Volunteers scratch their Schooner itch with a day aboard schooner Harvey Gamage

A little over a year ago, in February 2021, 10 deckhands from the Schooner Harvey Gamage, led by their mate Rachel Young, came aboard Spirit of South Carolina and mustered with 12 volunteers to take on a worth of ship's maintenance. [Blog entry 28 February 2021].  Today, four Spirit Volunteers returned the favor,  mustering with the shortened crew of the Schooner Harvey Gamage to knock out a significant portion of their maintenance punchlist.

Harvey Gamage has been tied to the fuel dock at Charleston Maritime Center for two weeks, undergoing a month's worth of dockside shipyard maintenance projects before taking on a group of Proctor Academy Students for a 10-week semester-at-sea southward. HG has been able maintain an extraordinarily active schedule for the past year. That has meant little time for normal ship's maintenance. So the crew had accumulated a large punch list of projects. 

 Spirit Volunteers, David Brennan, Nate Mack, Bryan Oliver, and Doug Hartley came aboard at breakfast time and mustered with the remaining crew of Harvey Gamage to take on some projects. After a quick round-robin introductions, 2d Mate, Josh divided up the day's worth of punch list projects.  I'm sure it was a bit of relief among Spirit Volunteers, that Harvey Gamage sports virtually no brightwork(varnished surfaces) except for the steering box. In keeping with her personae as a typical Maine working vessel, everything is simply  painted in one of two colors.

Nate Mack and Dave Brennan
start in on scraping and sanding
 the deck box lids

Three of us, Bryan, Dave, and Nate,  teamed up to hand up onto the dock six long dock box lids to be scraped, scuffed and repainted.  Josh came up with 3 rotary sanders to speed along the work.  

Doug Hartley measuring out dimensions
 for his stencil of the ship's
radio call signs on the aft cabin.

 Doug drove 3d Mate Anna Marie to Lowes hardware for paint  brushes and rollers.  Once back on deck, Doug took on a more  intricate project to recreate the ship's radio call-sign letters in a  large stencil on top of the aft cabin-starboard side. 

2d Mate, Josh demonstrating to
Nate and Dave the application
 of thickened epoxy

In the course of all that scraping and sanding, Nate discovered and pointed out to Josh,, some wood deterioration and separation around the corner of a lid.  A short 3-way discussion led to a consensus on a solution involving West Systems epoxy-which led to an on-the-job tutorial by Josh with Nick and Dave on the methods for mixing thickener into resin and hardener to fill and seal the gaps and strengthen the corner.  

With a fresh coat of gray Pettit epoxy over all six dock box lids, and Doug's stencil completed and painted in, the crew all went below for a hearty hot lunch of a souped-up Tomato soup and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.  HG's crew was rotating cooking duties, since departure of their hired cook. Based on what was coming out of the Galley, they were holding up pretty well. 

Dave Brennan helps Doug
 peel the tape off the new
call sign numbers

After lunch Josh checked the punch list, and redirected us to a couple of additional painting projects; this time the trim around the aft cabin's skylight hatches and companionway combings. Nate got in under the mainmast fife rail to lay down a coat of white around the mast boot.  

Doug warily eyes Bryan at work on the
aft cabin skylight hoping his feet
don't scrape his freshly painted stencil.

With these additional projects completed there was just enough time to touch up our missed spots, clean up the dock, stow tools, and wipe down our hands.  Plenty of additional projects awaited but they could wait for the next day.  

The day had turned unexpectedly mild, a great day for on deck work. Volunteers enjoyed a chance to work beside other regular schooner sailors, learn and appreciate our differences, and similarities across crews, and even take away a few new tips and techniques.  We felt good about returning the generosity of HG a year ago, and we burnished a reputation as a dedicated serious schooner volunteer crew.  Stories were exchanged all day long.  

The Gamagers were genuinely appreciative of our help.  Spirit of South Carolina Volunteers have an open invitation to come down and step aboard.  They could use more of our help in getting ready for their next cruise.    Their shipyard period extends to close of business 5 January when a new fresh crew takes the deck and preps to take on the next class from Proctor Academy  on the 6th. 

If you can donate a 1/2 day or more laying in with HG crew members, you're guaranteed to come away with more than you gave, and if you're serious about wanting to deckhand on one of these schooners, you could do worse than receiving an invitation to ship aboard Harvey Gamage for a passage.