Bart Bear's Blog

Sailing ships like "James Craig" are very complicated machines. The "engine" is a batch of sails that are controlled by an absolute jungle of ropes. Each rope has a specific purpose and sailors have to know what they are all called and what they do. Scruffy and I always like to find out how things work, so we spent a lot of time investigating the 19 Km of rope on the boat, and trying to work out what each rope did. The black things we are sitting on are called deadeyes. They are where the ropes from the mast (called shrouds) attach to the sides of the ship. You can see how the shrouds go through holes in the deadeyes; you can adjust the tension on the shrouds to keep the masts straight and tight. Scruff and I got confused by all the things the bosun was calling out as the sails were set and the ship got underway, so we gave up trying to remember names and went off exploring.

Labels: boats, cruising, Sydney