Ship ahoy or How to get to London the difficult way

[Admiral Yi]

On a three watch ship, what do they call the third watch? 

Did you ever set the topgallants and studding sails?

[The Brain]

Were you told to feed the *googles English term* keelson?

[Threviel]

On a three watch ship, what do they call the third watch? 

Did you ever set the topgallants and studding sails?

Starboard, port and midship.

We took down the topgallant mast when leaving Norway, due to the hard weather. Put them up again going into London.

The studding sails have rarely been used on Götheborg, mostly on one leg of the first China journey when they couldn't fill up with diesel before heading out from India. In 2008 the sail warehouse burned and the studding sails haven't been repaired since.

[Threviel]

Were you told to feed the *googles English term* keelson?

The keel pig (Swedish literal translation of keelson) was unfed by me at least.

[Threviel]

Watches could be one of three things.

You could be one of two helping out in the galley, mostly dishes and setting up food or tea/coffee every two hours.

It could be BURR, which was a rotation of fire watch, lookout, rudder 1 and rudder 2, one hour each.

The ship has a fire watch going through every space every hour every day.

As a lookout we stood in the front and informed the mate about whatever was in front of the ship. If the spritsail (in Swedish called a "blinda" - "blindsail") is set you cannot see in front of the ship from he deck, then the lookout has to climb the bowsprit and there's a great seat there where you can sit and just look around and enjoy life.

Rudder 1 and 2 just steer the ship according to instructions from the mate.

But most often you were on the work watch. In daytime that often meant setting and taking down sails, hauling on the braces to set the yards at correct angles and so on. In the night it was much the same, but with less sails there was much less to do. So nights were often spent under a red light with our watch leader telling us stuff and drawing on the deck to explain. She was an experienced boat builder and sailor and we could spend 4 hours on sailing rigs, whales, stars or whatever. Sometimes just lying on the deck telling stories. We spent one cloudless watch looking for the Andromeda galaxy.

[The Brain]

We got to watch this movie on a movie night, the real old sailors were hard men.

An old captain filmed the last time Peking went around the Horn in his youth and lived to tell about it in 1980, real sailors in real situations. Must have been a hard life, I especially appreciate the dude going down the side of the sail to the next yard, holding the sail between his thumbs and fingers.

That's an amazing movie. The man's a great cameraman and narrator. And the skipper seems to have been a pretty great guy.

[Threviel]

Starboard watch

I'm the one closest to the mast.

[grumbler]

What's not immediately obvious, but a big problem for me, is that the shrouds do not go to the base of the platform but rather to the center of it, or perhaps better described as to the top of the lower mast (the mast being divided into the lower mast at the bottom, the top mast and the topgallant).

This can be seen on the main and mizzen mast in this picture: Götheborg

So for the last 3 meters or so one has to climb at an outward angle, hanging with straight arms to save the muscles. And then you have to climb up on the platform. I'm very sensitive of heights and this scared me out of my mind when they described it. But then I was dragged up as number two into the mast and didn't really have time to chicken out, I just had to go. Once in the shrouds I was just focusing on the climb and it actually went really well. All my swimming and dieting beforehand paid off and it was quite easy actually.

You are now one of those few people who can answer the question "what are futtock shrouds?"

[Threviel]

And futtock shrouds (that's what I meant, you might as well learn puttingvant, the technical terms are all nonsens to landsmen) are scary, but in practice not a problem to climb in.

On my first real day watch at sea there was a stiff gale on the North Sea. By the beginning of the watch the officer on watch estimated Beaufort 6, by the end it was more, one experienced deck hand said 8. I have no clue. It was raining more and more throughout the watch.

The previous watch had taken down the fore topsail from the yard for repairs and put it on the top in the fore mast. It was our job to take it down to the deck. I volunteered to go up together with two other newbies and a few experienced sailors. This was my third time up in the masts and I thought it would be excellent to kill my fear of heights. And it was.

It was sheer and utter joy, to stand there and feel the ship as it heaved and dove into the waves from a height of 20-25m whilst you were doing stuff together with other people. The waves were impressive from my perspective, but in reality they were just a few meters high. It felt like the mast could break, but of course it never did, and as the weather worsened we had to realise that we would never get a line down to take the sail down with. So we had to pack the sail on top of the radar, situated under a protecting structure, so that it wouldn't block the signal.

We struggled with this and in all we spent perhaps 2 hours up there before we got it fixed up good enough. I don't think I've ever been as elated by doing scary stuff as when I stepped back down on the deck. Endorfin explosion. That was probably the best time I had on the ship and that experience is exactly why I wanted to sail on the North sea.

After the watch we sat and talked about it on gun deck and the waves were horrible enough that some gift from the Chinese embassy fell down and broke in a thousand pieces. Quite an experience.

