Tall Ship Chronicles- Around the World as a sail trainee on the barque "Picton Castle"

 Have you ever, just once, daydreamed seeing yourself aboard a 3-masted square-rigged ship at sea?  No?  You should try it.  And to help you out, the most respected square-rigger in North America, the Barque Picton Castle, has just released on Amazon Prime Video, an 8- episode reality-style series of her 2001 18-month circumnavigation (she does this regularly, by the way). 

Titled; "Tall Ship Chronicles," the series describes the lives of sail trainees from all walks of life and everywhere in the world, most of them never-evers, on board a tall ship for the first time.  The episodes feature a "never-ever" sail trainee, in all aspects of life at sea, learning all the time.

I watched the first episode and found it a recreational watch, not technical at all, excellent photography from all locations, all situations.

Picton Castle, out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, is devoted almost entirely to tall-ship sail training, via blue-water cruises that put in to harbors and lagoons all over the world.  Captained by Daniel Moreland, she participated in Charleston's Tall Ship Festival in 2017. 

If you can't pick up Amazon Prime Video, give me a contact, and maybe we can set up a screening with others, on board or on deck. 

Volunteers lay in with Captain Cleveland to begin repairs on the ships sailing dory.

 This past Saturday morning on 9/26, five Volunteers, Mickell Evatt, Anne Crosby, Joe Gorman, John Witsett, and Wayne Jones, joined up with Captain Dan Cleveland to start a project to make repairs to the ship's sailing dory. The small rowing/sailing boat, unofficially referred to simply as "Dory," was lying on the deck port side amidships. She suffered a stove- in plank earlier in the summer, and her wood hardware needed lots of restoration work.  Working as a team, volunteers lifted up the hull and moved her over the butterfly hatch to the starboard deck, so that Dan could start repairing the damaged plank. For the rest of the morning they set to scraping and sanding down to bare wood the dory's two oars, mast and boom.  Once repaired and rigged up, Dory will be available for learning the basics of rowing and sailing. 

12 Volunteers Advance Maintenance and refresh Docking Tactics

This past Saturday the 19th, promised some action for Volunteers who came aboard this past Saturday.  Weather temperature lowered dramatically to mid 80's, while the normal dreary prediction of rain, warned us only of brisk winds and blowing, high humidity.

Six new volunteers, the largest group since last year, came on board, in addition to four more regulars, to move a couple of maintenance projects forward, and , for a nice change, concentrate the morning on deckhand skill-building. 

New Volunteers from the College of Charleston, Dylan Outlaw(gotta love that name), Channing Smith,  Jimease Bonaparte,and Maddy Balga, joined up with Michael Evatt, and Jack Burton, for a quick orientation and ship's tour before dividing up for some basic deckhand skill building. Meanwhile, Danny Johnson dived into the last stages finishing his gangway steps. Ken Fonville finished the bedding and re-installation of two lifeline stanchions on the port side. As the New Volunteer tour  and administration completed, Dan Maurin and Layne Carver split them into two groups for practice in basics of line-handling skills. To cap out the morning, Madison Pulley took over and, led the new volunteers to the dock in front of the Maritime Center for a demonstration and practice with dock heaving lines.  Look for some of Dan Maurin's photos to appear in our Volunteer photo album, at the tab on top.

Volunteer Days will return to a Saturday's Weekly Schedule Effective 19 September.

Effective 19 September,, Spirit of South Carolina Volunteer Days will no longer alternate between Saturdays and Sundays, but will return to a weekly schedule on Saturday's only.  Volunteers may still come aboard during weekdays to lay in with the crew on maintenance projects, or work on deckhand skills.  As usua ekly schl.. Volunteers please confirm by text or email, in advance, of the day they will come aboard. This  helps the Volunteer Coordinator manage the social-distancing  requirements on board, and ensures a crewmember is available on that day to work with volunteers.

This last Saturday was a day of working fast to avoid the suspected return of rain showers in the afternoon.  Volunteers, Kalev Kruuk and his son Riivo, teamed up to lay on another coat of D2 Varnish on the starboard forward cap rail. Danny Johnson, took charge of a painting party to get a first two coats of Sandtone enamel on his new gangway steps, While Ken Fonville and a select few of us, cleared off the Main mast's starboard pinrail, so he could lay on two more coats of D1 preservative.  Gary Pope arrived mid morning to reinforce the effort. As those maintenance projects closed down, Volunteer Coordinator, Bryan Oliver, mustered the newest volunteers, for a whirlwind tour of the ship with particular attention to the watch duties of Boat Checks. 

