Yard Time

9/8
Times have slowed down a lot with the summer season’s end. I missed the last trip, a four day scoot from New London, CT, up to Boothbay Harbor, ME, to be in Phoenix for the wedding of Mr. Kyle St. John, my best friend since the second grade.
From there it was back up to Maine to reconnect with the Gamage and get my hands dirty in the shipyard. Currently she is hauled out of the water and “on the hard” so to speak, as the yard crew have been working diligently to patch up seams and replace some rotting planks in the hull. The sweet joys of wooden vessels.

Harvey Gamage "on the hard"

The atmosphere has been pointedly industrious, yet a relaxed mood keeps the days fun.
As much of Gamage’s crew have moved on to other endeavors, I have found myself as senior crew member onboard and responsible for directing the workday under the captain’s orders. This new challenge makes the workdays all the more satisfying. I love looking at the ship at the end of the day and seeing how much we got done, and much happier she is for it. I am supremely proud of the work we have been doing on Gamage. We have been working hard all summer to keep her in shape, and now we get to do all the big projects we haven’t had time yet to do. We’ve varnished the main boom, painted EVERYTHING (not kidding), spliced eyes in wire rope for new headstays, replaced old turnbuckles, fixed broken hatches, chipped rust, rolled oakum for the seams, and tarred our thirsty rig from top to bottom.

Freshly varnished main boom

Wire eye-splice for a new head-stay

The rig: tarred and happy

My palette

It’s amazing how much difference new paint or fresh varnish can do for a ship. Our bowsprit iron was afflicted with an embarrassing amount of rust, but a few hours of chipping and wire brushing, some osphoric acid, lead primer, and a couple coats of paint, and she is healed and sealed! And oh so pretty now, too. Sailors know that a fresh coat of paint can fix anything. As medical officer this summer, I had a student come to me after twisting his ankle. My first instinct was to crack open a quart of semi-gloss off-white, but I wised-up and opted for Tylenol and an ice-pack instead.

My glorious white bowsprit iron

My only complaint about my time here is the lack local establishments with NFL satellite TV subscriptions. There are none. So instead I will be forced to listen to Chief’s games online at the KCFX website. I want to WATCH them go 5-11, dadgummit!
Though I'm afraid I am mistaken. I do have more than one complaint. There's always the issue of the curious tourist. It can get irritating answering the same list of questions from sunglassed rubbernecks 3000 times a day. I love the interest in tall ships, and always am polite, if not at times begrudgingly so, but I can only feign a good-natured smile in response to "Ahoy mateys!" so many damned times. One imposing old woman even asked me to pose for a series of pictures, and it was only the spirit of Jesus in me that kept my middle fingers down.
Football dilemmas and lubbers notwithstanding, it has been a productive yard period thus far, and I am looking forward to more hard work, and a good rest when it’s all done. Just like the great poem Sea Fever says,

“I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.”

Thank you John Masefield.