Crew journal of the barque James Craig

May 2006

Full & ByMay 20062

Full & ByThe crew journal of the

barque James Craig

http://www.australianheritagefleet.com.au/JCraig/JCraig.html

Compiled by Peter Davey

Production and photos (except where credited

to others) by John Spiers

All crew and others associated with the James Craig are very welcome to submit material.

The opinions expressed in this journal may not neces-sarily be the viewpoint of the Sydney Maritime Muse-um, the Sydney Heritage Fleet or the crew of the James

Craig or its officers.

CDs with photos appearing here and others are avail-able for $2 to crew members for their personal use or

free for promotion of the James Craig. See JS.

It was all so unexpected...the phone call late one night from a person I haven’t spoken to for 5 years...the fact that it coincided with the same weekend of a Sydney maritime art

show I’d sent my paintings to... I’d never phoned a stranger at 10:30 pm at night...but for the chance to sail on a Tall Ship, and a beautiful 1874 iron barque at that!

So that was how I came to be looking out a plane window over the rooftops of Sydney as the plane circled to land at Sydney airport...how I came to be in the artificial fluoro light of the un-derground train whizzing towards central station...and then high up on the light-rail watching the dazzling festive sights of Sydney flashing past...alighting amongst the spectacular white shade-sails and curving astonishing architecture of Darling Harbour.

Everything just seemed so brilliant, sparkling and dazzling, an incomparable energy and excitement in that city. Chris escorted me from the station, and after a quick bite to eat at a crowded midday bar , and an excited catch-up with Mick and Roland, we walked together down the sloping street to the wharf...for my first glimpse of the James Craig by the dockside just as you see her in the first picture.

Walking up the gangway and down the double passage of stairs leading down into the dimness of the ‘tween decks, right at the bottom of the stairs we were faced with a vast six-foot photo of the James Craig sailing through a grey fury of sea. Then it was back up to the dockside to amuse ourselves for a few hours until we were to meet at the Heritage Fleet shipyard in Rozelle Bay.

5 pm saw us in the shipyard. Up on the floating dock was the vast bulk of the John Oxley, a huge steel-plated steam vessel that used to carry pilots in Brisbane. Ships look so impressively enormous when they are out of the water. Donning hard-hats and climbing over a bolted gateway halfway up the scaffold stairway (the first test of our rigging skills) we were given a tour onboard the John Oxley.

Mary’slog

Mary Sowa is a school teacher from around the Sale area she came to Sydney for the training for JC trip to melbourne and the Melbourne

trip. Whe was in Morrin’s watch (and mine) on the trip to Melbourne and onboard for the majority of the sails in Melbourne. An excellent experienced

seaman, great aloft and a great crew member. She will, hopefully, be providing another epistle for her trip on the Craig to Melbourne. - PD

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I’ve never been on a derelict vessel in the process of being restored. Work was being done on the steel plating, but the rest of the vessel was much as it was found...dusty, untouched, precarious. Tiptoeing gingerly into the saloon area, a salt-scuffed sailor-bloke reached over and opened a draw pulling out a screwdriver...it almost sent a shiver up your spine with everything laying just as it had been left...like it had been frozen in time, almost like we had been transported back into another time. We carefully walked from stern to bows, then down a rickety vertical metal stairway, crawled through the engine-room, and out through a gap in the riveted plates and back onto the solid ground of the docks.

Dinner was an outside barbeque under the shadow of the vast bulk of the John Oxley, with the amazing Anzac bridge in the background. Sitting out on the plastic outdoor chairs, I chatted to the salt-scuffed character who’d actually been in England earlier this year for the re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar. You could almost smell the gunpowder and tang of salt In his voice as he spoke about it. There was a genuine unassuming warmth in his yarning.

Mick helped cook the bbq, and then when it was done, looked around for a hose to help wash it down. It was on the tip of Roland’s tongue to make some teas-ing comments about Mick, but I knew that Mick wasn’t trying to impress anyone...it was just the ‘Mick’ that I always remem-bered from sailing.

