Spirit of South Carolina gains more visibility as two organizations come aboard.

  For the first time in several months, Spirit of South Carolina felt the feet of visitors coming aboard to marvel at South Carolina's own  Tall Ship, get a tour, and hopefully build anticipation for actually sailing aboard her in 2022.  

Thanks to Harvey Gamage's Ocean Passage's Director, who organized the tours, Spirit of South Carolina partnered with the Maine Schooner Harvey Gamage in hosting Ashley Hall students and their parents on Friday, and then a group of 20 Big Brothers and Big Sisters members on Saturday for, not only a tour, but some hands-on deckhand activities.

It began Friday when 20 young women from Ashley Hall School's  Offshore Leadership Program accompanied by Coordinator Roscoe Davis and parents, arrived at the Charleston Maritime Center at the invitation of Ocean Passages Director Alex Agnew.  They were met by Harvey Gamage's Program Director/deckhand "Shel" Mauchline, and Spirit of South Carolina's Volunteer Coordinator, Bryan Oliver, and divided into two groups. The groups were led to separate schooners for a 1/2-hour orientation and tour, before switching to the other schooner for a similar agenda. At each schooner, the visitors were treated to a short orientation of the vessel, and "a day in the life " of sailing aboard as a student/deckhand trainee. 

After a week of maintenance, Harvey Gamage had just shifted into a self-quarantine status in order to be ready for boarding a new group of students on 13 March for a 10-week semester at sea .  As a result,  visitors could not go aboard on Friday, but instead received a dock-side orientation and question and answer session. Even so, these student visitors were likely already familiar with the Maine Schooner, as she had recently disembarked 20 Ashley Hall Students after a cruise from Brunswick Georgia to Charleston.  They'd already heard stories from those other classmates, who inevitably had tales to share.     

Not so with Spirit of South Carolina. Spirit was more of an unknown, having last hosted a class of Ashley Hall Students in 2012, before she was laid-up and taken out of commission for the next 3 years. And so these visitors were being introduced to their own State's tall ship for the first time. They were met at the gangway by Chief Mate and Acting Captain Charlie Porzelt who took them aboard for a similar orientation, but with additional experience of actually touring the schooner below decks, to check our her berths, the salon, to see and touch the environment where they might find themselves a year from now. 

As the students and parents disembarked, the sensing was of success. All around, the comments hinted at anticipation for the next year and an opportunity for a tall ship adventure.

The next morning,  Saturday dawned cold and wet as Volunteers mustered at the normal 0900 to prep the deck for an 1100 arrival of the Big's and Little's, as they're affectionately nicknamed; the younger  youth paired with their "big brother/big sister", and a few organization staff.  Two groups would arrive, on the hour, starting at 1100.  They would be split into two groups, one at each schooner, after a 1/2 hour, the groups would switch to the other schooner for a continuum of activities. Since Harvey Gamage, was quarantined(no visitors allowed on deck), their activities were limited to what could be performed on the dock.  It fell to Spirit of South Carolina to provide a more hands-on experience and up-close-and-personal with the living accommodations, and practical exposure to some deckhand skills.

  Volunteers, Mike Evatt and Dave Brennan diverted off to work on the finishing touches of the ship's dory's new canvas cover.  Danny Johnson, Dan Maurin, Joe Gorman and New Volunteer Richard Behler gathered around Bryan Oliver to organize the planned activities.  For the first 10 minutes, of the 1/2hour, Dan Maurin and Joe Gorman would lead separate subgroups on a deck and below-deck tour. 

While Dan Maurin observes,
Harvey Gamager, Shel Mauchline
 coaches a little brother on the Jumbo Downhaul
, while shipmate Asher watches another
 "big brother" tending the Jumbo sheet.

For the remaining 20 minutes, the groups would converge on the head rig, where deckhands from Harvey Gamage  would join in to lead the young ones thru the drill of setting, and then dousing the jumbo. 

And so volunteers executed the drill four times over the next two hours, and yes, from the dock it must've looked fairly frenzied, but no one could've possibly been bored.  As each group disembarked, we had a good feeling that most would be looking forward to another experience aboard.  

Bryan Oliver joins a Big Brother
 to sweat the Jumbo halyard
 the last six inches while
a Little Brother tails.

It was the goal for both schooners to share cruise programming next year with the Ashley Hall School, providing added capacity and more flexibility to sailing schedules. 

It was an additional goal to introduce the traditional tall ship sailing experience to the Big Brothers' and Big Sisters mentoring organization in Charleston to showcase it's potential value to the youth which the organization was serving.