Crew journal of the barque

February 2006 Does everyone get a kiss from the captain when they leave the ship? Steward Marie Matanale Full & By and family recently moved to The crew journal of the barque James Craig http://www.australianheritagefleet.com.au/JCraig/JCraig.html

Compiled by Peter Davey

Production and photos (except where credited to others) by John Spiers

All crew and others associated with the James Craig are very welcome to submit material.

The opinions expressed in this journal may not necessarily be the viewpoint of the Maritime Museum, the or the crew of the James Craig or its officers.

CDs with photos appearing here and others are available at small charge to crew members for their personal use or free for promotion of the James Craig. Making sail at sunrise - more Eden photos by Mike Richter pages 8-10 The Bosun’s Locker Some little reminders

A few little points that if neglected, cause a great deal of unnecessary wear and tear, expense, and extra maintenance:-

Topgallant braces

If the topgallant yard is down (sail not set), the weather brace should never be eased further than the canvas sleeve on the brace. This prevents the yard from chafing on the serving of the topgallant shrouds. It was standard practice in the old days to limit this rotation – see photo right -

Course lifts

These should always be slackened as soon as crew is off the yards having ungas- keted the sails. This prevents the lifts from straining and chafing the topmast shrouds when the yards are sharpened up. Note that to ease a lift, it should not be necessary to take the big coil off the top pin or touch the turns on the top pin. Just undo the turns From A. Villiers “THE WAY OF A SHIP” pub. Hodder & Stoughton 1954 on the lower pin, and do them up on the lower pin at the end of the sail – always leave sufficient slack between the two pins to do this.

Aft awning

The wires supporting the awning cause a great deal of damage to any lines touch- ing them if the awning flaps – they can demolish a line from chafe in a few days. The ones to watch are the vangs (the wire should go inside two and outside one of the three parts), and the flag halyard that is used to lift the wire span, which should be outside the wire. If you are setting the aft awning, then when you finish, please check along the wires both sides, and fix any problems. Topgallants not over-rotated on the Sir Robert Fernie - from B. Lubbock “THE LAST OF THE WINDJAMMERS” pub. Brown, Son & Ferguson 1929 Roll cloud drama

4 January-February 2006 www.aopa.com.au On a pre-christmas evening charter, that started out as a clear and balmy evening, JC and her crew and guests wsere treated to this magnificent roll cloud and ensuring deluge.

www.aopa.com.au January-February 2006 5

ABOVE For those whose computers did not give then a spread of the previous two pages, here is the same photograph reproduced smaller. BELOW: Storm gathers as we sail under the bridge. OPPOSITE: Some more views. Who needs movie special effects? Eden voyage Photos by Mike Richter

James Craig dawn Mt Imlay sunrise Eden sunset Eden pilot Jo at work Fire on the water Enterprize tiller Three pilots Enterprize silouette Not Jaws - sunfish Planning at sunrise Relief is in sight, entering Eden with Enterprise, moonrise at sea, JC profile, a bit of a roll, galley slaves. Steering the Craig proportionality. o quote from that great Australian thus applying greater turning movement Because the velocity is squared, it fol- Tsquare rig sailor and author, Alan before it actually reaches the rudder. This lows at once is that: Villers, in his book “The set of the Sails” water on the “Craig” would be disturbed, If you double the velocity (i.e. scale by The James Craig was a lively, lovely, and slowed down, and not a solid block as 2), then you quadruple the turning and highly responsive thoroughbred of a you would expect on a sailing ship without effect (i.e. scale by 2 x 2 = 4), ship… She tacked like a yacht and ran like propellers. If you scale the velocity by 1/2 then the a greyhound. The “Craig” would not be achieving the turning effect is scaled by (1/2) x She does not always tack like a yacht turning movement intended because we do (1/2) = 1/4, though she can still run like a greyhound. not have the build up of solid water. This If you scale the velocity by 1/4 then the When she had her first tack in over 70 effect is lost on an auxiliary sailing vessel turning effect is scaled by (1/4) x years, she did indeed tack like a yacht but with an aperture between the sternpost (1/4) = 1/16, we do not have such success. and the rudder (this allows the solid water If you scale the velocity by S then the Reasons: to escape before it can build up. I would turning effect is scaled by S x S. We are sailing her 200 tons lighter then imagine such a ship would have a larger So if the effect of the props is to reduce in her working days. This would have rudder to overcome this loss. the velocity of the water from 9 knots given the Craig extra momentum to make In John Harland’s Seamanship in the age to 6 knots the tack. of sail. The turning effort is proportional then the turning effect is reduced from T This means that we have more hull ex- to the square of the velocity of the water to (6/9) x (6/9) x T = 4/9 x T = 0.44 x posed which slows down the tack. and the square of the sine of the angle with T. This exposed hull would also be slowed which it strikes the rudder blade Put another way, a 1 - 6/9 = 1/3 reduc- down by the sea state. First, without the constant of propor- tion in velocity results in a 1 - (6/9) x We are dragging two 6ft diameter pro- tionality we can’t give any absolute num- (6/9) = 1- 0.44 = 0.56 reduction in turn- pellers which take at least a knot off our bers. Nevertheless, we can work out things ing effect. speed. like the percentage change in Turning ef- Quite dramatic. These free wheeling propellers interrupt fect (T) caused by a change in velocity (V) The effect of changing the angle is the smooth flow of water over the rudder. or rudder angle (A). The Formula is: more complex but probably not of such Normally at greater rudder angels, the T = C V^2 sin^2(A) = C x V x V x interest. water may be envisaged as ‘piling up’ sin(A) x sin(A) P. Davey seaman (sail) before it actually reaches the rudder, and Where C is the unknown constant of Good helm advice from a Photo of author from A.A. Hurst “GHOSTS ON THE SEA LINE” pub. Cassell 1957 century ago

