The View From My World

When I told many of you folks what I was going to be doing this winter, I got the impression that many of you thought climbing in the rigging was going to be a big deal so here are a few pictures I took to try and give you a sense of what it's like.  We don't actually spend that much time in the rigging and I don't take my camara when I'm working so these were taken on a special trip, just for the pictures.

The view from the jib boom.  It was a fairly windy day so we're healed to port with about 6 foot swells.

The view down.  OK, I'm not really at the end of the jib boom, there is about a meter to go but there's nothing to hang onto out there.  You can't really tell but I'm 25-30 feet above the water, depending on where the swell was when I snapped this one.

I took this one from the deck, looking up to the fore royal yard.  Elias is up there furling the royal because of the strength of the wind.

Here is the view down from the royal yard.  The masts are about 100 feet above the deck but the sail is furled and the yard  doesn't go all the way to the top of the mast.  I'm probably about 85 feet up.

This view is a bit misleading because it looks a bit like I'm standing on the t'gallent yard but I'm actually standing on the foot rope, which is the black line running at an angle to the yard about 5 feet below.  The foot ropes are not too hard on the feet, the rat lines are much worse.  I was told that it took about a month to toughen up one's feet but mine still hurt when I climb up.  I still don't wear shoes though, I'm a sailor, damnit!

Here I'm looking aft, toward the main royal yard, which doesn't have it's sail bent on. You can see the black foot rope under the yard.  You can also see a little of the curvature of the horizon in this picture.  From up here the horizon is probably about 25 or 30 miles away.

And here is the view down to midships.  There are people on deck in front of the small white boat near the center of the picture.  That boat is lashed to the top of the galley house so they're about 8 feet above the leve of the deck.