They still sail

Today, just by chance, I looked out my window and there was a sailing ship so I took a photo. It wasn’t easy. It was a couple of kilometres away so I sat the camera up and let it look down the telescope. With the curtains over my shoulder, my foot balanced on the windowsill, the telescope pivoting when I didn’t want it to and the ship taking opportunity from the wind and sailing way too fast, I managed to get most of it.

These ships were mainly barques and schooners, classified by the types of sails they carried. I know nothing about ships but illustrations seem to show that barques have more square sails and schooners more triangular ones. I have more hope of sewing a sail than rigging a ship. It amazes me how they know which rope to pull to get the sail to move. I am still trying to master my venetian blinds.

Ephraim came on a barque, the ” Layton” which was getting rather aged, having been built in 1814. It was the seventh convict ship to have come to Van Diemen’s Land that year and the slowest having taken 147 days. The fastest two took only 111. This was the second and last voyage of the Layton to VDL so was called Layton 2. They stopped at Teneriffe on the way but it would not have been for the shopping and sightseeing.

It is hard to imagine how people managed to keep clean, do washing cook and live in such a small space for such a long time. Some of the earlier ships found just how difficult it was and large numbers died on the way.