Small but productive Volunteer efforts close out the year.

With Holidays rapidly approaching,  and our schooner restricted to the dock, waiting for it's window to deliver to shipyard, it was no surprise that our Volunteer Corps would be other-wise engaged. The Saturday of the 17th brought four volunteers.  This last Saturday, the 21st, brought only three of us.  Scott Cross, just returning from a 30-day service with FEMA in the hills of North Carolina, gave his entire morning and part of the afternoon.  Danny Johnson, likewise, came down to the dock to see where he could pitch in.  

Between Scott, and myself, we had control of the Dory project, turning it back over and repositioning her on the cradles, we sanded off old masking tape adhesive and scuffed tenhe rest of the hull surface to ready her for a coat of gloss white at the next good weather window. Bryan  had received a replacement rudder gudgeon and remounted it on the transom.  Besides hull-painting, a sheer stripe added under the gunwales for pizazz, a bit of wood filling around the transom, Dory was ready for re-christening, uprigging and launching.

Danny, took on the task of cutting out six inches of  the bench 4-by-4 timbers, to clear a wider space for bridging from the dock to the gangway.  

Those project found a ready stopping place right about lunch time, and all of us  secured all tools, extension cords,  abrasives,  emptied trash cans and closed her up for the holidays. 

Fast forward to the day before the day before New Years.

It's a conundrum. The usual motivations to invest volunteer time aboard Spirit of South Carolina don't seem to be there; the activities around getting her ready to go to sea, even just a harbor cruise.  Worse, the prospect of that happening doesn't seem likely for 4 months, exacerbated by that fact that she'll be in shipyard.

What to do,, what to do..

Well actually there's a lot to do. While she sits at this dock, likely till early February, there will be tasks that keep her from sinking. Bilge checks and pumping, ventilation.  And there's more in way of deckhand skills, that we never get around to.  the six knots to be mastered, Dock lines refreshed.. bending on chafing gear-something we've been ignoring to our peril.  There's Dory.  If you never yet learned to row a boat, you've somehow skipped one of the foundational precepts of seamanship. Dory rows well with one-two-3 crew if we had oars.   There's more,, give me a minute.. okay,, next time, next entry.