4/27/2016 3 Comments Hoisting the sails!Well it's taken me over a year, and I suppose by anyone's standards that's a long time, but this weekend I bit the bullet, took a deep breath and began work above decks that didn't involve cleaning, sanding or painting - I began work on the sails - making sure they were in good enough shape to actually head out for a sail. Making sure they all still worked!
It was a big deal. I could offer up a lot of excuses as to why it has taken so Long to get this far and some of them would be quite reasonable, but the simple truth of the matter lies somewhere between really not being ready yet and the big bad monster of fear. We made a bit of a party of it and a good friend (thanks Boyd!) arrived, complete with the fortifying six pack - not my regular drink but in this case the perfect accompaniments - and I set about Investigating what was what, what pulled up what and what it was all called. Armed with a previously prepared and beautifully laminated guide to the correct names for everything top-side (because what I lack in sailing know-how I more than make up for in administrative skills) and an attitude of curiosity - the best learning tool known to man - we began with the main'sl. The sail creaked and groaned its way slowly up the mast as we guided it between the back stays, clearly feeling as rusty as I did! I breathed a sigh of relief then, that it went up and looked quite okay. I don’t know what I was afraid of – maybe that it would have had creatures nesting inside who would have nibbled holes in it or something. It was a huge relief to find that nothing bad had happened at all during the year the sails had sat, protected (I hoped) in their various covers, while I came to grips with the enormity of the task left to me, of learning everything I needed to know to keep sailing alone. It was a little like riding a bike after a long time, if we didn’t think too hard and acted on muscle memory, we could locate where each halyard was and where it needed to be tied off. But more than just remembering, this exercise was also about learning. We are learning new names for things, correct names - like ‘topping lift’ instead of the rope that pulls the top part - because this time we are getting things right. So in amongst all of this fear-facing stuff there is also a sense of new-ness. It’s like learning to sail all over again, only properly this time. Reflecting on how it was, five years ago now, when we arrived in Albany, proud new owners of the amazing Argos, we really knew nothing. But in addition, I had no real interest in the sailing side of this adventure. It wasn’t my ‘thing’ and I was happy to acknowledge that I was just coming along for the ride, hoping to fulfil someone else’s dreams and take a bit of time to recover from a pro-longed period of ill-health. I wasn’t worried about learning how to do everything as I knew I never would be sailing alone. I helped in every way I could and was always out on deck doing what I was asked, but I never worried about understanding it all, or knowing intimately what was what – I never pictured myself being the one to say, ‘it’s a lovely day, let’s head out for a bit of a sail’! But it’s all different now and this time around I am acutely aware of how amazing it is to have people around me who know so much – I have the most incredible opportunity to actually learn to sail this vessel – properly! So I took the next step. Putting up the mains’l was only the start. Once hoisted we set to looking at how it functioned and we could straight away see something was quite wrong. While we were in the Whitsundays, in 2014, the boom was raised to create more head-room on deck – an idea gleaned from our friends on board the Joshua C Tallship. It had been measured in a fashion and raised but even I could see that it wasn’t right – the mains’l could not be pulled tight – no wonder we had not been able to sail up to the wind very well! We were just talking about the need to have the boom lowered back down again when our lovely ‘neighbor’ Kym came by, having seen us playing with the sails. Another very experienced sailor, he shook his head at the idea of raising the boom without adequately checking how the sail would work – and as we all looked and talked we could see other ways we could get the sail up fully - by removing a shackle and attaching it directly to the blocks – and better yet – by swapping out the wooden blocks and replacing them with smaller stainless versions. This would allow the sail to stretch tight and allow us to actually sail up to the wind……something, needless to say, we have never be able to do and thought the fault lie with the boat when in truth it had more to do with our lack of knowledge in how to actually sail! There were a few other issues to address – the fact that that sheets could not be properly pulled down and needed another block to run through, some fairleads and some clamcleats need to be replaced (yes, more new names to become familiar with) – and we were ready to progress to another sail. Argos has 8 so this was not going to be a simple afternoon’s (or one six-pack’s) work! We finished our beers as the sun began Its colourful descent and began to flush the sky with the same joyful hues I was feeling for having begun what had felt like a necessary but never-the-less daunting task. Having faced the fear and tackled the first sail, I felt so much more confident of managing the others. And like so many other times, nothing had come of my fear, instead, faced with reality, it so quickly dissipated and once more I was left wondering why fear ever takes such a hold of us when it’s often so hollow. On Sunday morning we got up and set about tackling the next sail – the fore sail. This one was easier – I wasn’t feeling as anxious for one – and something about getting the mains’l up the day before brought a sense of I can to the table! Almost immediately I could see that something was wrong – the sail had been tied to the boom with the rope OVER the reefing lines! Of course, before the previous days learning from Boyd and Kym none of us would have noticed the fault – and in fact I realised with a shudder that we never had worked out how the reefing worked and while we did get reefs into our sails, we had clearly not done it properly – and probably made sailing harder for ourselves than it had needed to be! The funny thing is, it took only one afternoon for us to learn more about sailing from these two good friends than we had learned in the previous few years since buying Argos! So we untied the sail and re-attached it, leaving the reefing lines free. Happily it too was free of any kind of damage and we soon had it hoisted – when we were again joined by Boyd who helped us tackle the next couple of sails – with freshly brewed coffee and Tim Tams this time instead of the previous days’ beer! We are not quite finished. It has been very windy since then and we need some more calm wind-free days to continue this task – but we have only one jib, the two rarely-used top sails and then the square sail to go and then we will have looked at everything and we will be ready……yes, we will be ready to go out for a sail. The thing is, it’s not really the sails that needed to be ready but me. I can see that now. And I am happy to say that I am. I am not the passenger any more – I have come a long way since deciding to sell my house and car and give up my job and follow someone else and now it is my dreams I am fulfilling and the funny thing is that sometime during this past year of recovering, sailing has become my dream. I think about getting out on the ocean, I think about places I want to go, I think about how I can set things up so it is easier for me to handle…..I think about things I want to do for myself and they all involve continuing this sailing journey. It’s a radical shift and one I would not have thought would come. I was happy to the passenger until I needed to take the wheel – now it is different – and dare I say it? I think I have been becoming Mrs Argos after all!
