A Day During Refit

After only two weeks in Santa Cruz, stepping off the bus at the shipyard still felt like coming home. It also made an impression on me because most of the crew were at the bus stop on their way to the chill out pub. It was a good reunion, it felt like I hadn't seen them in ages, and so much had happened while I was gone. Now that I've been back for a week, Santa Cruz seems like some dream I had; the long days blend together and I often forget what part of the week we are in.

Refit is an insanely busy time, and for lack of creativity, I will give you a typical day on refit in Zaandam.

Wake ups are at 0630. Usually I wake up a little before though, because it is entertaining to hear the person doing the wake ups getting more impatient as they go from cabin to cabin. The first cabin will get a greeting of "good morning sweetie pies, it's 0630. Time to wake up." then it gradually degrades to the last cabin "Time to wake up. It's 0630. Unfortunately."

0715 we all meet on deck (or in the deckhouse if it's raining) to discuss the plan for the day. Usually Erik will give us a rundown on the bigger picture, followed by Klass remarking on the weather and then it is the bosuns' turn to give out the jobs.

This whole period has been full of showers and clouds, "Dutch skies" they call it. Today was pretty wet, but perhaps not as much as yesterday. My morning began setting up the steering gear area for a second coat of primer (we rustbusted the day before, then acided and primed yesterday), then we had to move the ship forward a bit. After that we began priming and finished the steering gear area 20 minutes before morning coffee. And the rest of my day was spent serving wire rigging on the quay.

Serving is how we protect the steel rigging from moisture. First we melt Lanolin and Stockholm tar into "Slush" which we brush liberally onto the bare wire. Next take strips of old cotton sheets, dip them in slush and then wrap tightly around the wire with the lay. This is called parcelling. Finally we are ready to serve the thing! There is a very specific way to set up the service, but basically it is wrapping twine around the wire against the lay. We use a special serving mallet to keep constant tension, and you have to either pass the spool of twine around as you go, or make a spool on the wire that you push in front of you. Final step is to tar the new service with a recipe of paint, varnish and more stockholm. Voila!

Hello Northern Hemisphere

Well, that catamaran trip was something I could have lived without... But changing the subject and jumping ahead in a mighty leap, here I am back in the northern hemisphere and awaiting a plane at the San Francisco airport to take me to fair Amsterdam of the Netherlands.

Now if you've been reading my posts in succession, you may be asking, or rather demanding irritably how I have managed to make that leap since the May post, but it will all unfold presently. 

I happen to have just been home for two nice weeks due to my eldest brother's forthcoming nuptials, which were in the works for about as long as it takes for freshly picked raspberries to go mushy. However, it was a lovely wedding (no mushy raspberries present) and I enjoyed meeting the bride and getting to know her a bit. The other highlight was meeting my seven-month-old niece for the first time. 

I am very much anticipating my return to Holland because it will be nearing three months that I have been crewing aboard the bark Europa (http://www.barkeuropa.com). Owing to some good friends met in Australia, I stuffed my pack and flew from Melbourne to Amsterdam in June to work a three week refit aboard Europa. It was like getting hit over the head with a brick, but the nicest, softest, luckiest brick that ever was made. There was organization, there was real food, there was a bunk for me, there were captains present and a good crew. The work was hard, the days long, but it was a rewarding experience. Some of the jobs included replacing the maintopmast, rust busting in the bilges, tearing apart and rust busting cabins, and my especial "small person project," prepping and painting a tight corner of the forepeak. I will always remember that project, partly because it took me close to three days to complete, but also because I was in the thick of it when Klass, one of the captains, popped his head in and said, "well Krista, I suppose you want to sail with us?" I looked up and vigorously nodded my heavily masked head. He smiled, "well then, you can sail the races to Norway with us."

The race was an absolute blast, as well as a bit of a crash course in Europa-isms for me. I'd been aboard for three weeks before the start of the race, but refit didn't give me much chance to learn the pinrails or the process for maneuvers. Europa has thirty sails she can set, each of those sails having at least three lines running to it, and usually more. The race also gave me a chance to experience how she sails...

In the right amount of wind she felt like a yacht, it was incredible. The skippers like to sail her, and when they sail her they set all sails possible for the conditions. In a reasonable wind, with sails trimmed she heels a bit and man is it a beautiful thing. 

We hit a little weather as well and had a steady 27-33knots of wind for about 24hours mid-race. Most of our fifty sail trainees became seasick; one of the exceptions was a brave young man who we observed running a sort of puke-bucket brigade. He would come out of the deckhouse, carefully lug the bucket to the leeward side of the main deck whereupon he would deposit the contents over the side, rinse the bucket in the streaming scuppers and make his way back inside. After he handed the fresh bucket back he would stand near the door, listening. Sure enough, a few minutes later he would perk up and scurry into the masses of teenagers holed up in the deckhouse, and emerge on deck in a continuation of the routine. This was highly amusing for us to watch from the wheelhouse during a coffee break, although thanks to the Swedish watch system there wasn't a whole lot that didn't amuse us. 

In the Swedish watch system, the crew are divided in half. The daylight hours are split into two watches, the first from 0800 to 1400, and the second from 1400 to 2000. Then comes the trickier part; the night hours are split into three watches: 2000 to 2400, 2400 to 0400, and 0400 to 0800. The nice thing about it is you get to see different parts of the day because of the odd number of watches, but it takes most people longer to get used to biologically. It took me about a week to get into. And even after you get used to it, conversation and senses of humour tend to spiral in a weird downwards direction. I won't say it isn't entertaining though. 

During the aforementioned weather we blew out the inner jib, but were able to bend on a spare; that was an exciting job. And although we were close hauled the whole race, we placed third overall in our class. We had a leisurely cruise back to Amsterdam after a few days in Fredrickstad; we sailed along the coast of Denmark and then went through the Kiel Canal. Arrived in Amsterdam July 22nd, and then it was packing off to California for me and preparing for a second refit for everyone else. The second refit is on til August 31st, but the fantastic thing is we get Sundays off this time! I may even make it off the ship and out of Zaandam to see some of Amsterdam.