The ship was moved over to Bell Harbor, over on the sound side, this past Friday (14 June). We were there this weekend for the Classic Yacht Association's annual local get together. There were quite a few absolutely gorgeous wooden boats.

While I was not on board for the arrival Friday, I was the oiler for the trip back through the locks into Lake Union and our home dock by MOHAI.

Getting out today was tricky. We were docked port-to and pointed into the slip. Our ship has significant sail area, is single screw, has a barn door rudder, and no bow thruster. This combination means maneuvering can be ... tricky. We had to back out, making a sharp turn to port nearly as soon as we cleared the dock, and then wind our way backwards out to open water. On a calm day, this is a difficult proposition with our ship. Today there was also the factor of pretty heavy wind gusts. In addition, the channel is only a little more than twice the ship's width, and the wind was blowing towards the rocks.

Our initial attempt was thwarted by strong gusts picking up the moment we left the dock. We re tied up and waited for the wind to die down. After about ten minutes, it did so.

One of the things about ships is the propeller is often also part of the steering. A skilled captain can walk the stern one way or the other simply by turning the propeller in the appropriate direction and with good management of speed. As we are a telegraph order ship, in tight maneuvers, that translates to lots of bells and much switching the direction of the engine back and forth. This means that I have one hand on the throttle and one on the johnson bar (the reversing lever). There were a bunch of quick ahead-astern-ahead-astern bells to get us off the dock, and each time I'm wrestling the johnson bar either to the ahead position, astern position, or for the stop bells, holding it in between so as to stop the engine. It was quite the upper body physical workout! After a few minutes, we were off the dock well enough the captain could get us going and out towards the open water. He rang down full astern, and then again full astern. The double bell in this case means give it everything you possibly can. I threw the johnson bar down and wound the throttle around a couple times until it was wide open. In the space of a couple of seconds, the massive torque of that engine spun the propeller up to 145 turns and the ship seamed to leap backwards. We drifted through the corners, going backwards and shooting out into the open water of Elliot Bay.