02 Apr Uprig 2024
Providence is in the final push to get ready for the season. We are sanding and painting some of the rails, installing our new Bowsprit, and training our amazing crew. With all of that, excitement is building here in town and amongst the crew. This #TallShipTuesday Lets talk with some of our crew to see what they are looking forward to in April.
Over two days our crew worked tirelessly to get three of our spars back onto our ship. Spars are basically “a pole of wood, metal or lightweight materials such as carbon fibre used in the rigging of a sailing vessel to carry or support its sail. These include yards, booms, and masts, which serve both to deploy sail and resist compressive and bending forces, as well as the bowsprit and spinnaker pole.” On our ship, I often describe them as “the big tree trunks that hold our sails up” because of their size on a traditionally rigged sailing ship.
Our crew decided to bend on our tops’l to our top yard while it was still on the ground. We made sure the rigging was secure while on land. This allowed enough time to get this big tree trunk back up to the top of our mast during the Uprig 2024 volunteer event.
Volunteers and crew alike came out in force for this event. It was all hands on deck. It took every person we had to carry two of our spars, the top yard and cro’jack yard, onto the dock. Luckily Providence was docked at GH pier, so there was lots of room to lay out our spars. We made some final preparations, and started to get our spars back on board.
Once our riggers finished final preparations, we were able to start hauling our top yard up our mast. To do this, we took our Dyneema line and connected it to our windlass. The Dyneema is a line that is “made of high-performance fibers that are 15 times stronger than steel cable,” is woven in 5 strands and is able to lift up our very heavy tree trunk 80 feet in the air where we can secure it in place.
Our crew guided the spars aboard the ship. Each and every crew member was important to return our spars to their rightful place Once we finished that, it was time to do the same thing to the cro’jack yard.
Some of the final things we started was rigging our sails up. We hauled our mains’l onboard and secured to the boom. Then we took our gaff, another spar that holds up our mains’l, and attached it to the mast. Luckily the gaff is much smaller and lighter and we had it up in no time. We then secured our lazy jacks. These lines help our mains’l fall right into place when we furl it after a sail.
By the end of two days, our main spars have returned to their rightful place. Now our crew will be working tirelessly to put the finishing touches on the ship. Time to wrap up our rigging, complete our winter maintenance, and get Providence in ship shape. Welcome Aboard, shipmates!
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