Cramped into the shipping-container office, we had our introductions led by my salt-scuffed character. Such a mix of people amongst our group. Most memora-ble I recall was one older gentleman who mentioned that he’d sailed on one of the Alma Doepel’s last trading voyages when she was a limestone carrier in Hobart. Inconceivable to me that I should actu-ally get to meet someone who had sailed on the ship whilst she was still a working trading vessel.

A couple of training modules followed, before we were crowded into a couple of vehicles at 10:30 pm and taken back down to Darling Harbour to meet the ship. She hadn’t come in yet as we spread ourselves out on the wharfside. What a sparkling scintillating city Sydney is, especially looking across Darling Harbour. Suddenly I heard a low sound of awe from Roland and looking down the darkness of the wharf I saw the lights of the ship looming towards us.

What an awe-inspiring sight to see that dark silhouette of grace and majesty gliding across the water towards us. Nos-ing against her hull was the blunt-bowed

shape of a tug. I didn’t realize that the James Craig needed a tug to assist all her manouvering within the harbour.

Watching movement of mooring lines on deck, and the graceful arc of heaving lines spiralling down onto the wharf like pinwheel fireworks. It was all so familiar, and also a bit new on a different ship. I saw the lithe figure of Alex (the 15 year-old sailor I first met in Coffs Harbour) springing around on deck. A bit awkward at first to reacquaint with someone you’d just spent a few days with on a ship, but he hadn’t changed...still the same irascible mischief-maker even if he was 19 now.

Under exciting dimness of the shroud lights, we stood around on deck chatting to new-found crew-members and friends for some time. Chris and Roland introduced me to Captain Peter Cole, a notable white-suited figure, previously a submarine com-mander in the navy. Over-awed by these credentials, the dusk of the lighting soon helped my reserve to dissolve, and I found him a pleasant, chatty, very approachable skipper.

Not long after, to the accompaniment of Alex’s husky laughter and merriment, we were stringing up our hammocks from sturdy shackles in the deck-beams of the ‘tween decks before rocking gently to sleep...

Saturday, and we were up on deck to a bright and sunny day, beginning with a tour of the ship, and then a detailed expla-nation of all the lines. Morrin Grigg took us ashore on to the dock and explained the overall system of the lines, where we could see the simplified side-on view of them. It all seemed to make clear sense, but on going back aboard and seeing the masses of thick brown coils, lying identi-cally on the rows of pins, it all seemed so overwhelming.

I was back to needing that extra couple of minutes to think about and process

exactly what line was needed and where I would logically find it...time you are never actually given on a working ship. Look-ing aloft at the amazing intricacy of lines tracing overhead, it seemed absolutely impossible, but all the functions and names of ropes were ones I was familiar with, so I felt a comfortable sense of ease that if I sailed for a few days, I would soon pick it up.

After this, sitting back down in the dimness of ‘tween decks, we were talked through the complicated full-body harness system that was used for going aloft. After strapping and tightening ourselves up into these harnesses, it was off into the rigging and up the shrouds to the lower-mast cap.

We had to go up and over the lower-mast cap and down the other side 3 times; and then once out to the end of the bowsprit/jib-boom and then back along the other side and back onto the fo’c’sle deck. Pretty rigorous training. My sense of fear with heights, and the unfamiliarity of the rig made me quite apprehensive the first time, but I got better each time.

Going over the futtocks (the little plat-form at the top of the lower mast where you have to actually climb outwards at a gravity-defying angle), was a challenge for the length of my arms, but I soon de-veloped my own characteristic techniques to overcome my short-comings. Going out on the bowsprit was probably slightly more scary, but a tremendous feeling when I got to the very end and looked out over the water and back at the ship.

After lunch, it was back on deck for practice at going aloft to ungasket the course-sail; then down the rig, to work the lines to set the sail ~ quite amazing to haul these lines which actually rove into metal chains as they got closer to the sail. Then when the sail was set, it was back up into the rig to re-gasket the sail.

