Sloop

31 January 2020

On the mid deck of the OOSTERSCHELDE we have a sloop. A beautiful old, wooden sloop of about 4 meters long and 1,5 meters wide. It has four oars and also a mast, sails and a boom.

If a wooden boat is out of the water for a long time the wood shrinks, and it can start leaking. This is not so bad if you regularly put the sloop in the water once in a while and the wood can get moist again, so it does not dry out too much.

We did that today in the bay of Tarafal on Santiago. We hung the sloop in the davits, and every anchor watch got the water out that trickled through. Because the sloop was already in the water, we took the opportunity to rig it and sail in the bay. It was a lot of fun!