James Craig Maintenance Bulletin 23.07.2015

A veritable hive of activity during the past week.

The Saturday crew applied the final coat of paint to the section rust busted previous week.

Sally, Martin and Fiona  worked on some splining on the lower topsail yard. Yes, it’s still going on. I’ll try to provide a final count of the splines before the yard goes up eventually.

On Saturday Andy and John rigged the starboard side of the fore upper topsail to the course temporarily, so it can be used on the next sail in the absence of the lower topsail yard. Tom completed the port side during the week.

Bob and Michael stripped varnish on deck.

Below decks, work began in earnest on transforming the tween deck space into a more attractive function space, while at the same time still highlighting the historical aspect – which is the one thing we can market that differentiates our ship from other, more glitzy venues.

Martyn and Steven spent Tuesday drilling holes in the ship, as Ross put it, so ceiling boards can be fastened a to the frames along the topsides .

The pained look on Martyn’s face is caused by the knowledge that he has drilled about 30 holes so far and has another 70 odd to go before the day is out.

Meanwhile, Charlie, Mal and John prepared ceiling boards and began fastening them on. Even an engineer was inspired to chip in.

Sean fitted doors to one of the immigrant berths.

The life jacket boxes are getting a makeover to look more like cargo boxes in keeping with a cargo ship.

And undaunted by all this, Sally and Mary got on with plotting out the next sail to be built – the main t’gallant staysail.

Ainslie carried out a mast inspection on the foremast.

Down by the base of the water tank the engineers created a neat storage space for gear needs when dry docking….

And the work on the lower topsail yard continues.

I counted 16 completed filled cracks, and of what I could easily see, some 20 plus still to go.

Mary Robinson

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