Our watches were swapped over, and I was on man-overboard drill and launching the life-boat-quite a complicated procedure which required quite a lot of concentration for me to understand exactly what each line was controlling. Looking aloft I saw Mick up there on the topsail yard, helping one of the less-experienced trainees, and I knew that he was in his element once more, introducing new crew to the exhilarating heights of working on the yards.

A daring comment to Roland, and be-fore I knew it, we were in the bewildering tangle of ropes, quick-release shackles, Jacob’s ladder and the perilously bobbing sides of the rubber life-boat as we were launched over the side for another practice. I certainly was glad I’d watched the first practise so carefully!

“ a notable white-suited figure “

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After that considerable, tireless effort, it was nice to ease off for a trip to the pub and then dinner which was a sumptuous spread of sea-food served in the ‘tween decks. Over dinner and then for many hours af-ter, the revelry and merriment continued. When the intoxication became very clear and a bit too uninhibited and noisy, Mick initiated a move up on deck.

It was strange to see so much drinking, and even stranger that us four Alma crew were not partaking, simply observing. Af-ter a while, I got tired of it all, and went to find my hammock. Later on, Mick came over to my hammock to hug me goodnight. Needless to say, it took considerable coax-ing and threats from JC crew, before all the sleeping berths were filled and there was quiet in the ‘tween decks.

Sunday morning, I was roused from my hammock by the vigorous ringing of the ship’s alarm. Automatically, half asleep we tumbled out of our hammocks and unthinkingly fumbled for jumpers or shoes and stumbled up on deck to muster at the mainmast deck-housing.

Quite a quiet shambling lot this morn-ing. Being a morning person, I was quickly wide awake, and chirpily observed the mischievously vengeful timing of this ‘fire drill’. The irony of the praise the JC crew gave us for our quick response to the alarm, was not lost on me (even if they did proclaim their complete innocence).

Standing up on deck s in the greyness of misty rain I remember wistfully wishing that the weather could have been as bril-liant as the day before. Smoke alarm reset, it was back below decks for breakfast then fire drill and some other training module.

Over the course of the morning, various JC crew began arriving. Finally, as the 11 am departure time drew near, they posi-tively flooded in, until I began to wonder where we would fit any passengers. The whole crew and us were assembled at the main hatch, and us trainees were divided into our watches.

I was in the foremast watch, with a quietly proficient crew-member, Kim, as my watch-leader. My 3 Alma companions were in different watches, which in some ways I was glad for. Kim quietly assigned us each a crew-member for us to shadow.

Who should my mentor be, but the salt-scuffed sailor from the first evening. He introduced himself as Dave Lovett, and then looked at me perceptively and observed that someone must have thought carefully about how they matched us up. I asked him what he meant by this. He was fairly vague with his answer, but I gathered he thought it was a good choice, and I was quietly thrilled because he seemed quite a character.

We were told that we were to do every-thing that our mentor did, which meant that I had to get myself into a climbing harness and also a remarkably compact inflatable life-jacket, because Dave was part of the berthing party who would be taken on and off the ship by a tug. In the flurry of leav-ing, there almost wasn’t time for me to be thrilled at this additional experience!

Before I knew it, I was ashore by the gangway, and shadowing Dave in handling the forward mooring lines. At first he gave me one of the lines to handle, but I was quite overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the line, and he had to take over.

We watched as the ship regally manoeu-vred to turn around, and Dave observed with approval that she was doing most of the work herself, without the assistance of the tug. I was amazed with how much could be read just by observing the ship’s wake and movement of her hull in the wa-ter. We watched the tug towing her down the harbour.

Before I had time to feel like we were missing anything, the tug was back, and we were running over to the edge of the wharf, and I was stepping down onto the larger-than-life tyres surrounding the tug’s hull, and from there onto the deck. I’d never been on a tug before, so that in itself was an unexpected thrill. A quick trip down the harbour and then the blurred confusion of being pulled and clambering up the Jacob’s ladder back onto the ship.