By Steve Robinson

noticed coming back from Eden some I cases of “compass fixation” – steering Two helmsmen watching the steering sail from Pamela Eriksson with head bent over and eyes glued on the “THE DUCHESS” pub. Secker & Warburg 1958 compass, when there were lots of distinc- tive fluffy clouds to steer by. We can all improve our steering techniques, and some of the best hints I know of were written by Basil Lubbock over 100 years ago:- “The most difficult task of all, is to steer a large ship running before a gale of wind in a big sea. “A bad helmsman in such a case will have his spokes flying round the whole time; first his helm will be hard up and then hard down, and the ship will be swinging a couple of points on each side of her course. “This is because he probably watches his compass too much and his ship too little. “A good helmsman will know instinc- Sea off Cape Horn from Capt. A.G. Course , “THE WHEEL’S KICK tively when his ship is beginning to come AND THE WIND’S SONG” Pub. Percival Marshall 1950 up [swing to weather], and will at once meet her with the helm a second or two before the compass shows the fact. “Never watch your compass too much, as the compass is slow always, and very deceiving. “At night, if it is clear, and you are steer- ing a compass course (by which I mean that you are not steering by the wind, and the ship is able to lie her course), take a star at a yardarm and steer by it. “Always try to keep the wheel as still as possible. In steering the ship by the wind, a spoke or two occasionally is all that ought to be required to keep the ship dead on her course, if the wind is steady. “Steering like I am now, the ship going over 10 knots with the yards off the back- stays, once she is steady she ought not to require a spoke once in half an hour. “When steering by the wind, you ought to keep the weather clew of your royal just quivering. A landsman will no doubt wonder why, if the royal leech is flapping, the other sails are not doing the same: but that belongs to another branch of the art of sailoring, that of trimming your yards properly. “The royal should be braced up the least bit more than the topgallant and the topgal- lant more than the topsail, and the topsail more than the course. A good quality in a mate is to be a good sail-trimmer. “But to return to steering. The steering of a big square-rigged sailing-ship is I think a most fascinating job, whether you are standing barefooted in flannel shirt and dungarees, watching the flying-fish as your ship hums through the trades with the maintack boarded, or whether you are running before a gale of wind with lashings on your oilskins, working like a donkey- Why worry when you have engines? engine, and hardly daring to look behind you. You know that if you take your keen- est attention off for a moment, your ship will run two or three points off her course, and will ship a huge sea, which, washing the decks fore and aft, will perhaps smash a boat to matchwood, or wash out the gal- ley, or even carry some of the watch over the side. “It is terrifying to a weak-nerved helms- man to see a huge mass of water with a foaming top rear itself up behind and chase him, trying its best to poop the ship, and ready to fall on top of him if he makes the least mistake. “It is for this reason that some ships have wheel-houses to hide the following sea from the fearful helmsman. This is the time when the good men come to the fore and the indifferent helmsmen are turned away disgraced.” Basil Lubbock, “ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST” Master Colville - soon to be ordering us all around?

