Combining maintenance and Deckhand skillbuilding

On Halloween Saturday, eight volunteers mustered at 0900, and immediately divided into separate projects. The brisk breezes canceled hopes of lifting volunteers aloft in bosun's seats to scrape the masts. Nevertheless, One team set up the varnishing station and began prepping the quarter cap rails and taff rail for another coat of Deks olje D2 varnish. The second group assembled around the foremast port pinrail. After months of maintenance projects requiring the moving of rigging from their assigned belaying pins, almost 32 different lines were currently belayed off in all numbers of disorganized spots. There job would be literally starting from scratch, armed only with the rigging principle of "running fair, and foremost rigging starts on port side", this team started matching individual running rigging lines with belaying pins. Starting portside Foremast, over the next three hours, volunteers moved from one belaying pin rail to the next; rerouted lines, moved lines from one belaying pin to another to improve leading fair. All the while, volunteers were polishing basic line-handling skills; belaying a line, making it fast, coiling, hanging,, tailing a line, sweating a line. Anyone who wanted the practice, got it. Meanwhile, Hunter was on foot to Harris Teeter with lunch contributions to provision for lunch. By 1240 he had handed up on deck for buffet, a pan full of roast chicken and rice pilaf, to spread over the salon butterfly hatch cover.