Two feet on the deck and I was quickly up onto the foredeck following Dave into work. The crew had been busy whilst we were tug-travelling, and I noted with

some wistfulness that the sails had all been ungasketted. I tried not to mind that I’d missed half the chance of going aloft in that voyage. The sails were left hanging in their gear for some time as we proceeded down the harbour.

I was too excited to take a lot in. I remember seeing the brightly re-done wharf-sheds of the Rocks area and just the sheer gloriousness of being on the water in Sydney harbour. I don’t remember going under the harbour bridge, but I’m sure we must have looked a lot like this picture. There was simply too much to see, to hear, to feel, and to absorb!

I mentioned to Dave that I would love the experience of going aloft (whilst in-wardly my mind screamed out how terri-fied I was). I was stunned with how David instantly went to our watch leader and told him of my wish. Aside to me, he positively assured me that there was every chance that he (and therefore I,) would be required to go aloft and overhaul the buntlines.

Waiting for the call to go aloft, I stood up on the fo’c’sle deck with one of the mates as we proceeded through the har-bour. Inside Sydney harbour, one of the officers had to keep the bow-watch. He communicated with the quarterdeck (the back of the ship where the wheel was), via a UHF radio.

Listening and watching, I tried to get a feel for what the directions ‘points off the bow’ actually meant, and the order in which he gave his observations. In between these, he was quite happy to talk to me. A few perceptive comments by Dave about this officer’s achievements with the ship, and he soon so openly told me of how the ship was totally run by volunteers and how he’d courageously convinced the board to allow the volunteers to man the ship during its initial sea-trials.

He also talked to me about calls he was making about boats in the harbour; about who should have given way to whom. I learnt that an orange diamond symbol was a special Sydney signal giving a vessel pos-sessing it, complete right of way.

Orders were being given to raise sail and I shadowed Dave, trying to be useful in working our foremast lines. An amaz-ing experience to haul on the sheets and see those towering pyramids of sail rising above us.

It wasn’t long before Dave was given the order, and before I had time to think, he was springing up the rigging and I was following behind him. It was the real thing now-no training practice now...we were out over the real sea, climbing the shrouds on the windward side.

Climbing up the lower-mast shrouds

“quite a character”

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was fairly familiar to me now, but above that it was all unfamiliar area to me. As we proceeded higher, up past the lower topsail yard, then past the upper topsail yard, and the shrouds narrowed down to narrow tiny rungs, hardly big enough for my feet, I realized that we were going right to the top.

Dave was tying off the buntlines with ‘rotten cotton’ as we went, but I was now doing all I could just to keep climbing, gripping the shrouds so tightly out of sheer will to stay on. By this time now, the ship had begun to roll considerably from side to side, and I had to time my climbing with the leeward rolls. Not a new sensation for me, but demanding when I was higher in the rig than I had ever been before.

Reaching the topmast futtocks was quite a mental challenge, knowing that I was now going over a futtocks I had never tried before-and a much narrower spidery one than the lower one. Looking up at the futtocks, I knew that at my present, tightly gripping, much slower pace, I wouldn’t be quick enough to get over it during the one leeward roll. Dave called down encourag-ingly to me, checking on me and telling me that I didn’t need to go any higher than I felt comfortable with.

That was enough for me. I gritted my teeth and was up and over, and then up, up, right up to the royal yard. Steadying myself there, now that I was there, I was fine. I knew what buntlines were; I could see where they ran over the yard. Dave was on the other side of the mast by now, and I asked him if I could be useful. Reaching over and gripping the buntlines on my side, he tried to direct me where to tie them, without actually being able to see where he was holding or where I was working.

I pulled the one strand of cotton I had and roughly tied it on, before Dave real-ized that he’d actually been holding the buntlines in the wrong place, and then when I went to yank the cotton free, that my strand of cotton was the wrong sort which was actually too strong for this purpose.

