A relaxing weekend for the crew as we charge up the batteries ready for the final push, lots and lots to do but everyone is excited and although the hours are long no one minds, we just want to get the Maltese Falcon sailing and see what she can do. A few people away at the moment getting visa changes, a necessary trip for everyone who is not Turkish every threemonths, but we should be back up and running with a full crew by Wednesday.
As long as the two Royal sails arrive this week our main job for deck crew will be getting these on, one on the main mast, and one onto the fore mast. This will be the first test of the sail changing mandrel a device we have developed for precisely this job of hanking on and taking off sails. A lot of deck level testing needs to be done before we hoist the royals up to there position, just in case you don't know the sails from the bottom are called the course, lower topsail, upper topsail, gallant and royal. on each mast. The one sail that is different is the mizzen crossjack, which on the fore mast and main mast is called the course. So as you can see we are starting with our highest sail for our first use but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Last Saturday the guys got the last off the flag staffs in position there is one on each mast and they will be flying our house flags/burgees, they definitely stand out and our air draft on the main is now 62 meters!!!
That's all for now, enjoy the week. George Gill