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Windjammer Weekend

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Good morning everyone. After a rainy week we are enjoying a weekend at home with the kids. As you may recall Jen was gone all week camping, canoeing, and hiking with a school group up at Baxter State Park, home of Mt Katahdin, Maine's highest peak. I'll let Jen tell you about that trip herself. Mr Mom survived the week in fine style with only a few transgressions (OK, I admit it, we watched a movie on a school night!). The kids sure were happy to see Mrs. Mom. What is wrong with my cooking I ask. "I thought you guys loved baked beans." We also had some great bike rides with the most colorful foliage coming on strong. The kids love to stop to feed our neighbor's goats.


At any rate, back at the schooner, the crew worked all through the rains that poured down from the heavens on Friday. It was toad soaker worth a couple of inches. Mary finished putting the galley to bed while Hannah, Sara, and Elisa started sanding covering boards and bulwarks. One of the things the crew has discovered is that hand sanding works just as well machine sanding. We had several discussions about the virtues of each method. As I tell them, any tool can be the right tool in the right hands. Because of all the ins and outs of the bulwarks hand sanding really does a great job and takes no longer than a machine. Thoreau would love this. We had a few breaks of sun on Thursday allowing Sara and Elisa to sand and prime the main mast head. This next week we look forward to finishing up the outdoor work, winterizing and hauling the yawl boats, painting mast heads, and tarring the rig.

Have a great day. Be well. Do good.
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AL from Alabama said…
Seeing the Mary Day under cover reminds of something in the vast number of sea novels I have read. Back in the days of fighting sail they called this being "laid up in ordinary". I suppose this term has long fallen into disuse. There is a picture in Harland's book "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" (with which I have spent many a good hour) which shows a ship stripped down to her masts only and covered with a tarp of canvas. A caretaker was left on board to check the well and keep things in some order. I imagine shrink wrap would have been very strange to them.
Sleep well, Mary Day.
October 14, 2007 at 7:25 PM
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