Having recently acquired an EOS5D, which provides full 35mm frame 13 megapixel images, I have been trying some arty ultra wide shots with 15mm fisheye lens (hence the barrell distortion. ABOVE: What happens when photographers try to take a little rest by lying on the deck and prentending to take photos. Tallships news

-- something I was never permitted to do trainees would not be cost effective. How- News from the Tall ships -- and as Captain Richard Bailey poured ever, to build several smaller ships, each network. via Chris Watt all his experience and efforts into building permitted to carry 12 trainees, and operate an excellent sail training program that was them together would be cost effective. If all “HMS Rose”. You may know, she was the envy of the world for about 15 years. goes well, I hope to start construction on starring in ‘Master and Commander’. But I was very proud to watch my “daughter” 4 full-rigged ships in a maritime Canada unfortunately she was sold to the film- star with Russell Crowe on the big screen. shipyard in the spring or summer ing company to people not interested in I know the people at the Maritime Museum of 2006, using long-life cold-molded anything after the film. So she lost her of San Diego are dedicated to keeping construction. These are the 1680 ship classification and regaining it will be so the ship alive and restoring her to sailing BATCHELORS DELIGHT, and 3 Revolu- expensive, that it is unlikely she ever will condition. tionary War privateers, ALLEGIANCE, sail again. However, the fact remains that she is GENERAL PICKERING, and RAT- But this news reached me via the tall- never going to return to East Coast sail TLESNAKE. All four could be sailing ships mailing list and I think it may be of training. The niche that Richard carved out less than a year after construction begins. interest for you: so boldly and imaginatively remains es- If that project goes well, it will be pos- _A message from John Millar sentially empty. There is no square-rigged sible to build further vessels for the same Dear Friends of the ROSE, ship of the period represented by ROSE program. Many of you have never met me. I’m the offering sail training in these waters. I feel I hope all of you will want to become brash guy who at age 24 went to the bank that such an important niche needs to be involved in the project, and that you will and borrowed enough money to build the filled again. find some level at which you will want to ROSE. After I sold her in 1984, I watched Accordingly, I have begun a project to participate. I know I can’t do it alone, so I with excitement as Congress permitted do just that. To build another ROSE that welcome your participation. ships like ROSE to carry people for hire can be permitted to carry no more than 31 www.colonialnavy.org Sailing on the Elissa

he Barque Elissa was built in TScotland three years after the James Craig with a net registered tonnage of 408.73 tons and Barque rigged, compared to our 646.25 tons. This makes her about two thirds the size of the Craig. . She carries one less jib and one less stay sail on her mizzen. She went through a number of owners and rigs until she was purchased by the Texas Museum in 1970 She was operating as a Greek motor ship and was destined for the scrap heap until she was bought by U.S.A. interests. Her restoration reads much like the Craig’s; finally in 1982 the Elissa welcomed visitors. She has sailed every year since with trips to ports in the Gulf of Mexico and to New York. I was fortunate to be invited to sail in her for the 2005 sea trials. Apart from some minor confusion with some sailing terms I had no problems fitting in with her crew. I was made extremely welcome and I was impressed with the dedication and professionalism of the crew; especially when you consider that that they only sail for three weeks a year\. The Elissa survived the recent hurricane with no damage. She has a proper forecastle with the original hand operated wind- less There is a Capstan just aft of the main mast and most lines have a turning block to help with the sweating and tailing. She has an enclosed chart table with a view- ing platform above on the quarter deck. Overall a sweet vessel and a credit to the Texas seaport Museum.

Visitors from

Three books (original documents from 1690) on seamanship, navigation, gunnery www.shipbrook.com/ jeff/bookshelf/index. html?sort=bysubject Knot of the month. www.marina-baltica.de/ English/e-trave.htm Four turns three bights made from a clove hitch. Flat version makes a mat. French knot book. You will have no problems following the illustrations. www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/~amoreau/pdf/Noeuds.pdf German knot article. http://home.tiscali.nl/knotsandknottying/downloads/Conjugierte%20su pramanuale%20Nodi.pdf Another free knot book (1936) http://home.tiscali.nl/knotsandknottying/downloads Knot / %20Book. Ditty Bags.

Ever sailor should have made their own ditty bag.

Steve the Bosun; Morin, mine and Stewart, the ex navy and Garden island rigger who works on the Craig on Thursday, are good examples . If there is enough interest Morin and Sally are interested in run- ning a course on making your own ditty bag.