In the midst of all this, Dave spoke in surprise as the yards were braced sharp around onto starboard tack and he was almost caught in there wedged in beside the mast. He seemed slightly rattled, and said that it had never happened to him before. Sensing this, I realized it was up to me, to unclip my knife pouch, open my knife and cut the cotton string before he could help me retie it (trying to do all this whilst I was still hanging on to the rigging of course).

It was a thrilling experience to be able to accomplish all this by myself- I really felt like I’d christened my sailing knife on the

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James Craig now. Dave passed me a proper strand of rotten cotton and I quickly tied it in a reef knot around the royal buntlines before he said “right, down we go” and we began our passage alow. It was much faster going down now.

Back on deck, David was gently prais-ing of me, saying that it was a pretty tough call to go up so high when the ship was rolling quite a bit. As for me, I think it took a long time for my feet to really touch

the deck, because I was still so high and exhilarated from the experience.

I’d read about sailors overhauling the buntlines, so many times in all my tall-ship books; it was so thrilling now to have done it myself. I might have imagined it, but it felt like people looked at me differently when they’d seen how high up I’d gone.

Out along our port-side we were passing some quite spectacular cliffs, which in the heightened state of my imagination, looked

like the cliffs of Dover. I asked David what they were, and he banally replied with “North Head.” It took some seconds for me to realize the significance of this loca-tion. For a split second I was embarrassed before my elation overtook and I excitedly told Dave that I had only been through the Port Phillip heads a couple of times; and here I was sailing through the Sydney Heads on my first sail in Sydney.

Through my elated state, I still per-

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ceived many people looking quite grey and in various prone states of seasickness over the deck. The psychological aspect of my own susceptibility found its way into my worry that I might get seasick too. I hadn’t brought any seasick tablets with me, because it hadn’t even occurred to me that we would go outside the heads.

When I subtly asked Dave about seasick tablets, he looked surprised for a second and said, that he’d already taken his when

we were up about at the t’gallant yard It was my turn to be surprised because I hadn’t even realized that he’d taken it, and it hadn’t occurred to me that a seasoned crew-member would get seasick. He spoke to me so nicely about it though, encouraged me to ask the ship’s doctor for seasick tablets, telling me that I had nothing to prove to anyone.

Lunch didn’t taste too good (even if it was a salmon and salad roll). I ate some

of the bread around it, and quietly put the rest in the bin. When I came back to the life-jacket boxes on the portside where we’d been sitting, Dave asked me where I’d put my lunch. “In the bin” I answered automatically, before slightly crestfallen I asked if I should have given it to the fish. “Oh no,” he answered, “You just could have given it to me.” That made me laugh. I think it also showed the extent to which we were welcomed and accepted

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on the ship. After lunch I remember walking around

to the foredeck, looking for Dave, and found him curled up on coils of rope be-hind the foremast, chatting to the bosun, Steve Robinson about building a kayak. Steve’s wife is a ‘Mary’ too, and she was so genuinely thrilled to meet me having the same name. I sat down with them and listened for a while.

At 2 pm it was time for us to go on man overboard watch, which simply entailed us stationing ourselves in the port quarter of the stern for an hour. Dave was really lovely though, and told me I could roam anywhere I liked, and that only he was required to stay on MOB watch.

At first I enjoyed simply being in a new location, and listening to the conversations of the officers and observing the helmsman. Then when orders were given to tack ship, I was really glad though, to have permission to dart around and take lots of photos and see the full procedure for tacking ship.

It was interesting: when the order was given, Dave quietly asked me what I thought the procedure was. I was surprised and momentarily went into panic mode thinking how I was supposed to know how to manoeuvre all those yards, and anyway I had minimal square rig experience. Then I tried to calmly use my logic and apply what I knew from the procedure of tack-ing Alma.

