40 degrees South

Ahoy there,Welcome to day four of our voyage. We enjoyed a relatively comfortable night’s sleep with the swell abating to less than 0.5 metres even though the wind had freshened and backed to the north-east, which assisted with the speed we were able to achieve. The Ship was motor-sailing on a beam reach.At morning brief we had another visit from LEUT Saltsworth (Harry) and his band of unskilled actors who explained the origin of the ‘Dog Watches’, the sea watches 1600 – 1800 our first visit from ‘Nana’, a lovely old dear who visits the Ship whenever we have a youth crew embarked to help clean up after them and to teach them the importance of tidiness and cleanliness onboard a Ship. After she held her ‘parade of shame’ at which she forced the owners of the clothing she found lying about the place to own-up, she then took the new crew to mid-ships and taught them the nautical song ‘Crabs and Seashells’.After Happy Hour Navigator Evan gave his Navigation Brief to the crew, during which some of the Staffies cast loose the gaskets on the Top Gallant and Topsail square sails, which the youth crew set before lunch, as the wind had backed enough to allow them to be set.At 1300 we held edition 3 of Rope Races, which was followed by some free time for the crew to do some washing and take advantage of the sunny weather to enable the clothes to dry quickly. At 1600 we closed the Ship up at Tacking Stations and undertook Rotational Tacks, during which the Watches rotate through the other Watch Tacking Stations positions to give them an understanding of the other Watch’s jobs. During this process the wind abated to less than 10 knots and backed so it was almost from astern, resulting in an apparent wind speed of 2 knots, combined with the rolling induced by the swell which had now increased to 1.5 metres, caused the sails to be continually filling and then going aback. Unfortunately that meant we could no longer carry the sails so we furled, clewed-up and brailed all the sails, with the exception of the Main Staysail, which we left centred to help dampen the roll a little.The Ship passed the half-way mark to Port Davey at mid-morning today. We expect to arrive there during the forenoon on Mon 01 Mar.Until tomorrow evening, take care. Yours aye,Captain Mike