Volunteer Ranks are growing- in Size and Seamanship

 This has been a year full of net positive's for the life of SSV Spirit of South Carolina. Since her return from Shipyard in Thunderbolt, GA, we've all been part of a steady, maybe slowly, but consistently forward progress. I won't recap that progress; it's all laid out in the last 12 months of blog entries. But will recap this.

Ken Fonville 2019
with a midshipman's hitch
 on the peak halyard

From 2019, when the Volunteer Program was first resurrected, to March 2023, There was a steady growth in the roster of volunteers who mustered aboard. I can remember the first,  Ken Fonville, who, four years, still musters for maintenance and sails, and contributes in other varied ways.  He was followed shortly by the youngest to volunteer;  Andrew Shook, nephew of  Spirit's second Captain, Ben Hall, on a work-study program in high school, Andrew was the first volunteer to go aloft-not even in a bosuns chair, but in a waist harness! He graduated High School and enlisted in the Coast Guard.  Now a full-fledged Cutterman, with a tour in Alaska under his belt, he patrols out of Jacksonville, and still visits the schooner, and pitches in on a project, when home on leave. 

Danny Johnson, center tallest,
 at Volunteer Appreciation Night 2019

From 2019 to 2022 the roster grew from 1 volunteer (me) to 35, of which 8 returned regularly.  Most of those 35 were recruited by Danny Johnson.  I've no doubt that everyone in his professional construction network, and his parish, experienced some kind of pressure to come along with him on board the schooner for a look around. 

In March 2022, Spirit of South Carolina started a 10 month period of exile, in Thunderbolt Shipyard. During that 10 months, Volunteers,  Andrew Shook, Charlie Malone, Dave Brennan, John Hart, Nate Mack, Dan Maurin, Doug Hartley, Reg Brown, Chris Sosnowski, all drove down for a Saturday, to lay in with  Bryan Oliver on a number of projects.  

In that 10 month exile, it's expected that volunteers would drift away. Traditional Sailing isn't for everyone. I can count at least 8 of our regular volunteers, that never returned when the schooner re-docked in Charleston in January, 2023. But then Danny Johnson re-opened his network and began coaxing more people to come down. That, and a random post or two on Reddit by Dan Maurin. resulted in a gradual steady increase of new volunteers walking aboard.  By November, I was counting a total 74 total names on the Volunteer roster.  

Now, full disclosure;  I would say our retention rate, meaning mustering at least twice more after first visit, is about 1 for every 4.  Of those, 22 volunteers regularly muster - once monthly, more or less.  Better yet,, their regular involvement results in a increasing level of deckhand skillsets, that will be critical to our future programs.

 I retain contact information on every volunteer, regardless of attendance record, copying them on every communique, and blog posting unless they specifically request to be dropped.  So, our contact roster boasts around 150 names, old and new.  

All of this to say basically, our Volunteer program not only survived a 10 month hiatus of non-activity, but rebounded remarkably, and increased our average competency level for taking Spirit of South Carolina off the dock -  with volunteers.   The evidence was demonstrated last week on December, when 15 qualified Volunteers signed up to take her off the dock for a sea trial.  First time since 2018 the schooner would've had a full complement aboard.  

She's ready for sail, and a crew available to show her off at the dock, or sail her.  A new page about to open.

New Volunteers "waist" little time in advancing past "never-ever" to competent deckhanding skills.

New Volunteers have been joining us every week now over the past month.. a positive sign.

On traditional sailing vessels, brand new, inexperienced recruit deckhands were given the rating "Waisters", relating to their primary place of work, performing the menial tasks for the time being in the "waist" or midships, the safest part of the vessel. 

With Luke McCain aloft on the foremast sanding,
Walter and Graham manage his tag line,
fixing his position around the mast.

 Our new volunteers didn't take long to rise above, by laying in on some challenging projects. By their second period on deck,  Alex Lyashevich, Josh Zoodsma, and Luke MCain have each, already laid aloft at least once sanding or oiling the masts.   Dallas Spencer has already been out in in the head rig storm-lashing down the furled jib. All ready beyond "Waisters" to apprentice deckhands.

Friday was a full day., volunteers concentrated on securing the rig, and the deck before the oncoming weather system that was due to hit today.  

