Let's Get Practical
"Can you release the halyard from the winch and get that cringle into the ram's horn? Tighten the topping lift and loosen reef #2?" Translation: let the mainsail down a bit so the ring can go around the hook to make the mainsail a bit smaller. Tighten the rope that holds up the boom and loosen the rope that holds the partially folded sail in place. Makes perfect sense, right?
After a month, I now know what that means, but at first it just sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher talking and I couldn't make sense of it. As a novice to the sailing world there have been some aspects of this adventure that are very practical but also critically important.
Think of when you come home from the grocery store. You probably bring the bags into the house, put perishables in the fridge and put canned and dry goods away in the cupboards or pantry. We do those things on Traveler, but there are a few more steps. See, we store all the canned goods under the floor in the bilge. The bilge is the low point on the boat where water collects under the sole, or floor, of the cabin. There's a bilge pump that periodically pumps collected water out of the bilge when enough water collects from either the stuffing box (more on that later) or the ice box. We definitely don't want extra water in the boat. So, every can that gets put in the bilge has to have the label removed so it doesn't get soggy and clog the bilge pump. A clogged bilge pump means water stays in the boat when we don't want it to. Don't forget to use a Sharpie permanent marker to label what's in the can so you can find the beans or tuna. Otherwise it becomes canned goods roulette.
Another thing about putting away groceries is we take off all the cardboard packaging from things like crackers or cereal. Apparently cockroaches like to eat the glue or the cardboard and we do not want them as stowaways on our boat!
One of the most amazing things to me is the gimbaled stove. As the boat rocks and rolls in the swell, the stove pivots to keep the stove top as flat as possible. There are these gizmos called fiddles that hold the pot in place so it doesn't fly off the stove.
So far we've had tuna noodle casserole, pasta dishes, baked fish (freshly caught of course), brownies, mango scones and various stir fries. It's pretty incredible to me that the stove can handle the movement of the boat and we can have such great food on board. Of course, the stove does not help the cook stay standing, but I've learned to brace myself between the counter and the sink.
Every place we stop at anchor or in a marina there are ongoing maintenance projects to do. Cleaning and drying out the bilge is one.
Most recently Tim and Ned were working on tightening the packing nut on the stuffing box. It is not Stove Top stuffing but rather packing that lubricates the propeller drive shaft as it goes out of the boat to the propeller. Whenever the prop is spinning, drops of water come into the bilge. We want as few drops as possible coming in when the propeller is not spinning. Tim used the custom made wrenches to tighten the packing. Timing the frequency of drips is how he finds the right tightening adjustment.
The sailing and traveling part of this journey is great fun, but it has also been fascinating to me to understand how everything works and what is necessary to make it work. Everything has a place and everything has a purpose. I imagine that many of the tricks of living on a sailboat were learned the hard way, by experience. I'm grateful I don't have to learn about cockroaches and clogged bilges by experience.