It’s a long time since I’ve had to think through the process of tacking a multi-masted ship. Dave seemed impressed with my thinking, and encouraged me to move around and really watch the whole tacking process. The quarterdeck is the best place to watch a tack, because you can see eve-rything following in order from hardening up the mizzen, to letting fly the headsails and slowly tacking the yards around.

The first mate ~ Bruce Hitchman ~ was in charge of the tack. Dave told me that he used to sail on the Pamir, one of the last windjammers to sail. He was a nimble elder gentleman with piercing blue eyes. I regarded him with considerable rever-ence because to me it was amazing to be sailing with a true Cape Horn windjammer sailer. The equivalent to me, of meeting royalty. And yet here, everyone was just so approachable.

They used a shortcut measure with the braces- I forget the term they gave it-but in effect it was simply measuring out a long loop of the leeward braces and then re-belaying them leaving that long loop flaked out on the deck (using that fancy figure-eight or clover leaf flaking pattern that Dave loved). It saved on crew, because when the yards swung around with the

wind, the crew hauling on the windward braces would simply take up all the slack in the loop of line that was lying out on the deck.

It was interesting to see how much time the whole process of tacking took, on such a big ship. It wasn’t a quick 30 second process that I was used to ~ but a full 10 or 15 minutes if you included preparation time. Amazing to watch the slow grace with which she turned. The main and fore course sails were

scandalised (lifted up by the sheets) which I hadn’t picked that they would do. I’d also thought that the fore yards would be tacked before the main. I did know that the royals would luff first, and that the yards were corkscrewed around as they went further up the mast. I guess it does make sense for the main yards to be pointed slightly higher on the wind, because it is the main yard that the helmsman uses for steering.

All in all, quite an amazing sight! At the end of it all, Bruce Hitchman used the megaphone to congratulate the crew, say-ing it was the first successful tack they’d done since January. So we were quite privileged! After that, I guess there was a certain amount of leisure time.

Lots of the passengers were seasick, and I was touched with how compassionately and unasked, Dave ran around fetching blankets for a couple of the passengers. Often in new experiences like that, I get too caught up in it all to take everything in.

Also when you are on such a beautiful

ship like that, you sometimes don’t even really comprehend the true marvellous grandeur of it, until you actually see it from the water or air under full sail. Only rarely are you privileged with such a sight, but I’m certain she looked as radiantly beauti-ful sailing beyond the Sydney heads, as she looks in these pictures.

Before long, it was back to our mast-sta-tions, for dousing sail. I tried to be useful, but soon got confused by the maze of lines. Then harnesses on, and we were back up the foremast.

Again my apprehension meant I was slow and they’d done the royal before I made it up there. The bloke behind me was most impatient and climbed up over me on the rigging and then around me when we were out on the yard. He was cheerful and nice, but very impatient at the same time.

Dave, by this time, was out on the other side of the yard. I felt somewhat limited by the sheer weight of the sails we were dealing with, combined with my lack of strength. Looking back to the main mast yards, I could see the little dots of figures along the yards, and knew that Mick, Chris and Roland were sharing the same exhila-rating experience.

As we moved down the yards, I gradu-ally began to feel progressively more comfortable each yard down we went, so that by the time we were at the course yard (lowest yard) I felt quite at ease and secure so that I could lean back against the footrope, using my body-weight to haul the gasket-line taut. I was almost tempted to

Mary with Sydney and Melbourne crewmates on the James CraigPhotos provided by Lynn Parker

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sit down on the footrope to reach out under the yard to pass the gasket-line up.

That was the other side of moving down to the lower yards. I might have felt quite at home now at the height of the course yard (about 15m above deck), but every-thing was so much bigger and thicker. The step from the shrouds onto the crane-line and then onto the course footrope, was certainly a lot further than my leg-span. As for the course yards-I couldn’t get my arms around it even if I tried to wrap myself all the way around it. And by the end I was feeling relaxed enough to work out my own little ways of being able to work the sail and play a useful part in furling it.

