News of Spirit of South Carolina's impending operational status drives a shift in Volunteer priorities.

 Fresh news indicating that Spirit of South Carolina could be functionally operational (i.e. operational engines and electronics) by mid-June came Thursday just prior to our Saturday Volunteer Day.  The situation posed a number of possibilities, which, at this writing, still exist only as possibilities, not facts.

• There might a desire to get her off the dock and circle the harbor once or twice to test out the engines, electronics and navionics.
• There might be a desire among the "Directors" to accelerate into the process of regaining her COI, including scheduling the bi-annual haulout.
• A number of additional alternative possibilities for the near term future mostly point to having competent crew standing by in sufficient numbers for operations, not just maintenance.

With that, the day's priorities shifted from down-rigging the foresail and running rigging, to building skills in deck operations, specifically docking and departure drills.  Calvin Milam, Jason Patnaude, Danny Johnson, and John Whitsett stayed behind on deck to take on to the dock, the two #4 quarter docklines, then hose and brush off the months of accumulated marine growth. It would make them more agreeable to handling if the new priority included taking in all docklines, coiling, and stowing.  

Meanwhile, Jonathan Bautista, Keshaun Holmes, Nate Mack, and Danny Johnson  retrieved one of the tripled up #1 dock lines, piled it into a dock cart with the bag of heaving lines, and together, pushed it over to the large green square in front of the Aquarium. There, Bryan Oliver set up a  station for everyone to line up on the dock line, bend on their heaving line with a highwayman's cutoff (hitch), and practice coiling and tossing the heaving line a minimum of the 50 feet to the dock, over the head of Bryan (standing in for the dock-hand).  10 practice throws culminated with the "Failed Throw" drill, in which the line failed to make its target and had to be hastily pulled back aboard, and re-thrown.

At midmorning, the two groups switched locations.. The deck group shifting to the green for heaving line practice and that group returning to the deck to finish  prepping some woodwork for oiling.

Hunter capped off the productive morning with a philly-steak and peppers sandwich lunch.   After policing up after lunch, finishing the woodwork oiling project, and all  tools and implements returned to stowage, Volunteers departed to enjoy their weekend, and await some word on upcoming events.