Social Event of the Year for Charleston Maritime Center

 Wow! That was Fun!  Also Stressed, Frenzied, confused, and a whole sling of adjectives that could describe a bunch of people throwing together a large social event in one week, and surviving three major changes to the plan in that same time frame.

What it was, was a Low Country Boil; a celebration of the gathering of tall ships, and reunion of their crews, around a true local experience.  It would also serve as Spirit of South Carolina's Volunteer Appreciation Day, long overdue. 

Around 75 attended, a mix of 31 crew members and their guests from the schooner, Spirit of South Carolina, and our guest vessel, the 150 foot  3-masted Barque, "Gunilla" from Gothenburg, Sweden with a drew of 12 and 44 high school students. 

Danny Johnson, Ken Fonville, Dave Lazar,
Tony Marchesani, Kenny Blyth, and
Brandon Clark take a deep breath after
delivering the last dump of "Boil" onto the tables.

It was a truly community effort. Every volunteer who attended ended up being put to work somewhere. Volunteers began setting up four boilers and burners early in the afternoon. Hunter and a few other volunteers began quartering 45 pounds of potatoes,  chopping 20 pounds of sausage, and shucking 5 ears of corn. Kenny Blyth took charge of a small band to hook up propane tanks to burners testing them then trying different arrangements to keep them protected from the increasing breezes  blowing  them out. By five pm they had all kettles boiling, and were ready to be filled.  

Now Brandon Clark took the lead.  With Laura Johnson and volunteers bucket- brigading pans of ingredients from the galley onto the deck, over the gangway on on to the dock where  Brandon, and crew began their witches work. Starting with fistfuls of garlic, creole spices, and other secrets, they started by softening onions, then laying potatoes, followed by sausage,  corn, and finally freshly caught shrimp, headed only from a shrimper on Shem Creek.

Danny Johnson hurried to the other end of the dock and nudged "its' time" to Bryan who had been stalling for time lecturing students on little bits of everything Charleston.  Bryan stood aside, and the crowd surged towards the the far end of the line and queued up down both sides to fill their plates. 

Ann Fonville  had baked up 75 servings of fresh cornbread and personally passed them out to each plate coming past.

At the end stood a heavily iced sheet cake and tin of cupcakes for dessert. 

Coolers full of Sweet Tea, Lemonade, Soda's and bottle water stood by for refreshment.

As a gesture of appreciation, Captain Leo of the Barque Gunilla presented Bryan and his volunteers a Photo Poster of "Gunilla" and a large cof table Photograph Book of the Swedish Islands off south east coast, which was Gunilla's home port.  There's a photo somewhere,, watch this space. I'll post it when I find it.

Students Gone, Clean up done,
Kenny and Brenda Blyth
finally sit down with a plate 

Laura Johnson, a Gunilla crew, Matt Hollenbeck, 
Tony Marchesani and Dave Lazar

As dinner began winding down, and students began returning to their  ship.  Bryan winked the signal to Captain Leo of Gunilla, and all the "adult" crews came down the gangway, gathered around two huge coolers. All assembled, Bryan opened up to reveal a large cache of chilled beer and ales; not just any but a a diverse selection donated by three of Charleston's Best craft brewing companies. 

Gunilla's head educator, the two Cooks,
 and Engineer enjoying some 'adult' time.

Bryan, deep in something about rigging
  while Gunilla's Captain Leo, looks past him
 at the cold ale he's missing.

 

Brandon Clark and Ken Fonville as
 the cooking winds up.

More background information about the Boil:

The idea of a  Boil was the brainchild of the schooner Harvey Gamage, which was to dock with Spirit of South Carolina while enroute back to her home port in Portland. To sweeten up the event , also due to arrive would be the large 3-masted Barque from Gothenburg, Sweden, "Gunilla". We were looking at around 50 attendees. just right.

And so, armed with a small budget donated by Harvey Gamage, a core band of volunteers mustered aboard the previous Saturday morning to make a plan, assign some tasks out like collecting tables, cooking kettles and burners, utensils, groceries, ,and of course, beer and other soft drinks. Oh, we also finished up the last of the new mast hoops,, now ready to mount onto the masts.

As we began executing the plan, we learned that another schooner, Denis Sullivan out of St. Croix bound home for Boston, was also due to dock the same weekend. 

Oh Boy, another  crew to join in.  Next day, we also learned that "Gunilla' had aboard 44 high school students., meaning under-age. 

All totaled, we were now looking at a potential total attendance of 101 souls. Given our limited budget, and the presence of beer as part of the Volunteer Appreciation Day and crew rendezvous. Volunteer Coordinator Bryan made decision acquiesced by others, to limit the Boil to crew members. The two ships with students aboard would find alternate activities for their students.  

Enter a new development. Harvey Gamage was going to be late, probably miss the whole Boil opportunity, and with it our one budget source. Enter a new donor, who promised to cover the whole thing and not only that, would cover the costs of hosting all the students, and personally go after just about all of the ingredients for the boil, and cooking equipment.

And so, with renewed energy and the pressure of closely approaching go-live day,  the ad-hoc committee of volunteers began scrounging all the remaining gear and staging it on the dock. Hunter and Bryan planned out the division of tasks and the realms of responsibilities below deck and above on the dock.  Bryan made calls and visited three different craft brewing companies each with some affinity relationship to Spirit of South Carolina. Palmetto Brewing Company had once supplied regular refreshment onsite to the shipwrights building Spirit.  Dave, owner of Coast Brewing, had been involved in her construction and early sails. The owner of Munkle Brewing had also been involved in her construction, and used scrap Angelique from the shipyard to construct the bar in the Brewery's Visitors Center.  All three provided a varied selection for the Boil, particularly a a showcase to our international crew/shipmates of how we do it down here.  

Friday the fresh shrimp arrived and was iced down in one of several coolers brought aboard.

On Saturday, the day of,, Volunteers started showing up to drop off or set-up.  Quickly enough, 1600 rolled around and it was showtime.  By everyone's comments. it was a roaring success.  Thanks to all who made it so.