Coming down off the yards, I felt so much in the swing of things that it seemed the most natural thing to clamber out onto the jib-boom and help out in furling the jib. I was working with Steve Robinson, and again I felt so genuinely accepted as if I was part of the usual crew.

This time I felt quite at ease on the jib-boom and could climb from one side to the other and dance around on the martingale stays and netting even though we were out above the moving water of Sydney Har-bour by now. Finishing the jib, we moved onto the inner one.

As we tidied up the last sail, looking aft along the port side, I saw the tug com-ing alongside. I realized then that I’d completely lost Dave, and forgotten that I was part of the berthing party. As I madly scrambled off the bowsprit and on to the main deck, making it just in time to put on a

life jacket, I really felt that I’d been getting the most out the experience, managing to be everywhere at once and get as much out of the whole experience as I could. Dave watched me wriggling into a life-jacket and smiled gently at me, saying that he thought I was going to miss the boat.

It was exciting to be on the tug, and to have the privilege of looking back and seeing the James Craig’s graceful profile motoring under the Sydney Harbour bridge. Chris was on the tug as well, (he’d probably asked for the photographic opportunity). I felt so lucky that I’d been given all these varied experiences without having to ask.

I also felt so lucky in the mentor I’d been given ~ someone who was so gently encouraging; self-less; and who seemed to be happy to do anything to make it a fulfilling experience for me. As well as being so encouraging, Dave was also car-ing enough to make me feel a valued and appreciated crew-member, even though I know that bigger and stronger crew could be far more useful than me. Maybe my sheer love tall ships radiates outwards.

Clambering over the big tyres of the tug and onto the wharf, we walked down the wharf to where James Craig would berth, and in a while the tug gently bringing her back down into Darling Harbour. Mooring lines on, gangway on, and then all to soon, it seemed to be over.

Before everyone dispersed, they had a big gathering of the crew on the main hatch, eating the left-over food, making

speeches, announcements etc. Mick was sitting on the hatch making a rope dog for Morrin and for his mentor, so I know how much he must have loved the experience. I sat beside him listening to the speeches.

At some stage James Parbery (the ship’s entertainment officer, who’d introduced himself to me only a few minutes earlier), made an announcement about the maritime artist’s exhibition that was on in Sydney. He had a couple of pieces in the show as well, and said that he remembered mine when I tried to describe them to him. I was quite in awe because he was a musician as well, and I’d read quite a bit about his band on the internet, and it was almost like I was talking to a famous person.

While James Parbery was making his announcement, Chris called out that I had work in the show too, so James included me in the announcement. I was quite shy and thrilled to be acknowledged. Then of all surprises, Lindsay, the gentleman I remembered for having sailed on the Alma in her last trading days, sought me out to put paintings in an art show he was organ-ising in Williamstown for when the James Craig will be there. The timing was so coincidental that I was quite overwhelmed and elated.

So although it was ending, in a way it was also a beginning...

Mary Sowa seaman (sail) James Craig.

Hopefully, we will have her log for the trip to Melbourne for the next issue. PD

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REAL MEASUREMENTS.

It arose, as an idea, when a Frenchman visi-tor aboard the James Craig, commented, when someone pointing out some features of the vessel used the measures yards, feet and fathoms, “in real measurements” (as the guide said) that “metres is real measure-ment” (as the Frenchman said).

I had just watched the program on ABC TV about the origin, and the arbitrary na-ture, of the metre as a measure of length, so I thought “that’s not right”. Later, when sailing down to Melbourne, the term ‘me-tre’ was used for depth when referring to the chart - which again didn’t sound right. Then, as captain’s runner, I heard the for-rard lookout state the distance of other vessels in nautical miles or in hundreds of metres, which again didn’t sound right. So, while gazing at ship and sea as the MOB person, I eventually came up with the basis of this article.

I would prefer to stay with the duodeci-mal system of yard and inches, which has proved more useful for things handicraft or constructural for millennia- halves, quar-ters and thirds come out as whole numbers, so the old system is more intuitive (and leads to fewer mistakes).

