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!