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hawkwing_lbBreakfast at 0730, on watch at 0800. Because of Tuesday's freshwater scrub, cleaning stations weren't much on deck, and it was too damp to do brasses.
Good sailing weather, with a nice fresh wind down the lough. See this flag? It was flapping quite loudly. We set the mainsail, and the captain had Donal reef it - you reef the mainsail on the Asgard II by using a lever to roll the boom so that you wrap part of the mainsail around the boom (the boom is on a kind of pivot at the mast), and yes, slacking and hauling at peak, throat and topping lifts goes on during this - set main staysail, main topmast staysail, fore staysail, jib, topsail and course. View up to course and main topmast staysail from amidships.
We sailed around the head of Ireland, passing the Giants' Causeway - I got to steer under sail - and entered Rathlin Sound, where the tides make a current of four knots. The hull speed of the Asgard is nine knots, I was told: at lunch the captain came through the mess and said as he moved, "Ten point seven knots!"
After lunch a squall blew up: we were all on deck, and the ship had heeled right up on her port side, with her course yard only about two metres from the water, and water rushing in over the lee rail, wind howling and gusting and sails and ropes flapping, and the guys on the lee side wet up to the knee. The mate shouts, "Strike the course!" and the bosun shouts, "Strike the course!" and the freaking engineer's on deck shouting "Will ye ever fooking heave on those fooking ropes baiys!" (Cork accent) and I'm hauling on the clewline with Andrew M. tailing shouting "Two six! Heave!" because the bosun isn't and the boys on the bunts are standing with their fucking hands in their fucking pockets as though the world hasn't tipped up on its freaking side and god, boys, if the sail rips or the boat tips further or anything happens to the rig we'll be in fucking trouble then, won't we?
So we get down the course and strike the jib and the main topmast staysail, and the world goes back to being only moderately bouncy. (Apparently the wind gusts reached fifty knots and the ship was making thirteen knots at one point.) It was an interesting few minutes. Because we've struck the course, Donal gets us to get out the fore topmast staysail, and we rig it on the foredeck, ropes whipping around, us bouncing and wobbling and clinging and everything feeling quite dangerous, thank you. Run it up its proper stay, and then the burst of hectic activity - sailing is periods of boredom interspersed with manic activity - can die back to normal operations; ie, lookouts and watch, since the captain's on the wheel.
Crazy stuff there for a while, though.
After things calmed down a bit and we headed round the top of Antrim (see pictures one and two - sadly, my last exposure) with the Mull of Kintyre less than twenty miles away and Rathlin Island. Then we turned south, and I stuck my head into the charthouse to find out where we were (a bit above the top of Lough Lagan, I think). Donal took pity on my interest and demonstrated navigation by GPS, longitude and latitude, and radar. Apparently the US can turn GPS off any time they feel like it, and did on Sept. 11, which worried a lot of ships, so the backup method when near land is to find the shape of a headland or island by radar and match it to the chart.
The afternoon was fairly lazy. Was off watch after lunch, so apart from the interesting moments in Rathlin Sound, or when hands were needed on ropes or bracing stations, which was seldom, a bunch of us just sat on the lockers around the doghouse and enjoyed the day. The sun came out, and spray would occasionally wash inboard and wet us, and for a while we were told to make sure we clipped our harness to something unless we were moving about.
The evening was hard work. Had dinner, then on watch, and then during the watch we came into Bangor, needing to strike and stow sails and flake out mooring lines on deck (long zigzag coils) for ease of use. Lost the button on my trousers when on the foredeck hauling down the fore staysail, and spent the rest of the time using my safety harness to help keep my trousers up. Didn't go up the mast, although I wanted to: I went in the RIB to the quay to help the mooring from there.
We moored at Bangor pier beside another tallship, a privately-owned schooner by name Ruth out of Penzance, and had ourselves an audience for stowing the sails (sitting on the bowsprit to stow sails, still hard work, still fun), including an American woman who wanted to know everything. Then set up the gangway (the long gangway rather than the short one, and wasn't that fun to go up and down of, with a drop of a couple metres at low tide) and re-stowed the fore topmast staysail in its bag on the quay.
It was after ten pm before we got shore leave, with a curfew of 0030. I just walked out to find a payphone and back: nice people in Bangor, especially the guy in the Salty Dog pub at the end of the pier who gave me friendly directions: thanks, man, you saved me getting lost. Very much a pretty town in the neat British-seaside-resort mode, though, although you can see some of its medieval bones showing through even still. I'd've liked to see it in the daylight.
(There's a twee little song about Bangor, incidentally.)
Went to my bunk then, since I had to be up for the four am watch again, and with the Ruth moored alongside us starboard and the pier to port, I needed to be awake for it. I think that watch is technically part of Day 7's adventures, so I'll talk about it then.
That was the seventh day.