First job was doubling up all dock lines. Water Barton, dropped down into the Forepeak and handed up three coiled dock lines to Bryan.  Dallas Spencer staged one at the bow, at #2 and #3 kevels.  Lines were run out thru the kevel hawseholes and back over the top of the rails where Bowlines were made off . Bryan passed out heaving lines, gave a refresher in highwayman's hitches.  Each volunteer then made several throws and recovery's just for practice before sending the last heave over to drag the doubled dock line over to secure on a dock cleat.  

Next issue to be tackled was the loosening furl of the jib out on the jib stay were it was threatening to be pulled out by the predicted high winds Saturday.  Walter, Bryan Oliver and Dallas  laid out to the jib boom of the head rig to resecure the jib, where the downhaul lashing had come apart; it's head was now drifting back up the stay, exposing loose  canvas-risked being caught in the wind, pulling apart the rest of the lashing, and.. well, it doesn't take much imagination see how that ends.  So with extra gaskets, Walter laid out onto the jibboom grabbing hold of the jib halyard block. As Bryan loosed the halyard line from the belaying pin, Walter began pulling the halyard block down the stay.  Dallas, straddling the furled jib took up the resulting slack in the down haul, and restarted a new daisy chain furl, overhauling  the slacked down haul-tightening the daisy chain all the way aft to the jib's clew.  

Alex finishes up a primo work coil
 of the Main Sheet, before
hanging it on to boom.

The last project. was forcing the ship away from the dock for setting fender boards between the dock pilings and ball fenders. CAPT Davis in covering and lashing down all the gear and furniture stowed on the dock.  The new director's chairs, were taken onboard and stowed in the forecastle with all the deck cushions. Bryan, Tony Marchesani and Alex, adjusted the fender boards and fenders to protect the hull it might make contact with dock pilings. 

Spirit of South Carolina Shines with hosting another Evening Social Event.

Earlier, Tuesday, Laura Johnson and Bryan
 tag-teaming with a canvas needle
 stitching a patch onto the foresail.

 The social event this time was Saturday evening's  Annual Volunteer Appreciation Night sharing the deck with the Judges of the Charleston Harbor Christmas Parade of Lights. It's been a tradition since 2019, interrupted by COVID for two years. I'm guessing there were 40 or more souls aboard.

Alex Lya just down-rigged from
 his trip up the mainmast to receive
 his 50 Volunteer Hour Award.

 

From my perspective, as a loosy-goosy, unimaginative party planner, these always have the feel of being thrown together. Saturday morning, Laura, Tony, Alex, and Dave, were still  aloft oiling the mainmast, then, we were trying to kluge together a coherent string of Christmas lights and hang the star that would illuminate only on a NE knot breeze.
The beauty in  the technique always coming from the talent of people doing the throwing of things in; volunteers and families mostly, seemingly haphazardly feeding in all the makings, of, and setting up the deck and saloon below, mostly on their own, to make things work. And it does. I swear we must be "cool boat of the Maritime Center." I know this because no one seems to have been sufficiently disengaged to take any photos'. So you have only my story-telling. 

Thanks to Walter Barton set the baseline with selection of appetizers and hot Apple Cider Punch.  I will myself modestly accept credit for the Smoking Bishop.  Ken Fonville's wife, Anne brought a nice counter point.  Others filled in the empty spots, such that the forecastle hatch cover and saloon  butterfly were lined with array of hot  and cold goodies.  Capt Davis provided some sophistication, settng up a bar. More beverages showed up in the Yeti Cooler, along with additional ice, midway thru the party.

Of course, the main attraction was the view. Somewhat overcast, warm with a haze that made for that trademark surreal view surrounding the illuminated Ravenel bridge. And the twenty-some odd boats, each their own wildly illuminated party, passing in review in front of us.  

Bryan introduces Kim, guest
of Josh, to a tiny tot of Hot Buttered Rum.

Many more volunteers than I'd mentioned brought along something to share, or stacked and stowed, and  moved around dock boxes to make the deck ready. 

I only got to talk to about a quarter of the total people aboard, but the vibe I felt was another triumph for Spirit of South Carolina, and her pretty good crew.  

