The Landlocked Sailor

Imagine that you’re on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. You feel the sun beating down, and the gentle sway of the vessel in the water. You turn your face to try to feel the direction of the wind, but there is no wind. Not even a breeze. You hear the creaking of the masts and the gentle lapping of the water on the hull, but you are dead in the water.

There’s no telling when the wind will pick up again; it could be several days. In the meantime, what will you do? The year is 1854, and you are a topman aboard a merchant vessel bound for some Pacific Island. You can’t pass the time by reading, because you don’t know how to read; you don’t feel like singing at the moment, and you can’t whistle because you are superstitiously worried about whistling up an ill wind.

What’s a sailor to do?

Maintenance.

There’s always plenty to be done to keep the ship in top condition. There are sails to be mended, lines and rigging to be repaired, old rope to be turned into baggywrinkle, decks to scrub and tar… the list goes on and on. However, when that “Sailor-Do” list is completed, what’s next?

Fancywork.

Have you ever seen a particularly handsome bell rope and wondered, “How on earth did they make that?” Or how about a boat’s ladder (stairsteps) all decked out with ornamental ropework? It’s not strictly ornamental, after all. On the ladder, for example, it serves as a nonskid surface for climbing around in your wet boat shoes. There’s a  name for this combination of form and function: it’s called Marlinspike Seamanship, and it’s not exactly a lost art.

The next time you have an opportunity to get up close and personal with a sailboat (or even see one in a movie), look for examples of Marlinspike fancy work. It’s all done by hand, and it’s a tradition worth carrying on.

If you’re in the Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo/Central Coast area of California and you’d like to participate in a Marlinspike workshop, leave a note in the comments below. We’ll let you know when we have one coming up!

Also, check out these books (click the covers to see them on Amazon):

Related articles

• Baby Goes to the Capitol, and Dad Goes Sailing (thelandlockedsailor.com)
• nautical tattoos (bowsprite.wordpress.com)
• Wrecks that promise to unlock the mystery of Francis Drake’s final resting place (telegraph.co.uk)

So today, in lieu of Wordless Wednesday, I am FINALLY posting a few photos from our awesome family photo shoot aboard the Tall Ship Lady Washington. Thanks to the lovely Ginger of Sandprints Photos in Morro Bay for her amazing photography and cheery personality. Also a big thanks to Captain Miah and the Lady crew!

Related articles

• Baby Goes to the Capitol, and Dad Goes Sailing (thelandlockedsailor.com)
• Small Town ♥ (thelandlockedsailor.com)
• Morro Bay Bird Festival January 13-16 (naturalhistorywanderings.com)

Yesterday I joined Barbara Renshaw and about a dozen others for a Sketch Walk at Marina Point in Morro Bay.

Although it’s November, it was about 60 degrees in town, and I didn’t expect it to be SO COLD out at the point! The wind was bitter, but I would have loved it if I had dressed for the occasion. As it was, I was in jeans, a cotton tank top, and a light corduroy blazer. I was freezing!

We ventured out in a pack, but as people found scenes they wanted to sketch, the wandering group got smaller and smaller. We walked on the path, through mud puddles and brush, onto the salt marsh (which I was very excited about– I’ve always wondered how people got out there!), and I did find a magnificent view of Morro Rock but I had to keep going to find shelter from the wind. Finally there was a pretty good view of Hollister Peak, but it was just not inspiring me. I’m really not a landscape person. I needed a little more drama, so I found a huge conifer that was drooping down and almost forming a cave, a little secret spot with a view of the Peak peeking through the branches.

“This is cool,” I thought. So I sat down to sketch. I pulled out my 6B pencil and my drawing pad and I made some lines. Ugly lines. Lines that represented the tree branches and the peak, but ugly lines no less. That’s when I remembered why I don’t do landscapes: I don’t like them. Still, it was a pretty cool view, so I decided to take a photo of it. Unfortunately, I had left my camera in the car, but I hey, I had my cell phone camera! I took two photos and the memory card was full. Just not my day.

I decided to use the time to make a texture study, and drew some bark. I was not really excited about that either, so I drew a plant that was poking up through the pine needles. Then I blacked out the background, and the less realistic it looked, the more I liked it.

Sketch Walk November, originally uploaded by LandlockedSailr.

I started back toward the marina and a beautiful little ketch with dark green sail covers caught my eye, but the sun was so bright and the wind was so cold and my eyes kept stinging and burning, so I took some quick notes and headed back to the car.

Overall I was pretty disappointed in how the day turned out, mostly due to my own lack of preparation! Next time I will remember to bring:

1. More layers
2. My camera!
3. A stool to sit on
4. Scarf, handkerchief, hat
5. Contact lenses and sun glasses

If you’re in the area, come join us!

Related articles

• Voyaging – Morro Bay to Half Moon Bay (mvdesertventure.com)
• What is the big difference between salt marshes and fresh water marches (wiki.answers.com)
• Stunning Landscapes Were Actually Built in a Fish Tank (odditycentral.com)

Refinishing the Mainboom on the Split Square-Tops'l Ketch Hawaiian Chieftain (That's Me, in My Starbucks Shirt, a Long Long Time Ago.)

Brightwork is a term that sends some sailors running for cover; it makes others jump up and down and leap for joy. Well, it makes me leap for joy, anyway. And no matter if you love the work or hate it, it’s hard to deny that the end result is beautiful.

So what exactly is “brightwork” on a boat? It doesn’t usually refer to the brass, although (if it’s polished regularly) that’s pretty bright and shiny too. Nope, it’s the wonderfully varnished woodwork that gleams like a jewel in the sun.

Let me tell you a little story to give you some background on my obsession with brightwork.

My first two or three months on the sailing vessel Hawaiian Chieftain were spent doing brightwork. She had sat boarded up for several months on Lake Michigan, getting absolutely no TLC, before she was brought to Westport, WA in 2006 for “100 Days of Summer.” This was code for “100 Days of Maintenance,” something many sailors are not very excited about.

Since at first I was only able to work on the boat in the mornings before slaving away at my day job, I did a whole lot of maintenance and not a lot of sailing. Those early morning hours spent scraping off the old, cracked varnish and then sanding the wood to a nice smooth condition, bleaching out the black spots and then sanding it again, were such meditative hours. Nobody on the crew could figure out why I loved it so much; but then, none of them were forced to spend the rest of the day standing in a stuffy, artificially-lit building in a button-down shirt, keeping track of several thousand dollars and trying not to get robbed. (Did I mention I used to be a bank teller?) Out there in the fresh air, with the boat gently swaying in the current, I felt as free as a bird, even though we were tied up at the dock. For most of the crew, maintenance was a necessary evil so that they could keep on sailing. For me, it was respite from the “real world.”

So there you have it. Some people do yoga. I did brightwork.

Now that I have a baby on the way, I try to avoid painting and varnishing. But I did marry the Bos’un after all, so when our family gifted us a brand new red wagon as a baby gift, he decided to varnish the wood before putting it all together. With a gale warning all along the central coast and plenty of sunshine to work in, it was almost like a day of boat maintenance… almost.

Maintenance Day on the Wagon

Instead of using varnish, we used Cetol Marine, which is a little more flexible and a little easier to apply. It has this deep golden color, as you can see in the photos, and it’s pretty durable too. Most of all, it reminds us of our days on the Chieftain!

Related articles

• Brightwork on S/V Bruadair (bruadair.us)
• Tiny Ocean Mat (thelandlockedsailor.com)
• Big tools for little hands (seattletimes.nwsource.com)