Lady Washington in Kalama, December 2009

Just over two months after the sail through a gale mentioned in the earlier entry, I find myself waking up on a crisp morning in a sleeping back on a bunk in the small square main hold of the brig Lady Washington. Nearby the cook bustles about in the adjoining galley.

I can clearly see my breath, every exhalation sending a plume into the cold air like a whale spout. We don't have reveille for another hour, but I have an urgent need to get up. A montage of memories of glass after glass of IPA with the captain and some others in the only bar down town provides the answer why I so urgently need to visit a head.

There's heads ("toilets" you might say) on the ship but when we're in fresh water their use is to be avoided because we need to pump out the tanks when they get full. So I quickly get dressed and head up the ladder, through the open hatch to deck. I nearly slip and as soon as I step out on deck -- the deck is covered in a thin layer of ice and frost! A quick trot along the frost covered gravel marina parking lot brings me to the shoreheads. I'm outside a small town on the Colombia River called Kalama.



Just over two months earlier I had nearly no experience on tallships, or sailing at all. I'd been called on to go aloft and help furl in the darkness and tossing seas of my first sail on the brig Pilgrim, and then experienced the gale of the prior entry. After this wild induction into the life of sailing, I naturally couldn't wait to dive right in for more. I'd been told about an organization which runs two ships constantly (the brig Lady Washington and ketch Hawaiian Chieftain), and which you can join full time as a volunteer with no prior experience (and if you're really lucky even get a paying job on!). The slow season in beekeeping was just beginning, so I went to the Middle East for a month and when I returned I promptly enlisted upon the Lady Washington.



Obligatory picture of me upon my initial arrival to join the Lady Washington.

Hands Aloft to Squirrel!

Jumping ahead now to a more recent entry I wrote this past February:

"HANDS ALOFT TO SQUIRREL!!!" bellows the captain, a large fellow with a huge fiery red beard. With a quick glance aloft hands note that "George" (the Washington State Flag) is waving towards port, so they scamper to the starboard shrouds and scurry quickly up the ladder-like grid of ratlins and stays. They don't hesitate when they have to climb upside down to ascend the futtocks shrouds under the top platform midway up the mast, and continue up the second set of shrouds. The first two hands to reach the upper topsail yard, about 70 feet above the rolling sea, swing around the mast to the port side and clamber out on the horizontal yard. The second two climb out on the starboard side and once they are all in position on the foot-ropes, they begin to furl the sails.


But let's rewind a bit, since "hands aloft to furl" is a command that would only be called for as we secure the sails to come back into port. Let's say we want to turn the boat so that instead of coming from the starboard side the wind is coming from the port* side. We're going to need to tack (turn) all the yards around so they are facing the other direction, and the lines that turn the yards are called braces, so we're going to have to call hands to braces, which might sound like "hands to main braces!!" ...or if the officer is feeling particularly saucy (which they frequently are), they might instead holler "HANDS TO BRAIN MACES!!!" (which relates to the sailor's perpetual fear of zombie attack)
Next we're going to need to pass the "head sails" (pronounced hedsels), the triangular sails on the front of the vessel, from the port side to the starboard side. This is done as the front of the ship passes directly through the eye of the wind, with the command of "Pass the headsails!" The front of the boat being relatively far from the captain, the command is repeated by hands along the length of the vessel until it gets to the bow, frequently changed at some point until it reaches the front as "PASS THE PRETZELS!!"
A less frequent command is to "board sheet the headsails" **, which is occasionally turned into "EAT THE PRETZELS!!"

After manoeuvering about for awhile, likely doing battle with those devilish people over on the Lady Washington (such as i_id*), it comes time to return to port. Hands aloft to furl (/squirrel) is called, and then the command "hands to mooring stations!" is made, which I always repeat as "HANDS TO BORING STATIONS!!!" and crewmembers report to the appropriate station from which to throw mooring lines and bring us up secure to the dock.

That evening, while most of the crew is at the Bad Monkey Tavern in Seattle, or Engel's Pub in Edmonds, or Moon Dog II in Port Orchard, or Mac's in Aberdeen, or The Dock in Tacoma or [etc etc etc] *** ... one crewmember must stay behind on "boat watch." At some point someone misspoke and referred to it as "goat watch" and it stuck, and ever since, watching goats has been the activity one was referred to as doing if one had to stay and hold down the boat.

