash our own dishes in soapy fresh water. Then we rinse in fresh water with a little bleach and then a clean rinse. When you're assigned to scullery you basically wash the dishes used for food prep and keep the water coolers full and help the cook when needed. Scullery also sets up the buffets before each meal.
Moving up to the same side of the quarterdeck you can see yet more lines on pin rails. The closer lines are halyards for the main mast and farther back, unseen are more lines for the mizzen mast. The door here is to the upper level of the chart room where all of the ships electronics are and where the rough log is kept. Aft of that is the ships office. The white barrels are life rafts that will deploy automatically if the ship sinks (don't worry!) On the far right is our longboat, which we've been using almost every day to work on our rowing teamwork. I believe my division still holds the speed record for rowing a set course in the harbor.
Turning to the left from where the last picture was taken, we have the bridge deck. This is off limits and is the captain's alone, unless he invites you. As is the case with most of the deck house. Under the white cover are the engine controls for when the ship is running under power.
This was taken with my back against the mizzen mast, looking aft on the quarter deck. I didn't take a picture of the mizzen mast because it's down rigged at the time this picture was taken. You can see the spanker boom along the left side. Everything is out of place as much work was being done. On my last workday me and 3 others oiled the entire quarterdeck with linseed oil and put everything back where it belongs. It looks really nice. The hatches let air into the captains mess forward and the scullery aft. The silver dome is the binnacle, which holds the ship's compass and then, of course, the wheel. On the right, under the white cover is the ship's cannon. It's quite small and, I hear, is never fired.
