Crew List

You may think that Scream's crew is small, but you would be sorely mistaken. In fact we have more crew members than you'd think would fit. Here's a brief introduction to the rest of the crew:

Gen. George S. Patton (aka Ol' Blood and Guts) - Gen. Patton is our 64 HP Perkins engine. Like most shows of force, we don't much like using him, but he gets the job done. More about him in another post.

Monsieur GPS - M. GPS is not the same M. GPS we had on Wai Whare, who has now gone on to be the emergency GPS that lives in our ditch bag. Our current M. GPS is a small USB unit that hooks into our XO computer and functions as a chartplotter. He works with Mademoiselle AIS, which shows us when large commercial vessels are nearby.

Helmut - The Autohelm 7000. He keeps the boat pointed in one direction, so we don't have to handsteer. He's loud, but doesn't eat much and never gets tired. A good guy to have aboard, and he works particularly well with Ol' Blood and Guts.

Fritz - The parrot. He doesn't do much, but it's good to have a parrot on board.

Saye's Rig - The self steering mechanism, who doesn't have a good name yet. This is our windvane system which steers the boat to keep to a steady angle relative to the wind. Excellent when under sail, and after a few false starts, has proved to be an invaluable part of the crew. Unlike Helmut, the Saye's Rig is more or less silent. Also unlike Helmut, it doesn't get along with the General.

Owlie - Much to Fritz's consternation, we picked up a third crew-member as we entered California. Owlie stayed with us only for the one leg, but he was a plucky addition, who remained unruffled under pressure.

We also kept a few of the crew members (Nancy, Manuel and Morales) from Wai Whare, our previous boat. Somehow, it still doesn't feel crowded on board.