"Soon" is still the word to describe when Spirit of South Carolina will return to Charleston.

I think that word started appearing in blog entries here back in July. In that context it's meaning has become, well,,, meaningless. I had been given to understand that the mechanical issues keeping her at Thunderbolt were largely resolved. Turns out I was misinformed, or jumped to conclusions. 

Only this past week, our electrician returned to replace an alternator on one of the diesels, and also discovered that the separate battery chargers did not appear to be charging their respective banks of new batteries. I plan to get better clarity on the situation this week and have something worth sharing with you.

 Last week at the Georgetown Boat Show, kindred spirits stopped by on seeing the A-Board advertising Spirits eventual return. It gave em' some hope. 

 Jesse Rothkopf, old volunteer from 2015, now heavily involved in his own wooden boat collection. Sean McQuilken, deckhand volunteer from 2019, forced to adjust time more towards his professional life, but looking for chance to come back aboard. 

Kenny Blyth, Old Salt, Shipwright-builder of the schooner; latest attendance was to deliver a set of five new purple heart belaying pins he had lathed for us.  

Deckhand Volunteer/Ashley Hall Cruise Alumni Dani Feerst, nailed her business plan presentation inspiring the  Board of Directors with a well thought-out proposal for the schooner,, also researched for a replacement website platform. With no funding, we are on our own to develop and manage a new one. She had some success there, and started designing a website framework. But real life requirements to focus more on her professional endeavors forced her to hand it off to me. So I have our website work-in-progress and am chugging along forming out an admittedly plain, but functional website.. The Pizzazz will follow, likely when someone with pizzazz in our volunteer roster wants to step up and get involved.. 

 Any takers? Email me. 

 Last thing; If wooden sailing ships, particularly the traditionally rigged kind is still your itch that needs to be scratched, check out this upcoming event on:

 www.sailpowersteammuseum.org "Stories of and from Captains of the Square Riggers A Zoom call that requires registration on their webpage. Monday, Oct 24, at 1830 EST. 

I plan on being there. I've met two of the speakers. This sounds like a make yourself comfortable with a tot of the good rum you've been saving, open up that small jar of Tall-ships potpourri of old tarred marline cuttings, turpentine and linseed oil, and set it nearby. (You may have to close the door; no one else would understand). Registration for the Event

Spirit of South Carolina gets some publicity

 It wasn't much, but undeniably, it was at least
something; the first exposure to the public since the fine feature article last summer in the Post and Courier.  Our schooner got some signage in front of people at the annual Georgetown Wooden Boat Show.

It was a fitting venue for announcing her return, but it was on short notice. Bryan Oliver  was already set to exhibit his Beetle Cat at the Boat Show. We were looking at a perfect advertising opportunity. Given that we had no marketing effort yet established, Bryan proposed a poster mounted on our sandwich board currently lashed down on the dock with other gear. Colleen Flynn, Exec Asst to Tommy Baker immediately agreed to the idea and volunteered her creative marketing staff.   

So, earlier last week, Bryan drafted up a poster design and forwarded it to Colleen.  She added an OCR scanned code to the bottom, linked to a Paypal donation account she had set up.   So, now we  had a Marketing Campaign. This was another first. 

Spirit's first Ad Campaign product
 set out in front of Bryan's Beetle Cat
at start of the Georgetown
Wooden Boat Show

When the Show started at 10 AM yesterday, the poster was strategically positioned in the path of the crowd as it moved down the rows of exhibited wooden watercraft.   Bryan, at the curb next to his boat was able to observe the crowd passing around it. Too many to count, stopped to read it. Half of those pointed it out to their walking companion, and a few even took out their camera and snapped an image of the OCR code at the bottom.  We'll see how it works.

After the Show concluded Sunday afternoon, Bryan recovered the Sandwich Board to be reused at the ship's gangway, or at the foot of the dock, to advertise the schooner when she could be open for tours, with a donation of course.  A decal banner "Open for Tours Today-Donations Appreciated" will be applied over the current "Coming Home Soon" banner.  It was a fruitful weekend for the schooner, with some names collected for adding to the Volunteer Contact Roster.. and hopefully a renewed interest rekindled in a lot of visitors.

Six Months of Schooner separation; Time to shake it off and Look Forward to Something Different.

