Day 11
As my big brother observed, it’s all small dramas: potato-coolant salad, the hell drawer, chafe patches.
Yesterday was no different.
In putting up the downwind runner, we discovered a case of crossed lines, and not the kind where David is calling out from the bow and Georgie is winching back from the stern and Jeff is chipping in from the beam. In this case, the lines attached to either side of the runner somehow tangled and wound up on the wrong winches.
Or something like that. I tried to focus on my book (The Sea People by Christina Thompson, a great overview of the history of Polynesia: thank-you Samia and Jeffers) rather than the cross lines.
But the crisis quickly resolved and the runner flew out, bright and white in the afternoon sun.
Another view of David in the bosun’s chair.
Apparently 4 times up the mast is a lot for one passage.
Later, David employed the bosun’s chair yet again, as the wonky flood-light did not appear content with its mast position and dangled dangerously over the deck from a couple of wires. I hope it is happy with its new quarters in the starboard lazarette.
Some sailing tidbits:
a winch is the device used to wind lines in or out.
a bosun’s chair is the device used to wind a crew member up or down.
Then,
(enter above, Flying Fish).
Yes, launching out of the ocean, 30 feet through the air, and in a 2 foot square hatch, a generously proportioned Exocoetidae decided to join our evening viewing of Manhunt. His unexpected entrance, while not as consequential nor tragic as John Wilkes Booth’s interruption of Lincoln’s viewing at Ford’s Theater, still elicited screams and a cessation of the regularly scheduled programming. Yet worry not, kind reader, our guest survived his leap and is back in his native habitat once more.
I am grateful for small dramas.
And now a word about lines. Whilst I am extremely familiar with learning lines, I need to learn about lines. As mentioned in a previous rambling, lines liberally festoon Leona, so understanding why they exist seems wise. This morning I sat down with David and Jeff and requested instruction. This is what I learned.
A word to the wise: snaky, woven items that tie one thing to another on a boat are never called ropes. They are always sheets or lines.
Now that’s clear…onward:
Halyard: a Very Important line that lifts the sail to the top of the mast. As a dearly beloved (not my hubby) once told me, “Never let go of the halyard.”
That was shortly before he let go of the halyard.
There are four different halyards: the jib, the genoa, the main and the spinnaker (more about that later).
Outhaul: the line attached to the clew of the mainsail that draws the sail out along the boom. Remember the clew? It’s the point of the sail furthest from the perpendicular side. (or closest to the cockpit).
Topping lift: while that could refer to a spoon full of chocolate sauce, in this case it is a line that supports the end of the boom from the top of the mast.
Vang: attached to the vang, if you have one, (and apparently, even if you don’t have a vang, you will still have a vang) and is something else to help control the angle of the boom and hence the shape of the sail.
Still with me?
Bow line and stern line: connect the boat to the shore from the bow and the stern, controlling the side to side motion.
Spring line: connects the boat to the shore from the beam, controlling the forward and back motion.
Those I got…I’ve helped moor Leona a few times.
Flag halyard: Apparently there are actually five halyards and this one raises flags. Like our Santa Barbara Yacht Club burgee all those days ago.
Lashings: not of ginger beer or whipped cream, this is a bag of random lines ready to be used as needed, like preventing things from banging on the mast, tying down storage baskets or drying undies.
There are generally three sheets on a boat, one for each of the sails. As the book club favorite The Wager points out, the euphemism for drunkenness “three sheets to the wind” comes from life on a tall ship. While several theories exist as to why this might happen, if there are three loose sheets, leading to three untethered sails, the boat is not going to fly in a Leona-like wave-dance, but flop and roll like a, you guessed it, drunken sailor. Lucky for my aforementioned loved one, he was only one sheet to the wind.
Another sailing tidbit:
A spinnaker is a downwind sail, the cousin to our fabulous Runner. One can often spy them ballooning out in lurid colors from the bow of a racing yacht, filling bays around the world like flocks of bright butterflies.
If you are still with me, congratulations, you deserve your tot of grog. Meanwhile, please accept these definitions with a grain of salt and do not scold David or Jeff for my inaccuracies.
I am still learning.
