Atlantic Crossing Jan 31,09

Saturday Jan 31,09

We are currently sailing SSW with the spanker and gaff topsail, all square sail, the mizzen staysail and the
flying and outer jib set. We are making 5.5 knots and the tradewinds are much warmer now, as is the sea
which is 25.5 C currently.

There is much speculation about what kind of ordeal us polliwogs will be forced to have when we cross
the line. I do know that we are keeping all food waste aboard until then which doesn’t bode well.

We should cross the line late Tuesday or early Wednesday at current speed , however the winds may drop
before then as we hit the doldrums (also known as the “intertropical convergence zone”).

Bruce, Rich and I are on solo galley duty tomorrow which will be “interesting” as none of us really cook. I
suggested a couple of things that I have actually done and promptly got elected as “boss”, lovely.

More later…

It’s later. We are now sailing as before but we have the two remaining stunsls set. It didn’t seem to mess
up the steering too much which was good.

Bruce and I have a plan for the cooking tomorrow which has reduced the anxiety level a whole bunch. At
least for me :-)

We will be getting up at 5:30am to get rolling and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Atlantic Crossing Jan 30, 09

Fri Jan 30,09

Did my first noon sextant sight today! I’m fairly happy with the results. My calculations were 10 minutes
of arc off from the sight taken by the first mate, whose sight is of course considered authoritative :-)

The calculations are not onerous and with current tables take maybe 5 minutes if you have to do
interpolations , which we didn’t.

The next classes will be on lines of position and plotting which is also cool.

My first Sun sight.
Photo by David Bellows

We had a workshop on anchoring today. The Picton Castle has anchors and anchor chain sufficient for a
500 ton ship which is nearly twice our size. We actually have 4 anchors on board, the 1500 lb port fisherman’s anchor and the 1200 lb stbd navy stockless. In the hold we have another big fisherman anchor and a 200 lb danforth kedge anchor. The anchor chain weights a ton per shot which is 90′.

In modern maritime circles anchoring is considered more as an emergency tool rather than a standard
mooring. That is because most ships go alongside now rather than anchoring out. The Captain prefers to
anchor out as it keeps the rats and cockroaches (both two legged and multi-legged) away.

Night watch was uneventful and cloudy so no star identifications for me.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Atlantic Crossing Jan 29,09

Thur Jan 29,09

This morning I was on lookout as the Sun was rising. It is amazing to see the waves change colour as the
light grows. Thy start out almost black then as the light grows they get silvery grey highlights. Soon they
take on a polished steel colour and then finally as the Sun breaks through the clouds, that are almost
always on the horizon, a luminous deep blue.

I’ve tried to take pictures of the Sea to capture that colour but it doesn’t do it jutice.

After breakfast I laid in with the crew switching out the damaged upper topsail. The sail was switched out,
re-rigged and set in about 1.5 hours.

Later we had our CN class and actually got to play with sextants which was very cool. Then it was time to
try and set the stunsls again. This time a wind gust caught the middle one and flipped it up over the boom
which promptly speared the sail and ripped the sail across. So we down rigged the whole shebang. Buddy
has his work cut out for him wth two sails to repair now.

More later.

An email from King Neptune was posted on the scuttle today. It was very interesting and basically warns
that he will be visiting the ship when we cross the line to deal with the infestation of “odoriferous
polliwogs”. It also asked the Captain to pass greetings along to “Queen Chibley” :-)

We are only 550 miles from the equator so another 4 days or so.

Night watch was OK very warm but mostly cloudy. I tried to do some astronomy, identifying the 57
“fixed” stars used in navigation by comparing the star charts in a book with star maps but there were just
too many clouds. I found a planetarium program on my little laptop which allows me to set the date time
and lat long and it shows what the sky looks like. I even took that out on deck and oriented it with the sky
which worked OK too.

We adjusted our clocks back one hour last night since we are moving West slow but sure so now it is light
for most of our “night” watch. This means we will start to have shipwork of sorts to do at the end of the
watch.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Atlantic Crossing Jan 28,09

Wed Jan 28,09

Night watch was fantastic, the stars were amazing and for most of my time as lookout there wasn’t a
single cloud in the sky. I had first lookout and fourth helm so I was on the helm at the end of our watch
from 7-8am which was also when the Sun was rising. As the sky brightened the sea changed colour from

Me on helm at the end of our night watch.
Photo by David Bellows

almost black to dark grey and then various shades of grey and silver to the blue it has during the day.



A flying fish landed on deck and Sophie, second mate on the Bluenose who is getting sea time with us on
the crossing, found it under the coffee rack on the Aloha deck. Had agood look at it, Their wings are long
tapered fins almost as long as their bodies.

Today will be our second CN class and we are supposed to get a chance to work with a sextant which will
be cool.

More later…

It’s later and there was no CN class today as everybody was deeply involved in rigging up th stunsls
(studding sails). We also had a class in different kinds of sailing rigs and why our ship was rebuilt with the
barque rig. Very interesting on both fronts.

There was one hiccup during the stunsl rig down when a wind gust pushed the spar holding the peak of
the sail right through the upper topsail! That means we have to unbend the sail and replace it with an older
sail from storage. I guess that will be on the agenda for tomorrow.

We are now 760 miles from the equator and I do believe that Neptune’s “minions” are about their
preparations. Or at least they want us pollywogs to think so. :-)

Thanks for reading
KJ

Atlantic Crossing Jan 27,09

Tuesday Jan 27,09

Had a good night watch, we’re still sailing along with Royals set making 6-7 knots.

We will be having the first formal celestial navigation workshop today which should be interesting.
Just finished the first of our Celestial Nav (CN) classes. The class was held on the quarter deck. There is
something really cool about learning navigation when you are actually at sea. I’ve read a lot about
navigation and all the math etc necessary to do it but actually doing it on a ship is a good way to make it
real :-)  We will be having these classes every day now and although optional I think I will try to stick with
it for a bit.

I’ve downloaded some pdf files with CN info so I have some references to use as well.

Also started my “ditty bag” which uses all the same techniques as Buddy the sailmaker uses to make the
sails for the ship. Most of the crew have theirs since they started back in May but I and the other new(er)
trainees got started today. the weather is fabulous with steady force 4 trade winds and bright blue skies
with only a few puffy white cumulus clouds hurrying downwind.

When I came off the afternoon 4-8 watch the sky was ablaze with stars some of the brightest I’ve seen so
far, the night watch should be good.

Thanks for reading
KJ