The remainder of days running up to the holidays will be spent dueling with weather temps to complete our mast maintenance, and get in a training sail or two. Volunteers, look for a SignUP notice in your email. I'll post it as soon as I learn of it myself.

  There are no limits to crew, and no drug testing prerequisites. so, Sign up.   

Saturday's 1st Public Tour a Resounding Success. Rain Forecast kaboshes the last scheduled Harbor Sail on Sunday;

As the frenzy of preparation activity reached a crescendo Friday afternoon, Dec 1st, we turned attention to the organization and roles /responsibilities for managing the Public tours aboard the schooner on Saturday starting at 1100 for two hours. There were vague feelings of unease, given our lack of visibility of any marketing/advertising effort to publicize that the ship was now hosting tours. We had no website, or active Facebook, limited Instagram, and only a vague understanding of how we would collect or direct electronic donations.

Volunteer Coordinator Bryan Oliver, divided the 2 hours into two watches of  four volunteers each; 3 to perform roles as tour guides on deck, with one as a dock-side "host/greeter" to make the introduction and manage the flow of guests coming on deck, and keep a headcount..  Each tour guide was set up with a resource binder of background information and 3 education themes to cover, and a route of stations around the deck, above and below as stop and talk places.  It seemed like a pretty good, well focused system.

CAPT Davis moved the Sandwich board, our only known advertisement of tours, out to the main concourse in front of the IAAM while we fretted about our apparent visibility to the public, and the lack of advertising for this morning. 

Volunteer Josh Zoodsma, who, earlier in the week had sat in discussions with Bryan on the very topic of marketing, visibility, etc., decided to take matters into his own hands.  Mounting his bike, he took off towards East Bay Street, towards the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, where the Charleston Tea Party Anniversary was being celebrated. It is said made a swath through crowds the length of the downtown street, even into Hotels to alert concierges.  Must've worked.

Old soldier's saying; "No plan survives first contact with the enemy. "

We were expecting maybe a trickle of pedestrians coming down the dock.  At around 1000hrs Doug Hartley took his spot on the dock next the gangway and our open Donation's box, and looked at a thickening crowd walking down the dock. When it arrived, there appeared to be a couple dozen. Some simply blew past Doug's attempt to gather a group and start an introduction, and walked down the gangway on their own initiative.  

Next-door neighbor, Nao Trinidad (Magellan's Flagship).
We hoped to  piggy back off their tourist traffic.

Bryan, at the saloon butterfly hatch was leaning over his notebook and reviewing some notes, when he looked up to see almost 8 people coming off the gangway and starting to spread fore and aft down the deck. More appeared to be gathering up around Doug on the dock. Bryan immediately gathered as many as he could, herding them towards the foremast and started his intro.  The other volunteers, Calvin Milam, Nate Mack, and later, Dave Brennan, Ken Fonville, needed no direction, but started intercepting guests as they flowed aboard, pulling them clear of the gangway, and starting their own introductions and tour. As the traffic intensified, Mark Held, and Rick Washington pitched in helping with taking questions, guiding guests around the deck.  

The ship had been "spiffied" up pretty well, so our tours covered the entire deck as well as an exploration below into the forecastle, and the saloon.  The aft-cabin was viewable from the deck. As a live-aboard area, those spaces were off limits to the public.   

Bryan with one of his tour groups in the saloon
 enjoying Walter Barton's Christmas cookies and cider
while getting a history lesson in historical harbor navigation.

Thankfully, Walter Barton, exercising his own flair for hospitality had come aboard with jugs of apple cider and Christmas cookies. He promptly set up on the galley and counter with cups napkins arrayed, for guests as they climbed down the ladder with their "tour guide.   Bryan had pulled down his two Historical charts of the harbor, (1865, and 1879) offering a flavor of what "Francis Elizabeth would have had aboard. Another anecdotal tidbit was pointing out the marker where Hunley had sank and was recovered. 

Dave Brennan capping his  tour group's
 experience with visit to the cockpit
 and hands on the helm.

By noon, a passerby on the dock would've seen what looked like a solid mass of people intermingling, and flowing around the deck and in and out of the hatches.