Good sailing weather, with a nice fresh wind down the lough. See this flag? It was flapping quite loudly. We set the mainsail, and the captain had Donal reef it - you reef the mainsail on the Asgard II by using a lever to roll the boom so that you wrap part of the mainsail around the boom (the boom is on a kind of pivot at the mast), and yes, slacking and hauling at peak, throat and topping lifts goes on during this - set main staysail, main topmast staysail, fore staysail, jib, topsail and course. View up to course and main topmast staysail from amidships.
We sailed around the head of Ireland, passing the Giants' Causeway - I got to steer under sail - and entered Rathlin Sound, where the tides make a current of four knots. The hull speed of the Asgard is nine knots, I was told: at lunch the captain came through the mess and said as he moved, "Ten point seven knots!"
After lunch a squall blew up: we were all on deck, and the ship had heeled right up on her port side, with her course yard only about two metres from the water, and water rushing in over the lee rail, wind howling and gusting and sails and ropes flapping, and the guys on the lee side wet up to the knee. The mate shouts, "Strike the course!" and the bosun shouts, "Strike the course!" and the freaking engineer's on deck shouting "Will ye ever fooking heave on those fooking ropes baiys!" (Cork accent) and I'm hauling on the clewline with Andrew M. tailing shouting "Two six! Heave!" because the bosun isn't and the boys on the bunts are standing with their fucking hands in their fucking pockets as though the world hasn't tipped up on its freaking side and god, boys, if the sail rips or the boat tips further or anything happens to the rig we'll be in fucking trouble then, won't we?
So we get down the course and strike the jib and the main topmast staysail, and the world goes back to being only moderately bouncy. (Apparently the wind gusts reached fifty knots and the ship was making thirteen knots at one point.) It was an interesting few minutes. Because we've struck the course, Donal gets us to get out the fore topmast staysail, and we rig it on the foredeck, ropes whipping around, us bouncing and wobbling and clinging and everything feeling quite dangerous, thank you. Run it up its proper stay, and then the burst of hectic activity - sailing is periods of boredom interspersed with manic activity - can die back to normal operations; ie, lookouts and watch, since the captain's on the wheel.
Crazy stuff there for a while, though.
After things calmed down a bit and we headed round the top of Antrim (see pictures one and two - sadly, my last exposure) with the Mull of Kintyre less than twenty miles away and Rathlin Island. Then we turned south, and I stuck my head into the charthouse to find out where we were (a bit above the top of Lough Lagan, I think). Donal took pity on my interest and demonstrated navigation by GPS, longitude and latitude, and radar. Apparently the US can turn GPS off any time they feel like it, and did on Sept. 11, which worried a lot of ships, so the backup method when near land is to find the shape of a headland or island by radar and match it to the chart.
The afternoon was fairly lazy. Was off watch after lunch, so apart from the interesting moments in Rathlin Sound, or when hands were needed on ropes or bracing stations, which was seldom, a bunch of us just sat on the lockers around the doghouse and enjoyed the day. The sun came out, and spray would occasionally wash inboard and wet us, and for a while we were told to make sure we clipped our harness to something unless we were moving about.
The evening was hard work. Had dinner, then on watch, and then during the watch we came into Bangor, needing to strike and stow sails and flake out mooring lines on deck (long zigzag coils) for ease of use. Lost the button on my trousers when on the foredeck hauling down the fore staysail, and spent the rest of the time using my safety harness to help keep my trousers up. Didn't go up the mast, although I wanted to: I went in the RIB to the quay to help the mooring from there.
We moored at Bangor pier beside another tallship, a privately-owned schooner by name Ruth out of Penzance, and had ourselves an audience for stowing the sails (sitting on the bowsprit to stow sails, still hard work, still fun), including an American woman who wanted to know everything. Then set up the gangway (the long gangway rather than the short one, and wasn't that fun to go up and down of, with a drop of a couple metres at low tide) and re-stowed the fore topmast staysail in its bag on the quay.
It was after ten pm before we got shore leave, with a curfew of 0030. I just walked out to find a payphone and back: nice people in Bangor, especially the guy in the Salty Dog pub at the end of the pier who gave me friendly directions: thanks, man, you saved me getting lost. Very much a pretty town in the neat British-seaside-resort mode, though, although you can see some of its medieval bones showing through even still. I'd've liked to see it in the daylight.
(There's a twee little song about Bangor, incidentally.)
Went to my bunk then, since I had to be up for the four am watch again, and with the Ruth moored alongside us starboard and the pier to port, I needed to be awake for it. I think that watch is technically part of Day 7's adventures, so I'll talk about it then.
That was the seventh day.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 04:07 pm (UTC)...
The things you don't know. Wow.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 04:14 pm (UTC)(Afaik, there's a European/EU equivalent, but I think it's not complete, and if I'm remembering rightly from an article I read a couple years ago, restricted to military use.)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 05:30 pm (UTC)(I like a whole lot of US peoples, but your government/military-industrial-complex scares me freaking silly.)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 06:33 pm (UTC)