One of my favourites, however, is "MAIN HORSE!" Three times a day our fearless cook Knuckles would alert us all to the meal being ready by calling out "MAIN COURSE!!" in each of the compartments. This in itself is an intentional nautical pun, since the lowest position for a square sail on a mast is the "course" and the course on the main mast is the "main course."
But having a fondness for intentional mispronunciations this command frequently gets echoed as "MAIN HOOOORSE!!!!" To this day when I'm talking to former crewmate Kori around lunch time we'll ask one another what they are main horsing upon, what they're main horsing down, or perhaps what is for primary equine.

While I'm on the subject, there's one other pervasive habit of sailorly speak that's worth remarking upon. Because when you're yelling from one end of the ship to the other through the wind, the inflection of your voice tends to get lost, we frequently add "questionmark" to the end of a sentence that is a question. For example shouting "should I rig the stunsel booms questionmark!" or "should I sky the rafee gear questionmark!" This habit extends to situations in which you can plainly hear the speaker's inflection anyway though, so any former crewmember is liably to insert "questionmark" onto the end of any sentence that is a question.


* you can remember which side is which because "port" only has four letters just like the word "left," starboard and right on the other hand.. do not have four letters

*** I could probably tell you the best bar to go to in two dozen towns on the coast now (:


The Lady Washington in the San Fran Bay this October, as seen from the Chieftain's topmast
(I have nearly no pictures of the Chieftain at sail as I was invariably ON her)


I'm very curious if any of you out there (A) know if there is a word for this intentional mispronunciation of words, and (B) have any words you similarly intentionally mispronounce at your place of work, questionmark?

Spirit of Dana Point in a Gale 2009

The below, originally written after the event in 2009, was one of my first tallship voyages.

2009-10-03 - 09:00

It all began on a lovely nice day in Dana Point Harbour.
Another volunteer and I rowed one of the dingies over to the tallship Spirit of Dana Point (a 118 foot topsail schooner), where after us it was hoisted aboard ... and would be nearly lost later in the storm. I noted that the first mate not only had muttonchops and combat boots like me (and we'd later be the only ones with dry feet), he even had the same hat as me (though it would be later lost in the storm). Also while we prepared to get underway a large bird of prey perched atop the mast very very narrowly missed crapping on him.

2009-10-03 - 12:00
We set out from the harbour around noon. Hoisted the sails (though one would later come down when a critical line snapped in the storm). With 11 crewmembers, we were divided into three watches of three people each to stand watch for three hours at a time (Plus the captain and cook). On each watch one person would man the helm, one would be on bow watch, and one would.. keep them company (and they'd rotate between these positions every hour or half hour) ... or at least until the storm became too fierce for it to be safe to stand on bow watch.
Additionally the ship's log was to be updated once an hour ... until it was later lost in the storm.

2009-10-03 - 15:00
I stood watch from 15:00 to 18:00. Had the helm for about half that time. Now steering a ship, if you've never tried it, is a lot like driving on ice. Which of course, makes sense. You try to turn and by the time the boat starts to respond you need to start turning the other way to straighten it out. It's all sliding, all the time. But from all the compliments I got from the captain(s) either (A) I'm a natural or (B) they just pour on the flattery on new folks.
Dinner was delicious (burritos). So far all my tallship adventures have been marked by delicious food. Traditionally around dinner time everyone stands a shortened watch (the so called "dog watch") so I was on watch again 8-9. I stood bow watch during this time, which wasn't much trouble considering I'd hung out up there with the previous two dogwatch bow watchers. By now it was dark and the full (or mostly so) moon was illuminating the sea beautifully.
Immediately after watch I went to bed due to my next watch being in only six hours (03:00 am). It was actually warm enough that I flopped on my bunk and went straight to sleep without bedding or a sleeping bag.

Point Vicente, Palos Verdes (Saturday Evening)

2009-10-04 - 03:00
I wake up in a red-lit room (they use red light so your eyes don't have as much trouble adjusting when you go outside) to someone telling me I'm on in ten minutes. Stumble out of bed and try to put my coat on as the room wildly pitches back and forth. Felt like I was in a submarine movie.
Come on deck and stumble back to the quarterdeck where the other two members of my watch already were. Was informed we weren't keeping a bow watch "because they might get swept off in this weather and we would never know."
So we took turns at the helm with the other two sitting nearby, all keeping eachother company and awake. On the radio a Coast Guard advisory is playing on repeat every few minutes, advising that gale conditions are in effect and all but the most experienced mariners were strongly advised to stay ashore.
Had kind-of wanted to stay up for sunrise but by the time my watch was over at 06:00 I was tired, and tired of being sprayed, and my arms hurt from wrestling the helm, so I went back to bed.


