Passages

I believe I posted the first sunset I saw in Bali.  Here is the last sunset I saw in Bali

All of my sailing experience, before joining the crew of Picton Castle, has been on yachts in the 35 to 40 foot range.  This led me to have some expectations about what life at sea would be like aboard Picton Castle.  I have to say, I am a bit surprised about how much is different than expected. 

Sunset on the Inian Ocean

Watches

Distance racing on Lugnuts we have 2 watches, port and starboard, and we stand 4 hour watches with ‘dog watches’ in the afternoon.  The dog watches are two 2 hour watches, back to back, the purpose of which is to shift the watches so that the midnight watch rotates back and forth between port and starboard.  There are a lot of variations between watch schedules but I like the one we use on Lugnuts.  It can be a bit exhausting though because, at best one can only get about three and half hours of sleep at a time and often you’re lucky if you get that much.  Usually after the Mac race, which takes us about 3 days, I’m usually pretty worn out.  After the 5 day Bermuda race the exhaustion didn’t seem to be as bad.  We all thought that might have been because of having more time to adjust.  On Picton Castle we have 3 watches, with no dog watches.  This means instead of working 4 hours on and 4 hours off, we work 4 hours and then get 8 hours off.  Needless to say, this allows more time to sleep and do more leisure activities.  We’ve been at sea about 8 weeks now.  For the 4 weeks from Bali to Rodrigues I was on the 12-4 watch.  Between Rodrigues and Reunion the rotated the watches so I was on the 4-8 watch for one week.  When we left Reunion the shuffled the watches so we got new watch mates and officers; however, in the shuffle I ended up on 12-4 again.  Since we don’t have dog watches we have to stand the midnight watch every night…it seems I’m doomed to work the night shift whatever I do.  So, while I get more sleep that I would on a 2 watch schedule, I feel like I don’t get enough.  I have to sleep in split shifts or skip meals so I choose to sleep in split shifts.  It works fine but leaves me kind of tired much of the time.  Things will get shuffled again before we leave Cape Town so we’ll see what watch I get then.

Activity

Who is that sitting out on the end of the jib boom?  We had to un-bend the flying jib.  This was great fun, what can I say, I'm a bowman!  Photo credit:  Picton Castle

On the yachts we have pretty limited space to move around and, depending on conditions, moving around much can affect our performance.  If we’re not actually working most of our time is spent sitting on the rail waiting for the next tack or sail change.  This leads to a sailing specific ailment known aboard Lugnuts as “fiberglass ass”.  By the end of the 2013 Mac, when we were becalmed at the finish line for hours, my but was so sore that I refused to sit on the deck anymore and had to sit on a spinnaker bag.  On Picton Castle we have much more room to stretch our legs, which makes the long passages much more comfortable than I was expecting them to be.  We also have maintenance activities that we can participate in when we’re off watch, like rigging work, sail making or helping with carpentry projects.  I have volunteered for all of these and enjoy them all.

Sailing

This fiferail holds about 15% of the lines for main mast.  To the left is the scuttle that leads down to the solon, where my berth is.

I knew the sailing would be a lot different, after all, this is a barque that flies up to 10 square sails and 8 fore and aft sails (sails rigged along the center line of the ship, like a sloop).  We have many more lines to keep track of.  Each square sail has from 8 – 14 lines to control everything and the fore and aft sails have 5 each.  Another big difference is that Picton Castle doesn’t have any winches; mechanical aids to help with sail handling.  That means we used block and tackles or manpower against the weight of sails and rigging and the force of the wind.  Block and Tackle make for much longer lines and hoisting a sail like the upper topsail, which requires us to hoist the upper topsail yard as well, takes at least 5 people hoisting on the halyard.  The yard is steel and probably weighs around a ton and the sail probably weighs 80 lbs.  All of our sails are canvas and our line is manila.  Manila line has to be tended much more than modern lines.  It stretches under strain and shrinks when it gets wet so lines need to be adjusted frequently.  Lines and sails are also always at risk of failure as well.  So far we’ve had one headsail blow out when it was being taken in and one halyard parted when a sail was being set.  The biggest risk factor for both lines and sails is chafe.  Chafe is where lines or sails rub against each other or against spars or other parts of the ship.  We’re on constant lookout for chafe and add padding or bumpers or control lines to avoid chafe; all called chafe gear.

Helming (steering)

Helming on the way into Cape Town.  You can see Table Mountain under the boom.

Helming is one of the highlights of sailing, whether on yachts or on the ship.  On Lugnuts there is a little less than one full turn of the wheel to go from hard over to port, to hard over to starboard.  On Picton Castle it’s 20 turns of the wheel.  That has taken some getting used to; however, my confidence is growing on the helm.  We rotate 1 hour turns on the helm so, with 6 people on watch, one day I get one turn and the next day I get 2 turns.  The helm is on the quarter deck at the stern of the ship so it’s about 15 feet above the water and you’re looking down the length of the ship.  It’s open to the elements and had a great view.  It reacts much like a yacht as far as being pushed one way or another by wind and seas, it just takes more time and effort to respond.  Helming takes a lot of concentration to sail a good line but I just love it.

Sunrise one morning a couple days out from Reunion.  I caught this one on sheer luck.  I woke up to use the head (bathroom) just in time to see the sunrise.

This post was written at sea but we have now docked in Cape Town, which is the ending point of leg 2.  We sailed about 5,700 nautical miles on this leg and we got as far south as 35° 09’ South Latitude.  Of the 3 months allotted to the leg, we spent about 55 days at sea.  We had about 4 days of rain, not including some sprinkles at night between Bali and Rodrigues.

About 14 people are leaving at Cape Town and 6 new people have joined the ship, all but 2 of them have previous experience on tall ships.  As of now we’re scheduled to leave Cape Town on January 20^th but that is subject to change.