Second Day on the Drake
During the morning watch, the wind picked up to a steady 13 knots from the east. This led to another active morning of sail handling. After yesterday morning’s sail setting, we were getting back in the groove of this sailing malarkey! The misty air saturated our jackets, even between the passing rain showers.
Our focus was captured with lines to pull on, ease, and make fast as we set all the square sails. By the next time we looked up to the horizon, the lingering mist had cleared, and a bright horizon was visible, the sun glistening on the rippled waves. It was lovely to see a clear line where the sea meets the sky after the stark contrast we’d had since our last sunny day on the Peninsula.
The red watch knew they were in for a busy four hours when the evening watch started with a briefing using the wooden models to explain the manoeuvre that we would be carrying out in the coming hours. We were currently on starboard tack (with the wind coming to our starboard side), but it was changing. The wind was backing round to the north and then northwest, steadily forcing us to point further west. Before the wind shift, we reduced our sail slightly, working together to take a mast each and strike the staysails and gaff topsail. What a treat to have been able to set these on the Drake!
After this, it was time to clew up the courses in preparation for wearing ship! For this, it would take the entire watch team, plus any extras still up. We bore away from the wind, Niccolo at the helm, steering us to port all the way around until the wind was coming over our port side. During this manoeuvre, we were focused on the smaller tasks, not noticing the overall movement of what was going on! We hauled on the starboard braces, bringing around all the yards, lines covered the decks as we tacked over the headsails, and began setting the courses again on our new tack.
With a small debrief from Captain Moritz on the main deck, we all came away feeling warm and a great collective achievement to have calmly worn ship in the Drake Passage!
Out in the head rig, the sheets were overhauled. The view of the ship with all the square sails set, sailing into the thick mist and beginning to heel in the increasing winds, was exhilarating!
