May 12th

Mother’s Day, a good day to remind our young crew to call home! It’s easy when you are off on a big adventure to become involved in the world around you and forget to water the garden on the home front. In my day as a deckhand, we would line up in the evening behind the Red and White grocery and take our turn at the payphone. We would laugh and fool around while we called partners and parents. It was a bonding experience that is missed now with cell phones and the age of instant communication.

We are full into rigging now with only one or two paint and varnish projects left to complete. Yesterday the crew bent on the jumbo or jib stay s’le. This morning, with Becca E. in the lead, the crew are bending on the jib tops’le. Also known as the flying jib or occasionally ballooner, the jib top is the jib lifted to the very top of the foremast. It can be a dangerous sail to set as the sheets or lines that control the sail can swing about the foredeck with sometimes murderous intent. Nimble feet are the order of the day! With the three head sails bent on today I am also hoping that we can bend on the fore sail. That will get us over the halfway mark leaving the topsails and the big mainsail.

There was a loss within the Bluenose family this week with the passing of Captain Douglas Himmelman. Capt Himmelman was a master aboard for a season in the 90s. He was cut from cloth not often seen these days. His obituary hints at an extraordinary life and his loss will be keenly felt at sea and ashore in this community. Our sympathies are extended to his family and to his shipmates. Fiddlers Green will be a happier place as Capt Himmelman takes his well deserved rest.

We have more inspections this week with the American Bureau of Shipping attending the vessel. Ventilation fans, fuel shut offs, bilge alarms, fuel tank externals, oily water separator and a load test of the rescue boat lifting gear. I believe everything is in order and would hope for a quick and painless visit.

We will also fill the fuel tanks and then lift aboard the anchors, life rafts, and emergency fire pump this week. All this in preparation for the move to our summer dock which we sometimes refer to as the fish bowl. No more hiding behind the museum with the ship looking sharp we will be ready to start training the crew to sail the ship. I look forward to seeing the smiles as we back away from the dock for the first time.