Back-to-Back Training Sails Sandwiching a Volunteer Day- Whew.

On three out of the last five days, Spirit of South Carolina felt the energy of a volunteer crew muster aboard, twice to cast-off lines, take her into the harbor and raise sail. In between those days, she got some care she deserved. Like a lathered up racehorse, gave her a long overdue deck wash, and a wipe down, and some fixin' up. 

Doug Hartley takes the helm one last time
 before sailing his own boat to the islands.

The first sail, last Thursday the 25th, didn't start out well-I'll be honest.  Flush with volunteers, more than 19, actually, with a few of them never-ever's. All of you who have been aboard and helped cast-off can appreciate the complex synchronized dance between the deck and the dock-line handlers, timed and  orchestrated by the deck-officers, requiring two-way communication all along the deck, instantly acknowledged and acted on. When it works it looks effortless.  When it doesn't, well....  I'll say we relearned some lessons. to be covered later. 

Todd Cole at the helm

The rest of the  harbor cruise was a successful motor sail broad reaching down toward Ft. Sumter, raising the foresail and jumbo, then jibing up-harbor toward the Ashley River simultaneously striking the jumbo and setting the jib,  tacking just east off the Battery, coursing  up the Cooper just past the Aquarium, dousing all sail and setting up for a portside tie up.  

Swinging over the Gangway

Danny Johnson,
Gangway Master

Head Rig Crew; Those of us remaining
after Lunch securing the jib.  

The docking maneuver was just about perfect, with the gangway setting operation appearing to tighten up with every execution. Danny Johnson's on-call cutting out of work to run the operation providing some welcome continuity. While crew adjusted all dock lines then laying out on the fore boom to harbor furl the foresail, Capt Heath took a headcount and rounded up sandwich making's as lunch. After a welcome break, a few volunteers regretfully departed early to get back to real-world weekday commitments. The remaining six mustered out on the head rig, and made quick work of harbor-furling both the jumbo, and the jib. 

The next day, Friday, came a message from Capt Davis of a Training Sail opportunity for the next Monday. Alrighty then!

Even with Saturday's disappointing volunteer turn-out would've been a good day to finish up the masts, sanding the last foremast section, starting greasing the mainmast and sealing the mainmast boot, but the darned fog and resulting wetness everywhere, ka-boshed both. 

Bryan demonstrating the Popeye
cross-grain deck scrub technique.

Tony starts to flake down the fire main.

Calvin gives the brightwork and cap rail
 a fresh water rinse, a luxury available dockside.

And so the five of us split up between disassembling damaged stanchions and lifelines, and "brushing down our racehorse;" scrubbing the deck- a much, much long overdue piece of basic hygiene for a teak decked schooner.  Switching over the pumps from "Overboard"(bilge pump) to "Fire Main"  and running out the aft fire hose, we thoroughly sloshed down the deck, bulwarks, furnishings and cap rail. With hard bristle brushes, scrubbed cross-grain,  the entire teak deck-followed by a squeegee and chamois wipe-down of the cap rail and brightwork.  By early afternoon we were done. 

On Monday, Not unexpectedly, given the short notice, nine Volunteer deckhands did muster; Walter Barton and sister,  Ken Fonville, Dallas Spencer, Tony Marchesani, Calvin Milam, Captains Jen and Jan, With help from Danny Johnson( old stalwart phone call away) to get the gangway off, and Matt and Christian, dockmasters to cast us off.  First things was a quick review of the four things identified that, combined, brought us misfortune on Thursday's cast-off.  Evidently, lessons were in fact, learned.  Cast off this time was flawless. 

With just us nine crew, it felt sort of hectic. First time ever we would be doing it all, with a bare bones crew. With barely sufficient time to coil and nipper-up dock lines, idlers immediately stood by boat falls to retrieve Calvin's push boat and our crew on the dock. Immediately set to dressing foresail for setting.  I'm sure all hands felt their stomach tighten a bit at raising the foresail with only four on each halyard. This time, with a thumping out-of-tune shanty, the pace of hauling was more measured and synchronized, and both peak and throat crews were able to hoist her  3 quarters up the foremast, before the Bo'sun ( that would be me) yelled out "Peak, make fast! hands to the throat halyard."  