Yards, feet and inches have a very an-cient lineage, going back for many millen-nia. This came out in the measuring of the Megalithic stone monuments by a retired professor of engineering in the second quarter of the 20th Century. Professor Thom gradually realised that a very ac-curate measure, the ‘Megalithic Yard’, had been used by the ancients to construct their monuments (for Stone Henge and a thou-sand other ancient stone monuments).

The Megalithic Yard turned out, at 2 feet 8.64 inches to be close to the modern yard. Unfortunately Professor Thom went to his grave not knowing how the ancients could maintain such an accurate measure from site to site over many hundreds of years, let alone for millennia. It was three clever young fellas that worked out a method, described on -http://www.robertlomas.com/megyard/index.html

for attaining an exact ‘Megalithic Yard’ measuring device at each location, in the 1990s.

They based their calculations on the 366 degree circle, which was also a basic measure of angle for the ancients as there are 366 sunrises in a year. Then with a de-gree from such a circle set out with stakes at some distance from the observer, they

swung a pendulum, using a piece of cord and a stone, so that the pendulum swung exactly 366 times during the transit of a convenient star between the two wooden stakes. The resulting length of the cord, from fingers to half the length of the stone, when used to swing along a length of round wood measuring stick (doubling the length of the pendulum cord) produced the exact ‘Megalithic Yard’ that Professor Thom had rediscovered.

So that ‘yard’, and the feet and inches we used until recently, have been found to go back millennia. In the case of the Megalithic Yard, back to the ancient stone monuments and their predecessors the wooden monuments of well over 5,000 years ago - with the possibility that those systems of measurement may go many millennia before that again. The ancients found the yard a very convenient measure, and seemed to have come up with a way to obtain accurate, whole number, measures for use in dividing their handiwork into halves, quarters and thirds - the duodeci-mal system.

Why, after so many millennia did we wish to change to a more confusing SI system of measure for length and distance you may ask - and perhaps there’s no sen-sible answer !!!

- Dennis Nicholls seaman James

Craig

Powerpoint presentation on the James Craig.

Lecture and power point presentation on the finding, recovery, resurrection, sail-ing, crewing and her place in Australia’s history.

As most of the crew are aware I have given a talk to to the crew of the Star of India in San Diego, a power point presenta-tion to the crew of the Elissa in Galveston, the Eden Whale Museum and a number of rotary clubs.

I am negotiating with the Mitchell Li-brary of NSW to do the same. I also hope to take it overseas and use it as an entry to a number of Maritime Museums etc. I need more exposure to develop my talk.

If any crew know of an organisation that needs a speaker I am available. I need the practice and exposure.

I am also developing a power point presentation on the history of navigation (nautical mile, time, compass, deviation and variation, Flinders bar, quadrantal iron balls, latitude and longitude)

Peter Davey pedavey@gmail.com 0421277045

If he looks worried should we be?

Full & By May 2006 13

JAMES CRAIG’S RESTING SITE SAVED.

Recherche Bay, south-east of Hobart has been saved thanks to a $2 million pledge from entrepreneur Dick Smith. .

The private land where French explorer D’Entrecasteaux landed in 1792 will be purchased for $2.21 million, thus ending three years of lobbying for its preservation. Mr. Smith’s $2 million pledge comprises a $100,000 donation and a $1.9 million loan. The remainder of the purchase price will be collected from community dona-tions and government funds. The 142 ha block was due to be wood chipped for the giant Gunns.

As most of us know, James Craig rested here for 40 years and that the bay was named after Recherche the flag ship of D ‘Entrecasteaux .

Bravo Zulu, Dick. PD

The real sailors - the ones chip rust and do the mucky jobs on weekend work days.

From top, David Lovett in the freeing port, Peter Hughes and Iris Weingarten on the coping rail, Alex Field in the

gutters and John Delandro and Angus Witherby fish oiling the anchor windlass. Photos by Peter Cole.

Full & ByMay 200614