Check out www.woodenboat-ubb.com/cgi-bin/UBB/ultimatebb. cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=008329&p

Thad Koza, the internationally known tall ship photographer, was onboard and photographing the Elissa. Check out his web site where you can order his 2006 calendar and/or his book “Tall Ships”. www.tallshipsinternational. com/

$US12.95 per copy; $4.00 for Priority Postage $16.95 total $6.00 postage outside US

Return to: Thad Koza, 24 Mary Street, Newport RI 02840 e-mail: [email protected] CO2 in the atmosphere is the coal that we currently export; each tonne of coal pro- duces some 3.7 times that weight in CO2 emissions (to do with the chemistry, two ‘Os’ to one ‘C’). Burning fossil fuels also adds to the atmosphere a greater amount of that stronger greenhouse gas, water vapour. So what does all this mean for things What maritime? Probably the likelihood of massive changes to ocean currents and an in- creasing severity of storm conditions – a warmer ocean (the surface 0.5 degrees above what it was in the late 1970s) and a warmer atmosphere, mean more energy going into storms. The New Scientist recently had an editorial, ‘Storm Warning’, which pointed does to three recent reports on the increasing destructive power of cyclones over the past half century; see this New Scientist website for one of those reports: http://www. newscientist.com/article/mg18725184.200.html. climate The editorial in the New Scientist of 24 September 2005, ‘Storm Warning’, has the sub heading ‘The hurricane forecast is becoming clearer, and the news is not good’. It states in part: ‘… As late as last year, the consensus among meteorologists remained change that no discernable trend could be distinguished from natural variations. .. Now that has changed. Three reports have found a clear signal amid the statistical noise. … It is the near-uniform global picture that warns us the trend is genuine, rather than the of natural variability. Local and regional conditions fluctuate all the time, but mean for rarely does the whole of nature move swiftly in one direction unless there is some external cause. As the report’s co-author, Judy Curry of the Georgia Institute of Tech- nology in Atlanta, puts it: “We can say with confidence that the trends in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity are connected to climate change.” things So there you have it, from a number of top science journals, there is a ‘clear signal amid the statistical noise’. The ‘near-uniform global picture that warns us the trend is genuine, rather than the result of natural variability’. It seems that manmade Climate maritime? Change has been occurring since the late 1970s. Hurricane Catarina in the South Atlantic, it says in the article on the 35 years of analysis of tropical storms, is more worrying than Hurricane Katrina in the North. The article states that ‘Katrina’s namesake is an enigma that has got climate scientists By Dennis Nicholls talking.’ As it was ahead of it’s time, according to research predictions. ‘Catarina developed in a region of the South Atlantic that its climate models predict will even- tually be the source of many hurricanes. The idea is that global warming will raise The three graphs with this story should local sea temperatures. As more water vapour evaporates from the ocean surface, it spell out, to those willing to see, that the will condense in the air and release heat, fuelling tropical storms in the region. But evidence for man made Climate Change this should not happen until 2070, say the Hadley Centre models. is now indisputable. The first graph Yu can see where in the South Atlantic these predicted hurricanes will occur – and shows the cycling of global temperature, why stronger hurricanes now occur in the Gulf near New Orleans in the animated im- in tandem with the amount of CO2 in the age of ocean temperatures on this CSIRO website: http://www.csiro.au/index. atmosphere, for the past 150 000 years, the second provides global temperature over asp?type=issue&xml=researchProjects&id=Climate%20and%20Atmo the past 1000 years, and the third the global sphere_GlobalWarming&style=sectorIssue temperature from the mid 19th Century to 2004. Researchers world wide have either missed a huge natural outpouring of CO2 since the late 1970s, such as a major vol- canic outpouring, or we’re to blame - i.e. Climate Change is manmade. The rate of CO2 going into the atmos- phere is also increasing, for many and varied reasons – the huge fires in Indonesia, particularly during the last El Nino event (which together with other things took the annual increase above 2 ppm for that year) the dry and even drought conditions in the Temperature change over 150 00 years, see: http://www.carbonbank.com. Northern Hemisphere, the release of natu- rally held stores of CO2 in the sub Arctic, au/background/co2conc.htm the release of CO2 from agricultural and The present day level of 360ppm, if the OC degree line is taken as a baseline, is marginal land soils (a recent report from the highest hump of CO2 content in the atmosphere for over 120 000 years. If recent a UK university provided figures for the trends of above a 2ppm annual increase of CO2 emissions continue, then we should UK, which alone are very high) and our be at the 400ppm within a decade – a level which some doomsayers mark as a point increasing use of fossil fuels, with China of ‘no return’; that is a point where run away, and unstoppable, climate events will and India now beginning to catch up with start to occur. the West in output of greenhouse gasses. ’s most serious contribution