Ten Volunteers Gang up on the Masts-and it shows!

 If you walked up to the face dock Friday morning you should've picked up small but hard evidence of progress.  The entire section of deck and furniture aft of the mainmast looked brand new, except for the cap rail. That's kudos to Team Hackett for their workmanship. On the dock were resting the schooner's two life raft canisters just returned from inspection and refurbishment. Next to them in a tight neat role lay the jumbo sail, noticeably cleaned up. 

Volunteer Activity this past week actually started on Friday, with the arrival of two of our crowd from out of town.  Todd Cole, from Atlanta arrived first.  Volunteer Coordinator welcomed him aboard with an immediate project to start-fabricating two new fender boards to replace the cracking old ones.  Bryan brought out the 8 foot sections of 2x10 pine  and a pair of saw-horses while Todd went below to gather up power tools, measuring stuff, and return with one of the old boards to use as a model.

Todd Cole checks a cow hitch as he rigs up
his two new fender boards. Steve Rine in
background  is measuring out seine twine, cutting
for his 18 new chafing gear sections.

Later in the morning, Steve Rine rolled in from Gainesville, FL for a day, on his way back home to Pittsburgh.  Steve brought along 20 years of volunteer deckhand experience on the square-rigger-Brig Flagship Niagara, so Bryan basically turned him loose on a separate project,, repurposing one of our old firehoses into 18 sections of chafing gear, cut, fitted with seine twine lacing. As he finished each section, Bryan grabbed a few at a time to start installing on the dock lines.  

By the time in mid afternoon when winds started picking up, all dock lines had been fitted with fresh marling-hitched chafing gear , and two brand new oiled  fender boards stowed under the bowsprit.  

Saturday morning saw the first  good weather day for Volunteers in weeks!  It was sufficient for 9 Volunteers to muster that morning, and divide up into projects Bryan organized the previous afternoon after gauging weather and  volunteer responses.  Bryan was at first understandably a little worried this morning that there wouldn't be any volunteers willing to go up the masts. The previous week, no one else on deck was willing to try the lift up. 

Today was different.  Four different volunteers stood up to going aloft.  That would enable splitting up the mast work into thirds, allowing topmen to be relieved periodically.  

Jim, Bryan, and Nate

While one volunteer passed the hat for provisioning for lunch and turn over to Hunter, Bryan laid out the priorities;  A small team went below to stow in berths the 26 immersion suits that had also returned from inspection/repair. The remainder set up two bosuns chairs on the foremast; one on the throat halyard, the other on the jumbo halyard, enabling coverage around the entire circumference of the mast from for to aft. A third bosun's seat was rigged on the mainmast. 100 ft extension cords were rigged out of the forecastle, power orbital sanders connected and dummy corded to the bosun's chair with a fresh 80 grit sanding disk affixed, and 3 spares stuffed into the small bucket hanging off the other side of the seat.  

Doug Hartley signals to start tugging!

Nate Mack would lead the team up the foremast, with 

Doug Hartley following up opposite Nate in the second seat. 

 Bryan showed the first topmen going up how to secure themselves in the seat with their harness and tether. Next he gathered Todd Cole, Tony Marchesani, Jim Leonard, and Danny Johnson, the volunteers designated to do the hauling-up, and line tending; and walked thru the procedure of lifting, and lowering securing the line to the pin with a locking hitch.

Tony, Bryan, and David team up
 to haul Doug up on the jib halyard.

Finally, they rehearsed the succinct commands to be shouted by the deckhand aloft and repeated back below. Meanwhile, Mikell Evatt was harnessing-up, to set into the seat at the main mast. 

With Bryan satisfied that all hands understood their procedures, safety precautions, he handed over to the seat-sitters, command over their respective line haulers, and  stood back to observe.  As seats were raised to their target start points only one hand was needed to tend the line and lower on command. That enabled some hands to lay aft and help haul Mikell up the Mainmast.  

Dave Brennan on the foremast

By late morning, most seats had come down to rest their rider, and send up a relief to continue the slow advancing down the mast. As Mikell came down, Bryan took his chair and went aloft 2/3 up the mainmast to pick up the trail. Dave Brennan strapped on Doug's fancy bosun's couch and went up the foremast to take it within 15 feet of finishing. 

Nate is anticipating slicing into his monster burrito.

1315- Hunter called for lunch.  For the past 1.5 hours he had been working magic in the galley, creating one of his specialties an exceptionally fat Burrito covered in a tasty verde sauce, really needing no seasoning. Each deckhand coming below was rewarded with one, accompanied by a healthy pile of Spanish rice. 

With the late lunch over, Bryan mustered hands for a final push to a good stopping point.  The foremast only needed a third of one side for being ready to oil down, so Bryan harnessed up to take on that last segment, and designated two line tenders.  Tony, and Jim took some last looks and tugs at the innards of the old trash pump to determine if it could be salvaged, but to no avail.

"remember, its
CLOCKWISE over
 the top of the pin"

He directed the rest to the task of straightening out everything on the decks and below, stowing tools, sweeping of piles of accumulated sawdust from the masts and pounds of nameless bits of debris.

A few minutes after three pm, Bryan came down off the foremast, and mustered all hands one last time for a quick after-action review.  It had been a full day, we'd made good use of every labor-hour, and could boast of three projects completed-on the punch list and two more progressing satisfactorily.  The foremast is ready for its first Linseed oil coat. The main mast needs only another 1/2-hour of sanding to make it ready for same.  At next opportunity the foremast would be oiled, and mainmast would shortly follow. provided volunteers stand up to go aloft. 

That particular adventure quickly became routine for those tried it, but the view!