Saturday's Volunteer Day concentrates on deckhand skills basics. Another 50 Hour Volunteer Achievement is marked.

Saturday's Volunteer Day started off with a recognition for achievement;  50 hours of Volunteer work for Spirit of South Carolina;  the fifth such recognition to be awarded since the re-inception of Spirit of South Carolina's Volunteer Program a little over a year ago.   After just two and a half months on deck, new volunteer Darren Casale, broke the 50 hour threshold.  In recognition of that achievement, Volunteer Coordinator Bryan Oliver handed off to Darren a lapel pin, following tradition first awarded to Volunteers while Spirit of South Carolina was still being built in 2002.

Darren Casale shows off his 50 Volunteer Hours recognition,
flanked by Volunteer Coordinator, Bryan Oliver,
 and new Volunteer, Austin Eubanks.

Depending on your perspective, 50 hours may sound like a lot, or merely a long week's worth of time.  More fundamentally it recognizes commitment to the Ship. Some of us - retirees, mostly, can spend hours easily.  More of us, still in the workforce, juggle multiple work and family priorities just to find a few free hours per week, or more.  The fifty-hour milestone seems to surface as a visible milestone, between people who start out with best intentions and then fade after one or two Volunteer days, and those  who demonstrate an enduring commitment to furthering Spirit of South Carolina's mission of youth education under sail. Darren joins four previous awardees this year,  Ken Fonville, Dan Maurin, Layne Carver, and Carter Edwards.

With the majority of Winter Maintenance completed, and the weekend's planned events cancelled, Volunteers took advantage of a somewhat warm but blustery Saturday to advance deckhand skills training.  It was a good day to welcome aboard two new volunteers, Austin Eubanks and Tom Bierce, both coming aboard for the first time.
Volunteer Deckhand skills consists of performing a number of tasks fundamental to a deckhand on traditional sailing vessels. Aboard Spirit of South Carolina, those skills are  are demonstrated, practices and performed twice before being checked off.
This morning, the objective was to check off at least five deckhand skills as being observed performing to an observable and measurable standards.  Eight volunteers focus on proficiency building in five different knot, first practicing then demonstrating for first check-off. Part of the training is to demonstrates the knots in context of how they are actually used. and Chief Mate Charlie Porzelt did not disappoint.  Just as the training session was about to close, Charlie called all hands to the Mainmast to prep then set a shallow reef into the Mainsail. Demonstrating all they had just learned, volunteers laid out on the aft cabin to pass portside reef nettles under the mainsail's foot bolt rope, then make a slippery reef knot on the starboard side. In doing so, Old Salt Joe Gorman pointed out the second whipping on the sail's "Deep Reef" nettles, as a means of eliminating confusion in inadvertently selecting the wrong reef nettle to secure on the main sail boom.