to past century (compared to 0.6 of a degree globally) see the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre website: http://www.acecrc.org. au/drawpage.cgi?pid=news_events. There is also evidence of the ocean food chain becoming severed by the increasing acidity of the Antarctic Ocean, from absorp- tion of CO2. On that topic see also this website: http:// www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_ id=8411&fcategory_desc=Environment. So where does this place us for changing conditions in the temperate regions of the world? We can only say that major changes are coming, they will be very noticeable, Temperature change over the last 1000 years, see: http://www. and that the speed of change will accelerate. Hopefully windrisktech.com/ There’s probably a clearer image of this graph the changes will not be as damaging as for tropical seas. somewhere, but even in this blur the recent trend, compared to that which A good example of what tropical oceans have to offer is occurred over the past 1000 years, is obvious. This website is put out by the single startling figure that came out of measurements an advisory company set up by climate research scientists in the USA; they made of sea conditions during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, advise the insurance industry. Climate Change and the damage it does is when 40m seas were produced, see http://www.news- no ‘Act of God’, say lawyers of the insurance industry, and someone else cientist.com/article/mg18725125.100.html. The may have to pay! top truck of the James Craig is 33m above the deck, and even adding the generous freeboard such seas could overtop the mainmast. Currently ‘Hurricane Wilma - the season’s 21st named storm and 12th hurricane - became the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic Basin … with a minimum central pressure of 882 millibars’, see http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pa/. Perhaps the lawyers will achieve a more rapid slowing of Climate Change than the politicians? “Forget the Kyoto protocol: it’s a waste of time and energy…Get the big oil companies in court… and sue the pants off them. Even the threat of action will change their behaviour more radically than any government policy”. See http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opin- ion/mg18825192.000. An ‘Act of God’ would no longer feature in insurance policies, frightening the pants Temperature change over the last 124 years. This is a clear image and off government and private enterprise alike. indicates the steep temperature increase that has taken place in the last 28 Can we emit far less CO2 and other greenhouse years; it’s a graph from the UK Met Office, see: http://www.meto.gov. gasses into the atmosphere and maintain our standard uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Annual/HadCRUG.gif of living? Perhaps we can, with technological fixes? And in regard to developing the technology, there is a • Sea level rise. I don’t have a graph on sea level rise to hand, but bright side. Technological innovation has been dou- a paper by a CSIRO scientist makes the situation clear: for the paper see bling every decade for the last century, and IT power (in calculations per second) has been doubling every two http://www.marine.csiro.au/LeafletsFolder/45slevel/45.html. It states in part: “In Australia the rise of sea-level relative to the land (June, years or so, see http://www.newscientist.com/ar- 2001) at Fremantle is 1.38 mm/year with more than 90 years of data, and at ticle/mg18725181.600.html (“the sum total of the Sydney 0.86 mm/year from 82 years of data. (Corrected for land motion, the previous Century’s achievements was equivalent to about rate of sea- level rise at these two locations is estimated to be about 1.6 and 1.2 20 years of progress at the 2000 rate”). But will the ap- mm/yr respectively.)”. The modest forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel propriate technology be developed in time for us to put on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates a higher average yearly rate of sea level the brakes on and avoid a major run away climatic event? change for the century ahead; some 2.5 mm per annum – an inch per decade. Few politicians would be willing to apply the brakes if it That forecast could change, dramatically. means a drop in living standards! We can only hope that • More images are on the Bureau of Meteorology website: Images a technological fix arrives just in time for the politicians from “The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change”, http://www.bom. to finally make a move to reduce dangerous emissions, gov.au/info/climate/change/gallery/index.shtml and that we can avoid that longstanding Chinese curse of “May you live in interesting times”. Hurricane Catarina takes us to the most worrying point of all, the accelera- It’s becoming increasingly obvious that our leaders tion of Climate Change that’s occurring. You would have all become aware of are, as leaders of other nations also are, steering the what’s happening in the Arctic, as the media picked up on that story and covered ship of state into a dangerous, fishless, ocean of broken it for a number of days, see ‘Sea Ice Decline Intensifies’, on the US National food chains, littered with manmade climate dead. Snow & Ice Data Center : http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050928_ Dennis the Optimist trendscontinue.html. In the Antarctic, the centre in tells us, the temperature on the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by 3 degrees over the