2009-10-04 - 09:30
This time I slept with my coat over me. Awoke wetter than I went to bed! Just my lower legs though -- apparently my bunk was under a drip over thataway or something. Got up around 09:00 to a wildly rocking ship. Climbed up on deck and proceeded to the quarterdeck, where most of the crew was clinging. Sun was shining but the seas were very rough (15 feet?) and winds were certifiably gale force.
We were at the time about seven nautical miles outside Channel Islands harbour in Oxnard, CA. Way behind where we should have been. Presently we decided to try to make for the nearby harbour instead of Santa Barbara ... but we'd spend all day even trying to get to this location.

Sailor Sarah dutifully tries to keep the log on her hand
(I really liked her hat)

2009-10-04 - 13:00
The log had already blown away at this point. I believe they tried to start a new one and then THAT blew away. I suppose I was technically on watch from 12-3 but we were all already on deck and the one manned position, the helm, was being operated by the captain(s) (we had more than one licensed captain aboard).
Waves were regularly coming over the front of the ship, and a fair bit of spray was showering us in the back.
At one point, my mum (who was also on the trip), who had been sitting on this box made some comment about getting too much wind and moved. Seconds later a wave fully crashed over the side there completely submerging several of us. Yes, we didn't get splashed, we got submerged. Mum's timing was amazing though, it may very well have saved her life.
Someone else toppled on the deck at one point and hit his head, probably needed stitches later. I was sent flying once when a wave hit while I was trying to traverse the deck, and went spinning across the deck on my back without injury.
We had some sails up to stabilize us (we were going into the wind so they weren't much use), but one of the lines broke on one of the foresails. The experienced crewmembers then had to go out on the bowsprit and take down and furl the sail. We brought the ship to a stop so as not to shove them under water but they still got a fair good bit wet out there.
Later we had to stop again to reattach the dingy, as one of the lines holding it on had broken.
And then while I was sitting there some small metal object came hurtling down from the mast and bounced off the deck right beside me. I'm told it was part of a light up at the top. We added it to the growing pile of things that had broken off the boat.

2009-10-04 - 16:00
Around 16:00 I decided I was tired of clinging on for dear life and getting constantly doused with water so I went belowdecks to go lay on my bunk.

The bow of the ship in the trough of a 15 foot wave

2009-10-04 - 19:30
Someone wakes me up and tells me I'm on duty in 15. This doesn't really make sense to me by my calculations of watch but whatever. I climb out of my bunk to find the room completely topsy turvy -- boxes, bags, stuff of all kinds is all just strewn about. I comment on the mess and the person who woke me up comments "you should see the REST of the ship!"
I manage to get my coat on, a simple operation under normal circumstances, I had to pause at least three times as the room was sent violently lurching in one direction or another. Climb up on deck and report for duty. We've givin up on Channel Islands (after making it within 3 miles -- that's four miles of travel all day) and are now backtracking to a cove off Malibu. Once again we're sailing by moonlight now. Also we're going the same direction as the waves, which nets us a 7 knot speed instead of barely 1, and also makes for less violent clashes with waves (though this way the whole ship basically surfed a wave or two).
Arrive at the cove around 23:00 (keep in mind we were supposed to be done with our journey entirely around 12:00 -- I'd expected to be HOME by Sunday evening not hoping maybe to set foot on land the NEXT day.
Called my boss to tell him I wouldn't be able to come in to work the next day due to being stuck at sea by a gale -- probably the first time he's heard THAT excuse.
Cove was very calm. As it had been too wild to use the galley all day, we all raided the cup o noodles supply in the galley as soon as the ship was anchored in. Everyone was assigned 35 minutes of anchor watch at some point in the night up until 4am, when we'd be weighing anchor and making a second attempt up the coast.
Two hours of sleep later my watch was.. completely uneventful.


2009-10-05 - 09:00
Monday I awoke around 09:00 ... and the ship was in pretty much the exact same place it had been when I woke up the previous morning! Sea was much much better though and a hot breakfast of oatmeal was soon served, much to everyone's delight.
Had the helm when we finally reached Channel Islands around 10:20. We had to be escorted in by harbour patrol because the tallship Exy Johnson had run aground there some months ago and now it's apparently their policy that all tallships must be escorted in.
Myself and three others disembarked at the fuel depot around 11:00. I believe the rest of their journey was uneventful.

Launch!

I've decided to start a blog here dedicated to my sailing adventures. I've blogged for awhile now, but presently all my entries on all subjects are all mixed together in the depths of livejournal. So I thought I'd pull out only my sailing entries and put them on a dedicated blog. I might also create a dedicated blog for beekeeping related entries.

But for now my aim is to update this once a week (on Sundays) with entries about my sailing experiences.

(Pictured above, a picture I took at the Dana Point Tallship Festival 2009)