Wave over Wave

Wave over wave, sea over bow… (Great Big Sea). Being out there on the water, nothing out there but you, the wind, and the waves. Is the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced!

I am sitting at the bow, waves rolling over my wet suit, up and down up and down. “Ready About” is called. I jump up and run over to my station. I wait for my call.  “About ship helms a lee”, “Tack the Jib”, “Let go and Haul!” I let my line off and run to the other side to haul in the other side.  The massive sail came around. “Tack down” I call. This notifies the others that are working on the lines that correspond with the tacks they can now haul in the rest of their lines.  I make fast and start to coil my lines. I then help with coiling the other lines. The tack went so smoothly.I go back to sitting at the bow, waves rolling over my head… Wave over Wave, Sea Over bow.

Mother Nature

This week I have decided to blog about something other than sailing. I want to talk about the weather and how crazy this year it has been. This winter has been like spring and today Friday, February 24, 2012 it is snowing like mad outside. In Kingston and the area they are calling for close to 5cm of snow by this afternoon. In total throughout the next few days we are supposed to have about 10cm! That’s the most snow we’re going to have all winter.

I think Mother Nature is really confused. Lately it has been so mild that it was like spring. The trees were running and the robins singing. Yes the robins have returned! And now it’s like winter again! Lake Ontario never froze over!! 

I hope that Mother Nature can make up her mind soon! She is confusing a lot of people and animals. I hope that next year we will have a more “normal” winter or at least more “normal” weather seasons!

 (A picture from a couple of years ago)  

Sailing Sailing Continued

  

Hello again, earlier this week I was blogging about sailing on the St Lawrence II, her sister ships and some different rigs.  Today I am going to continue.

Playfair and Pathfinder. They are both brigantines like the St Lawrence II very similar because they are sisters! The St Lawrence II is the oldest. Pathfinder is the middle sister and Playfair is the baby.

I have already talked about the St Lawrence II my last post so today I will start with Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is 72’ overall, 15’ wide, and has over 2,600 square feet of sail.  She was built in 1963 in Kingston, Ontario.

Today she looks like this:

Playfair is 72’ overall, 15’ wide, and has over 2,600 square feet of sail. She was built in 1973 in Kingston, Ontario.

Today she looks like this:

So here I am talking about sailboats but I haven’t said anything about sails.

Standard sails on a brigantine are: Jibtop, Jib, Fore stay’sl, Course, Top’sl, Fisherman, Main stay’sl, Main, and Gaff top’sl and some other sails.  

To be continued…

Sailing Sailing

Hello, I am in love with sailing. I am also new to blogger. In my blogs I am going to be talking about, that’s right, you guessed it, Sailing!

I sail every summer on a tall ship, the St Lawrence II. The St Lawrence II is a Brigantine. A Brigantine is a type of tall ship rig. There are so many different types of rig out there it is crazy.  For example there are Schooners, Sloops, Barquentines, Full Rigs…etc.

The St Lawrence II has an overall length of 72 feet, a deck length of 60 feet, and a draft (depth) of 8.5 feet.  She is 15 feet wide. Wait a minute she? Why did you just call the boat she? Well, good question. For some odd reason boats are referred to as a female. Weird eh? I have no idea why? Anyways I am getting off topic. The St Lawrence II was built in Kingston Ontario 1953.  She is built out of all welded steel for very high safety standards. She has about 2,500 square feel of working sails. Wow!

The St Lawrence II also has sister ships, Playfair and Pathfinder. But that’s a different story for next week.

To be continued…