Scrubbing the decks ready for Dublin
With less than 24 hours to go before 'Sea Stallion' arrives in Dublin, there is a real sense that the voyage is finally coming to an end. After 6 weeks at sea 'Sea Stallion' has been through a lot and today the entire crew are pitching in to make her ship-shape for her arrival. The deck and hull have been washed and scrubbed, the crew’s kit has been off-loaded and the spaces under the deck cleaned. However, not all of the work is cosmetic – the ship has been through some challenging weather and seas and the strain has started to show.
An oar that didn't make it through
Dylan explained to us that the ship is now taking on far more water than usual, although this is not a problem as the ship is equipped with numerous pumps to deal with tonnes of extra water. There has also been a small amount of compression damage to the ships timbers in certain places, which must have been caused by the huge waves encountered off the Mull of Kintyre. The temporary rudder will also be changed; the stand-in was made by the engineer of 'Cable One' and is made of synthetic materials, and so is not very authentic! We will have to see if the new design that Edgar has been working on is put to the test in the waters off Dublin.
We have been busy asking members of the crew questions sent to us via the website. It is fascinating to see what interests people about the ship, but certain questions always seem to crop up – the female crew members on board are constantly asked ‘what is it like to be a woman on board’ and so by now have a standard answer prepared. Whenever we stop anywhere people are also fascinated by the toilet facilities on board – we managed to get a comprehensive run down of what is involved from Diarmid, who has rejoined the crew for the arrival in Dublin. Watch the daily video tomorrow to see his vivid description.
'Sea Stallion' gets a final scrub
Our journey is also coming to and end, and on 'Island Fox' we have been packing away our mountains of kit and trying to get it in some sort of order. Tonight will be my last night on 'Island Fox', and having spent a month on board it has begun to feel like home – it will be strange to sleep in a real bed again after so long at sea! Both support ships – 'Cable One' and 'Island Fox' – have been vital to the voyage, especially for us as they have allowed us to follow the journey so closely, and get some great ship-to-ship footage. We would like to thank their long suffering crews for putting up with us!
We set off tomorrow early in the morning and the 'Sea Stallion' crew will row the short distance up the coast to Dublin, the final leg of the 1000 mile journey from Roskilde.
Published: 2007-08-13