At end of the tour period, around 1500,  Mark Held retrieved the Sandwich Board returning it to the ship.  Volunteers mustered below in the Saloon, munched on East Bay deli sandwiches, discussed the good, the bad, the ugly, of the day,, then tallied up cash donations and tallied number of visitors..

197 visitors were counted give or take 7.

Run-up Week to First Commercial Operations Tests Everyone's flexibility

 This past week was going to be intense.  Two back-to-back "Shakedown" sunset cruises were set for Tuesday and Wednesday, the 28th and 29th, with remainder of the week devoted to preparation to conduct public tours Saturday, and two harbor cruises, all in conjunction with the 250th Anniversary Celebration of the Charleston Tea Party..  

10 Volunteers along with CAPT Davis, and CAPT Hackett mustered on board starting early afternoon to build momentum for a cast-off from the dock at 1600 hrs. It was clockwork. By 16oo, lines were cast off and CAPT Davis pointed her up river into the Wando for a long clockwise circumnavigation of the harbor. The crew raised the foresail, and then jumbo. The rest of the cruise was pleasant and uneventful. By 1830, we were standing off the dock setting fenders and making up dock lines for tying up.  It had been dark for over an hour.  This would be our rehearsal for docking in the dark-the only illumination available were sparse dock lights and a rising full moon. 

As expected, All preparations for docking started early to account for the the crew having to perform their tasks more slowly and deliberately. This was our first experience at night, so tasks like knot tying, measuring distance of fenders to the waterline, gauging the throw of heaving lines were as much intuitive or by feel, than visual. Everyone was tested.  CAPT Davis took his time lining up on the dock, and advancing and backing several times to feel the currents he could no longer see. Dock line handlers double-and triple-checked their highwayman's hitch on the heaving line, or their bowline, even asking a shipmate to inspect their work. 

As it was, during the docking operations,  a few glitches arose but quickly resolved. A heaved messenger line fell short, but was rapidly retrieved and tossed again.  A dock line bowline came loose while made to a dock cleat, but was quickly pulled aboard and remade, and passed back to the dockside.  I think we found that working in the dock tends to increase the level of chatter both on board and dock, making major verbal directions more difficult to hear above. 

Once the ship was secure, Volunteer Coordinator Bryan Oliver mustered midships, both on-deck and dockside crew  for a quick After-Action Review while memories were fresh,  a discussion to identify and reinforce what went well throughout the cruise, and what didn't, with  discussion to identify steps or changes to better manages the shortcomings.  We would be set for an even smoother sail the next day.

It wasn't to be.  On Wednesday morning, CAPT Davis was required to postpone that day's shakedown cruise to Thursday.  Most of the volunteers  signed on to the cruise mustered anyway, thankfully, and laid into the growing punch list of preparations for the weekend.   

On Thursday, CAPT's Heath and Davis made decision to redirect the priority from second shakedown sail to furling sail from Tuesday's cruise, cleaning and preparing the deck a

Volunteers Logan Day, Bryan Oliver, Madison Pulley,
 Kyle, and Laura Johnson harbor-furling the Jib and Jumbo,
 following previous evening's shakedown cruise.

nd below decks to receive the expected numbers of visitors. 

And then the weekend weather forecast changed. Sunday afternoon was showing a high chance of precipitation across the harbor, sufficient to cause the decision makers to cancel the planned Sunday Brunch Harbor cruise.  Friday became the last surge in effort to paint, wipe down, stow, or hide, stuff before tours would begin Saturday morning, and later when passengers would board for the last surviving scheduled Sunset sail that evening. 

Hunter Gets Published!

 Our Late Sea Cook, "Hunter" is a Published Author!

Just two days ago, Hunter's latest, and only book was published in hard copy on Amazon.com. 30 some-odd years of sea-cook experience, stories, lessons learned, tips and techniques finally codified in just 88 pages of wisdom.  I'm not joking. All the more poignant, in that Hunter threw out his anchor just two months ago, and retired, returning to his family in the Dominican Republic. Spirit of South Carolina was his last ship. His quote still rings: "Your favorite ship... is the one you're on." 