3 Comments
4/14/2016 0 Comments Changes!There are moments in our lives that are so significant that for ever afterwards will always be a kind of point of reference – where we think of life before this event and life after this event.
For the past year or so the point of reference in our life on Argos, was the moment where things unravelled to the point where it was just me and the kids aboard. I would think in terms of how many months since, what we have achieved since, who we have become since……. And while in many ways we still do this to a certain extent, in many ways there are little shifts now – and other things are becoming a new point of reference for us – things like when we came down to the Gold Coast, when we were hit by the ex-navy boat, when Erina started work, when Liam began learning the electrical trade…… Yes, in recent days there have been some very significant changes. Erina completed a Cert 3 in hospitality in February and was offered work on a casual basis with Carnival Cruises, then P & O and finally Cunard lines as a check-in chick……. To say she loved it would be an understatement – in fact she loved working with them so much she lost all interest in having a career as a chef and hopes instead to make it one day as more than a checker-in-er, and find her way on board a big cruise ship. The girls who work on check-in work on the land, at the Port of Brisbane, but it’s an entry level position with prospects in the future of working on board one of the ships. The cruising season in Australia is largely ended now and so the work has dried up, but not before she had the opportunity to assist people to set off on an epic adventure aboard The Queen Mary 2! Doing the check-in was followed up with a tour of the ship – an absolute highlight of the past few months for Erina! Erina continues to work with Champagne Sunset Cruises and occasionally with Sailing in Paradise, charter boats operating out of the Southport Marina precinct. She is continuing to look for more work aboard boats and possibly up-market cafe’s in the area too. She has recently got her learners permit, and also bought a bike so that she can be a little more independently mobile. Liam has also begun doing a little work experience with TechMarine, an excellent local marine electrical business. This is the company that had done all of our electrical work on board and for the past couple of weeks he has been setting off at 6.30 in the morning and spending his days listening, watching and learning. It has been an awesome opportunity for him. He was keen to learn marine electrics and he has impressed the owner of the business enough for him to offer Liam the opportunity to become an apprentice electrician. So these days I often find myself alone on the boat, preparing meals for the family to return home to, heading to and from the jetty at all sorts of times to collect people and manage the day-to-day life on board on my own. What a shift! Southport was becoming our home and now even more so with these sorts of opportunities arising - because of course this also means that we will be sticking around for some time to come! And what of Argos? She continues to look amazing and we continue to learn more and more all the time. With Liam developing a new skill set around electrics we now have better electric things happening than ever before. We hope in the next few weeks to install a new solar panel that will make us almost fully solar sufficient – with little need to ever run a generator. Liam has been learning from someone whose own boat is 100% solar powered and is so on top of our electrical situation that we have never been so power-rich – we can’t wait to be even less dependent on the generator and still have enough power for all our needs! Our current boat projects are to get the cockpit cleaned up and prepared for painting – and then to paint it. It’s been so warm over the summer and autumn so far that I have not been able to get to this but as the weather begins to cool a little I hope to be able to do so. There is also the need to restore the old fridge which was partially pulled out 18 months ago when it stopped working – at the time it probably only needed a bit of expert attention, but now I must have it completely rebuilt. We hope to get a marine refrigeration expert on board in the next month to assess this and advise us on how to progress this issue that has been a problem since we were in the Whitsundays in 2014! There are lots of other little jobs to deal with – internal varnishing of all the wooden linings and cupboards, table etc, and regular on-going engine maintenance things, but as the winter looms, so do cooler days when such things feel less difficult. We continue to all thrive in the Southport boating community – with regular dinners, beach bonfires, and very frequent coffee gatherings. Actually it’s amazing how little time there is for boat jobs with such a vibrant community around us! But that of course delights me and is something I will always welcome! I have found that the more we create a life for ourselves here, the less significant that other point of reference is for us and the more absorbed we become with the doing of the life we have made and allowed to unfold. |
Archives
September 2017
Our life aboard Argos has been seriously challenged this year with the surprise departure of our skipper. As a writer, diesel mechanics and the complexities of many aspects of Argos’ on-going maintenance are way beyond me! We would like to see Argos continue to sail and eventually hope to use her to offer support, encouragement and a break to people who are struggling in their lives. Any on-going help towards maintaining Argos would be greatly appreciated and enable us to achieve this goal.
|