John Porter & Jenny: The Windward Passage

For the Love of Sailing: A Supplement

One of my readers pointed out that the use of sailing terms in my story is a bit much for someone who is not familiar with sailing. I did make an effort to both explain the terms as briefly as possible when they cropped up as well as go light on them, using just enough to immerse the reader in the world without turning the story into a manual on sailing. But I can also understand where it is still a little overwhelming for some.

(And no one should feel bad about getting a bit lost in the sailing terms. I got lost the first time I read an Aubrey-Maturin novel. So many people did, someone wrote an entire book of terms and historical articles to help readers called Sea of Words.)

For all the flaws in the story, I can’t say I am exactly eager to delve back into it in order to restructure, so I hope readers will forgive me if I put a glossary of terms here at the end.

A picture of ship the John Paul Jones is modeled after is in the external link attached on the side there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56562877@N02/5224202211/

Foward is the front of the ship, the bow area. The focs'l is the interior of that area. Aft or Stern is the back of the ship. If you are looking toward the bow of the ship, left is Port, right is Starboard.

I think I explained the bowsprit and headrig pretty well in the text. The buildings you see on deck are (from forward/right to back/left) are:

The focs'l hatch which is in front of the foremast (the first mast). This is just a cover/doorway for a ladder/very steep stairway, with a small platform in the middle, into the bunk area in the bow of the ship. This where my character and Alex sleep.

Immediately behind the foremast is a big hydraulic winch for lowering scientific equipment. On top of that is the sail rack which is where extra sails are stored and students would often gather during the day when they were not on watch, studying, or in their bunks.

Attached to the winch/sail rack (with the air vents on top) is wetlab which is where the scientific sampling and studies are done as well as where the instrumentation that catalogs depth, salinity, temperature, etc. of the water is. There is also a stairway/ladder inside the wetlab into the main cabin directly below The main cabin contains the galley and dining area which is lined with bunks along the sides and a set of books shelves (“the library”) along the back wall.

Galley = Kitchen

While it does not come up in the story, I will mention for interest's sake that the dining tables are gimbaled, allowing them to swing back and forth so that the motion of the ship is NOT transferred through to the table top and the top of the table stays level so your dishes stay in place rather than sliding all over onto the floor. It seems like the table is moving, but in fact the ship is (and you are) moving in relation to it. The table is staying still. Believe it or not, after a couple days you don’t even think about it anymore.

Though in that dining environment, elbows on the table can have disasterous effects.

Then there is the mainmast. The second building behind the mainmast is the Doghouse. This is sort of the "control room", where the maps, radio, radar, GPS, lighting control, computers with stellar mapping software, etc. are. There is a stairway/ladder inside doghouse to the aft part of the ship which houses the bunks for the captain, the mates, and the engineer. It also leads to the engine room and the computer lab.