  They say that "absence makes the heart grow fonder."  In my experience, I'm skeptical.  I think its more likely to do the opposite.  Spirit of South Carolina has been outta sight/outta reach for six months now.  With each passing month I'm afraid that for many of us,, that emotional attachment to our ship can't help but start diminishing.  Me? - I've been going down almost weekly to bring Hunter his mail, and work a small project or two, so my bonds get regenerated just as often.    

She really is coming back. I wish I could say exactly when.  when it does,, I expect there to be just a short notice. It would be great to have a significant contingent of volunteers there to welcome her back. 

Even if you couldn't make that date, I invite you to come on down to the dock, at your convenience if just to get another look at her. I'm confident that just that little gesture will stir up in you the same excitement, curiosity that brought you aboard the first time.  

And nothing regenerates a good memory like family pictures, or boat pics. Click on the Ship's photo album tab at top of this blog and browse thru a few pics.  Guarantee, like a puppy pics, you won't stop at just one.   

Last thing, in reactions I've gotten from some of you, there's been profound discouragement in how you've perceived volunteers to be regarded, as an integral valued component in this ship's life.  Twice, during deliveries, the pro's have declined to include us in the operation. Our projects at shipyard seem to be invisible to the rest of the schooner's world.   Well,  "what else is new".  

Nothing's changed, really.  The pro's doing the delivery to and from Thunderbolt have contracted to a very specific mission to hard parameters; efficiency, cheap, tight schedule, safety, low risk. Any unknown quantity introduced into that mix, adds some risk.  Volunteers, for all my bragging about you, remain an unknown quantity to them. I saw that attitude bear out and reinforced when I joined the "A-team" crew for the delivery down here.  When the delivery is done.. They will be gone, and it'll be our ship once more.     

And, things are about to change.  Pre-shipyard, the ship had been in a limbo for three years, with no sign of a shift in fortunes.  As you've read in this blog, things are shifting, for the better. Volunteers will be involved. I hope to see all of you on deck to be part of it.     

Hurricane Ian cuts us a break; Last Projects finishing up before Delivery

 Three weeks of dead air on a social media platform is always a risky thing, and I take responsibility for that. I've been mostly incommunicado with road trips back to St. Louis, and Oklahoma, and frankly there's been nothing much to report on since last posting.  Until Ian, that is.

Even that, thankfully, turned out to be a non-event here in Thunderbolt Marine Inc. where Spirit of South Carolina still floats at the face dock.   As Ian approached, Capt Hackett and 3 of his yacht management team converged last week to triple up all her dock lines, roll up the awning and  add an additional four big ball fenders dockside. Hunter remained aboard. That was it.  Luckily, the hurricane passed well east of Savannah area, and Thunderbolt saw little overly dangerous winds or surge.  As of this writing, a few fixes in the engine room remain to be resolved.  Starboard diesel's  alternator  will be replaced this week, and some final engine electronic tune-up's will be completed. 

So,  six months in shipyard.  Other than three weekends when volunteers drove themselves down to clear out and clean berths, and do some mechanical troubleshooting, Spirit of South Carolina has basically sat in the sun and dried out.  Hunter did get a head start scraping off peeling varnish on the aft cabin butterfly hatch.  

Notice the newly wooded cap rail
 and instrument consoles.

This past two weeks,  Capt Hackett's team has been mostly at work on deck with heat guns and scrapers, taking down to wood the entire cap rail, some half-rounds around hatches, instrument consoles at the cockpit, and aft cabin butterfly hatch-the saloon butterfly remains in pretty good shape.  After six months in shipyard, the neglect on that wood took it's toll in  yards of peeling varnish and sun damage.  

The second half of that project, the varnishing will be handed off to us volunteers. Personally, I'm counting blessings. All that scraping/sanding would have taken several volunteer weekends.  In a conversation with Capt Hackett, he also expressed an intent to switch from the Deks-Olje two step preservative and varnish system (D1-D2) to an Epiphanes varnish. That is also expected to be a time-saver. 

Schedule for delivering home still hangs on the issue of Captain and crew.  Everyone's anxious of course to get her off this dock and back home.  I'm starting a new pestering  campaign to get as much advance notice as possible when that will happen.