Back in April, when I went to the Seaport for training for the 38th Voyage, one big part of the day was to try climbing the rigging, in preparation for doing so while underway. I have climbed the Morgan’s rigging many, many times, but most often it was 20 years ago, when I worked on the Demo Squad at the Seaport. I’ve been aloft occasionally since then, but wasn’t sure how I’d do this time.

My main concern was my shoulder – I’ve got this annoying “frozen shoulder” that limits my range of mobility, and can occasionally be anywhere from painful to excruciating if it gets bumped in just the wrong way.

So, after spending the day in the Seaport library, I met up with a friend who has worked at the Seaport, and been in charge of the Demonstration Squad, for many years. She had some other friends who wanted to give a try at climbing before the full training day. She has the authority to let us try this when the grounds are closed – or, I imagine, whenever she feels like it.

We went over to the Joseph Conrad, because the rigging on Morgan wasn’t done yet, and it wouldn’t have been advisable to try climbing that rigging yet. I had been dressed for the library, but I gave climbing a try, anyway. We started heading up the foremast rigging, and I was very pleased to see that I did just fine. My lack of range in my shoulder isn’t that big a deal; you mostly keep your arms close in to you when you’re climbing. I didn’t climb over the top, but I felt like that was more because I was cold than because I couldn’t do it.

And the next day, with the other Voyagers, I did climb over the top on Conrad’s mainmast. Here are some photos I took from there.

    These are all looking forward, from the mainmast to the foremast, where another Voyager (in yellow) was going over the top with the assistance of Seaport demo guy extraordinaire Tim (in orange).

Here’s a view from the main top toward the whaleboats that other Voyagers were in. We’d done some whaleboat rowing before going aloft. Whaleboats are a blast to row (and sail) and the Seaport received a set of ten new whaleboats for the voyage from a variety of schools and museums.

 Here’s a bit of a selfie from the main top. It was hard to take any good pictures of myself from up there, unfortunately.