[crazy canuck]

Great story - but I have to get glasses - I read "some git" and it was only after reading the smashing into pieces that I realized my mistake. 

[Threviel]

After that the winds died down and we got nice weather the rest of the trip. Unfortunately we only got one good day of sailing, otherwise the winds were against us.

The next exiting thing happened a few days later. We were cruising along nicely with a few sails set, but with the engine running also. In general the stay sails were almost always set since they stabilise the ship. The fore and main sails were also set at this event.

When the watches changed both watches form up by the capstan and we go through a formal watch change. At noon the weather was very nice, shorts and t-shirt nice, but there was some rain coming in. This is where the inexperience of the crew plays a part, because what was coming was not just some rain but a squall (error 1: the sails should already have been down). We started by changing into rain gear (error 2: we should have done that before) and slowly preparing to take down some sails. Then bam, 20 minutes in it's over us and it one hell of a squall (from my perspective, probably nothing for a real sailor). In a second wind speed goes up considerably and the whole ship starts to lean over to one side, we need to get the sails down and get them down really fucking fast. So, we started with the mizzen topsail (error 3: Should not have started with the mizzen topsail). Whilst we are doing that the assistant to the watch leader mentions that she's afraid the ship is going to tip over (no, it wouldn't). I'm getting my adrenaline up and we're working really fast to get the sails down.

When taking down the mizzen topsail most ropes are on the sun deck, the high deck in the aft of the ship. We're standing there in one hell of a noise, the sails are banging about like crazy. We get the sail under control and then the sheet to the mizzen staysail breaks. The sails is only connected at the two fore connection points and the sheet line becomes more less a whip sweeping over the sun deck. Once that is clear to everyone we get everyone safe and hide away aft and watch as the sheet whips and wooden splinters and radar parts start (not many, but still) flying in the air. We're thoroughly fucked and in a bad situation and our watch leader seems overwhelmed.

Unbeknownst to us all man on deck has been ordered and the other watches comes up at more or less that second and they quickly start to take down the stay sail. We're saved. Then all of us hurry up and take down the rest of the sails and just about exactly when we're finished the sun comes back and the squall is over.

That was tense. It looked a lot more serious from our perspective than it was. Had we started with the stay sails it would have been nothing. The mate could not change course either because one of those high ways of the seas was just beside us and it wouldn't look good to cross into that. If it had been serious they would have done something. All in all a glorious experience.

The rest of the watch was spent setting sails again and bracing the yards.

[Josquius]

Amazing that it's such an epic adventure even for the seemingly absolutely piddling journey of Oslo to London.

[Threviel]

Amazing that it's such an epic adventure even for the seemingly absolutely piddling journey of Oslo to London.

Yeah, this trip really delivered beyond my dreams. That's why I wanted the North Sea, I wanted to experience bad weather and adventures and I got that in just the right amount. I only had 6 pairs of socks and I would not have made it if it would have been wet and dreary all the way. So if anyone wants to do the same thing, bring 1.5 pairs for every day at sea.

[Threviel]

The days before London we were told that the City had said no to firing the guns and saluting the Tower. The weather was really nice with very little wind so the day before entering the Thames we hauled out the guns and fired a broadside for fun. The photographer got a drone circling and hopefully got some nice pictures out of it.

Hopefully updates with more pictures of the saluting will come.

After that we hove to and took a swim in the North Sea. Some 20 degrees in the water, it was really nice.

We were told that we were to man the yards going under Tower bridge. Our watch leader made the schedule so our watch got to man the best mast, the fore mast. The we drew lots on who would get to man it and I got in. Then we drew lots on which yard to man and I drew the winning lot, the topgallant yard.

The topgallant had been taken down the entire trip and just put back the same day, so I had never been so high up. Luckily we were two and the other person was the coolest girl I've encountered for many a year. Very calm, very nice and very encouraging (also very pretty by the way). She was very experienced and I had the utmost respect for her. Since I trusted her completely it felt safe to go up beside her, had it been anyone else I would have traded my place for a lower yard.

So that's how I ended up in the fore topgallant yard going under Tower bridge and spending half+ an hour looking out over London from some 40-45 meters.

My family, having arrived at the hotel at about 1 the previous night, of course were late and almost missed it, just seeing us leave.

And that's about that with sailing adventures, I did not go up again, I was done with it. I'll probably post an update on the London adventures with the kids.

See fellow deck hand https://www.instagram.com/exploredannesweden/ for some nice pictures of the leg. I'm actually in one or two pictures.

https://www.instagram.com/josefx3m/ was the official photographer and has some pictures. On the night picture with the stars I'm the one closest to the mast.

https://www.instagram.com/theswedishshipgotheborg/ The official instagram for the ship. Has some nice pictures of the London part.

[Syt]

That's all kinds of awesome.