The book is a culmination of about 4 years of tinkering since the idea was first hatched.  Back in 2019, Captain Richard Bailey, past Commander of HMS Rose, Spirit of South Carolina, and most lately, Harvey Gamage, had made a hasty phone call to Hunter requesting help for Bailey's new cook aboard Harvey Gamage.  His new hire had cooking experience, but didn't know his way around a traditional sailing vessels, galley, with all the nuanced and stark challenges around feeding and caring for a schooner full of crew at sea.  Hunter had been sea cook under Captain Bailey for most of his 16 years of command of HMS Rose (which later transformed by MGM into HMS Surprise, for the Movie Master and Commander).   And so he asked if Hunter could just jot down some tips, techniques, general advice, that he could hand over to his new hire to help get him started. 

Hunter, along with CAPT Dan Cleveland, and Mate, Charley Porzelt had been left largely idle, while the governing Board decided what to do with the ship after the COVID Pandemic struck.  He had time on his hands.  Without hesitation, Hunter found a spare composition notebook and started writing.  In days he'd filled 23 pages and was still going.  I offered to transcribe his notes into a Word document as he completed each section or topic, to make the thing more readable, easier to organize, and edit.- it was looking like more than a few pages. He readily agreed.  As I gathered his pages from the composition book and read, and read.. I realized I was reading .. "real gold". This was good stuff, practical, easily understood. with a little organization, basic editing, fleshing out of content in some areas, it could be turned into a book or something.  

I pushed that idea to him after I'd transcribed about 30 pages.  I offered to edit the thing for him. He shrugged and allowed me to knock myself out.

And so with lots of time on my own hands,  I started my own project, to  organize the topics, and generally format it into a manuscript, with figures, a few illustrations, a table of contents. In the next three weeks, around August 2019, we had a manuscript in a plastic portfolio presentation binder. I stuffed it in my sea bag and flew north to Portland Maine where I boarded the schooner Harvey Gamage and handed over the manuscript to Tyler Calderwood, banquet chef out of Disney World Resort, looking for a lifestyle change I guess. He certainly got it. He also devoured Hunter's manuscript.  

On returning to Charleston, I proposed to Hunter that he flesh out the manuscript in some areas, and add a few topics, with a concept that we could distribute something of use for other sea cooks,, maybe even publish it on Kindle.  I have a younger brother, self published in 5 novels, both online and otherwise, and through his experience and advice I built out the writing project. Hunter luke-warmly agreed, but he had a condition.  He wanted a copy to be offered free of charge to every Tall ship in the industry.  I didn't try to count all the ships that might meet that criteria,,, I probably should have, but we left it as "Deal".  and leave the issue of financing all those free copies to a later day.

Over the next three years, off and on, Hunter would open the composition book and pencil in some remarks,, sometimes just a list, sometimes a couple of paragraphs, once or twice a whole chapter exploded out of his comp book. At some point in 2022, the muse apparently petered out. I proposed a couple of topics to possibly shake loose his thoughts around him, but he didn't take me up on it., And so I refocused my efforts from compiling to final editing, started reviewing online Tutorials on Kindle Creator. 

The final editing process and Kindle reviews was rigorous, but not all that hard. By late spring, 2023 I had gone as far as I could with it, had run it thru numerous automated grammar-spell checks, even had my brother, the published author review it. He made a few high value edits to it, in areas, I would never have thought of. In June I uploaded the pdf into Kindle Create, the online self-publishing app and started an iterative process of sending it through sequences of review. By October, the computerized red-ink notes and underlines/circles disappeared.  Hunter had just disembarked the schooner to head home.  He absent-mindedly agreed on a selling price we would ask. He expressed little interest in the sales potential, and only reiterated his wish to get a copy out to any ship that wanted it.

On uploading I ordered six "proof" copies, for a nominal price of $4 a pop, and sent them out to some tall ship colleagues to review.   A few returned enthusiastic comments. Nothing really negative-which made me a bit uneasy.  I chose a cover photo out of our Ship's Google photo album collection, a chopped image of the schooner ghosting along under full press. A little self-indulgence, the figure on forward lookout was me. On 26 November, four days ago, I uploaded a final .pdf manuscript, clicked, "Send" and it was done.  

The e-book is supposed to follow, after some synching is done with Kindle.  Most proceeds of sales will go to cover cost of printing the free copies and postage, for delivery to the remaining tall ship fleet.