By early afternoon, and the first signs of ominous clouds, the varnish had "kicked", tools and gear were put away and the Schooner  was better off to the tune of over 40 Volunteer hours given to her in maintenance and ship handling skills.

Labor Day Weekend Aboard Spirit of South Carolina; Volunteers Share their Saturday to get her ready.

 Labor Day Weekend; a traditional opportunity to enjoy one last summer long weekend doing,, anything but labor.  Not for this bunch.

New and old Volunteers stretch the social distancing
 rules for a short moment for a group photo on board
Spirit of South Carolina.

Saturday morning,  eleven Spirit of South Carolina Volunteers boarded the Schooner and collectively gave over 45 hours in labor from their weekend, laying into maintenance projects aimed at getting her ready to sail.  With Mother Nature granting some reprieve of scorching temperatures, and holding off the regularly scheduled squall, old and new volunteers pitched in together, picking up brushes and varnish, scattering over far corners of the deck to add additional coats of Deks Olje D2 varnish to her cap rail. 

Danny's New and Improved
Gangway Steps

Danny Johnson and his newly recruited volunteer, Nathan Robinson teamed up to prep the raw wood surfaces of Danny's newly constructed gangway steps. 

Kalev Kruuk, brought along his son, Riivo,  and took charge of one end of the port side aft cap rail scarf eventually meeting Old Salt, Steve Boone in the middle. Philippe Agafonovus took on another scarf section.  Madison Pulley, all the way from Greenville, took over the portside bow cap rail scarf. Newcomer, Peter Kohn laid a second coat onto the taffrail. Layne Carver and Joe Gorman organized the materials and kept the coffee and water coming.

Organizing the materiel 
for the varnishing project

Saturday's work on the cap rail scarves contributed to a lengthy two-phased project of first scraping/sanding down each of the 17 sapele wood scarves (sections) of the cap rail, clean them up, then coat them, first with up to 8 coats of a D1 preservative/sealant, then follow with a 12 coat application of varnish, about 85 labor hours of effort spread out to account for drying time, and weather interference from pesky squalls.

Volunteer Coordinator, Bryan Oliver  explaining
 the latest draft of the Crew Manual,
(available for download on this Blog)

By 11 AM, 7 cap rail scarves (sections) had received a coat of varnish and were left to set up.  Bryan Oliver took the five New Volunteers on an orientation tour of the schooner while Joe Gorman coached or refreshed others in their line-handling/knots  on the Deckhand Skills checklist. By 2 Pm, the threatened rain squalls had still not yet appeared, but Volunteers' work was done here, and so we all disembarked for a well-deserved Labor Day weekend. 

Topsail Schooner "Lynx" Makes a Port-Call to Charleston

 The topsail schooner/Privateer/Baltimore Clipper-designed Vessel, "Lynx" of Nantucket, MA, tied up Monday afternoon at the fuel dock of the Charleston Maritime Center.   

She departed this morning, Wednesday to continue her passage north, where she'll continue programs up the coast and eventually be hauled out in Portland Maine.  I was lucky enough to be at the dock at the time, and so cast off her docklines as she departed. and caught this footage.

The above descriptor- pretty much describes what she is;  a racy-looking replica of an actual topsail schooner of that name, operating out of Fells Point, Baltimore, in the Chesapeake, in the War of 1812. Unfortunately, she suffered a short career, being captured by the British in a "cutting-out" expedition early in the War. She was one of hundreds of this design built with shallow draft, large rigs and hollow entrance, extreme, and risky to sail for the times and technology... but very fast.  Primarily for Privateering, piracy, and Slaving: Other replica's of this design include the privateer, Pride of Baltimore II, and the slaver, Amistad on the east coast.  Learn more about her and her programs at the link below:

Topsail Schooner Lynx Website

Talls ships such as Lynx put into Charleston regularly in their transition passages north or south. They may stay only overnight, or as long as a week. As Volunteer deckhands for Spirit of South Carolina, we have opportunities to act as hosts/guides, ad-hoc shore support for those visiting vessels and their crew. I regret I only knew they were here when I happened upon this morning, else I'd have alerted the Volunteers of her presence.  It would have been a treat to go aboard for a tour and interact with the crew. 

A Follow-on Comment on the topic of Sailor's Palms - making your own

 A thanks to Don Prexar, who provided links to Some detailed instructions and a pattern by Todd Bradshaw for making your own Roping Palm.   In his instructions, he refers to illustrations that unfortunately, can't be found.  Still, the instructions are fairly detailed, and the accompanying pattern .pdf. lines up with the previous article posted.  The links are posted to the right-hand column , or click here:

Roping Palm Instructions by Todd Bradshaw

Sailor's Palm Pattern by Todd Bradshaw