SeeingEyeBlog

The HMS Surprise, aka the picture ship from Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, finally made it underway today in the care of her new owners, the San Diego Maritime Museum. I was supposed to be a member of the sailing crew, but couldn’t make it. As you can see, though, I was in another boat to take pictures.

This weekend was the culmination of a yearlong training commitment, as I stood aboard the Star of India as a member of the sailing crew. Standing, yes, but rarely standing around, as there was food and music and a lot of work to do to sail her properly.

I had been training to sail the Surprise, but the Coast Guard put a fork in us over a bureaucratic matter, cancelling our sail. The crew of the Star offered to give us spots on their crew, and I was able to sail on Sunday.

It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, and it has a lot of parallels to a film set. It is a dynamic environment where a rig might seem safe one minute and kill you the next. Time is a factor, and the entire crew must coordinate in such a way as to get the job done right. Although there is a routine to the work, adaptability and improvisation are required by the crew on almost every piece of work. There’s a lot of waiting for the next shot/tack, but then there is 5 to 10 minutes that can only be described as a dance, because our coordination has to be at the level of a dancing couple, except there are up to 75 people in the dance.

We had 24.5kt apparent winds, and the Star of India made 7.4kts. Pictures forthcoming.

Here’s a dreamy photo of the ship I sail on, called the Surprise. It’s a replica of a 1805-era frigate in the British Royal Navy. In fact, it is the ship used in the making of Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. We don’t get to drink while working aboard, but of course, neither do we get shot at.

While working in port today, we set most of our sails, and then I took a picture from across the street. We’ll be sailing this ship in the waters around San Diego, CA, on October 29th and November 5th. We also sail November 11th and 12th, this time alongside the Star of India.

I’ve been working 16-hour days lately and today I had a well-deserved day off. I was in San Diego at my parents’ house so I had access to television (I work in entertainment but don’t have a cable subscription in LA). I watched some show on Discovery about the way things are made, and this episode featured apple juice and violins.

It is lamentable that automation and modernity have all but done away with quality craftsmanship. The fruits of our labors can rarely be embodied as a tactile product with a 500-year lifespan (I don’t know any luthiers, and many guitars are made in automated mills anyway). In previous generations, a man could create a magnificent instrument in his humble workshop, and live on essentially bread and water, with fruit or vegetables seasonally. Nowadays we work in offices with little to show for ourselves, and eat any kind of food regardless of season.

It’s interesting to speculate about the 16th century craftsman eating an apple at the end of harvest season, who, finishing a violin as he eats, may only have crafted two more violins by the time the next harvest offers him his next bite of apple. The apple and the violin were worthy of much higher appreciation when it required that much patience to enjoy them.

In my meager research into my previous post, I stumbled upon these pictures from Shackleton’s voyage to the South Pole, also in color. This site from PBS is also interesting.