Lines coiled and hung, close-hauled west bound,
 the crew takes a couple of deep breaths.

With seven lined up on the throat halyard she reached the copper sheathing at the mast top in short order. Dallas set the stopper knot, halyard made fast, and all hands lined up on the peak halyard to finish the job.    With all that, crew still had reserves to immediately lay forward to the jumbo, out on the bowsprit to cast off gaskets, loose the clew outhaul, run out the down hall, stand by the sheet, and with two on the halyard, take her all the way up the forestay.  Somebody with a camera would've had some good footage..

Dallas taking his trick at the helm,
steering west towards the Battery.

This time, Capt Davis cut the engine, and we enjoyed a real sail.. Wind NNW (Tony was estimating 15knots-were kicking up white caps. With just foresail and jumbo we consistently pushed 4 knots or more, following the same triangular course as the previous Thursday.  

This time we set up dock lines on port side, dropped sail and set up just off the fuel dock. This time, docking went flawlessly. Capt Davis judged current and winds just right, setting the schooner pointed north parallel and fifty yards off the fuel dock slowly slipping sideways directly up against the fuel dock.  Ken had to toss the #1 heaving line only 15 feet to Matt, the dockmaster waiting for it.  Crew stood by along the port rail with set and floating ball fenders and both fender boards to block the pilings. Once secured,  crew set to opening deck orifices while Fuel and pump-out hoses were handed across.  Within 20 minutes we had taken on about  75+ gallons of diesel and pumped out three holding tanks worth of nasty. 

All Hands portside, harbor-furling the foresail.

Lines cast off, Davis pointed Spirit of South Carolina straight ahead and we ghosted forward to our dock where Danny was waiting again with the same dock crew we'd just left. Again, the gangway was sent over and set up without a hiccup. By now it was after 1300.  After a short hydration break, the crew surged to the last tasks; harbor furling the foresail, and the jumbo. All Fast- All secure around 2 PM.  Realizing at that point we hadn't done any lunch, most of us hastily disembarked.   

 Just now reflecting, I think all of us surprised ourselves a little at how well we performed as a crew, and what we accomplished. It was busy, physical-as expected, but we demonstrated, as with other crew members on previous training sails, a steady progression to improving our ship-handling and seamanship skills, everyone.  We will feel sometime, in the near future,  a point in time when Volunteers can stand on deck together and take our schooner to sea, and and "wow, our students and guests, with a singular, memorable experience.  

Third Saturday; Clear and C-C-Cold, But still another Good Day on the Water.

 As our lunch of East Bay Deli sandwiches was finishing up  this afternoon down in the Saloon, Volunteer Rick Washington ventured a question about what was it like surviving on board at sea on days like this.  Not trying to sound too enthusiastic, I related an exact example, six years ago this month.

 It was Clear and cold, in low 30's with a NNE 10 knot breeze, as we made the sea buoy on a heading East-by-South, bound  for the 65th Westing, about 700 nautical miles east, then to  bear off south to San Juan; aboard, a crew of Citadel cadets, sailors and one volunteer.   

On deck with the Citadel,
Jan, 2018 bound for San Juan

Does that sound cool?  Literally and figuratively?  Yeah, it was!  But warm and comfortable, as long as you were dressed for it.  Long-johns, under Carharts, and a wool sweater, a fleece pullover, then wet weather gear, tops and bottoms to keep everything dry, and sea boots. Smell of  Chef Hunter's chicken  enchilada's coming up out of the Galley, a little spray hitting you in the face if you were on forward lookout. As long as you dressed to stay dry, you were plenty comfortable. Natural insulation of the ocean below the waterline kept below decks at a tolerable 60 degrees.

Two days later, being forced more southeasterly than desired, we were in T-shirts.. Weather patterns were heading us and... but I digress.

Today, seven of us, Tony Marchesani, Dave Brennan, Dallas Spencer, Walter Barton, Alex Laya,  Rick Washington, and myself, and a new volunteer possibly, I'll remember his name.. all dressed appropriately, at 0900 piled  below into the saloon with Capt Davis to organize for some priorities. On deck we had a brand-new half-awning already delivered and rigged up on port-side of the fore boom. It needed to be down rigged for the oncoming winds, but more importantly, we needed to create a documented procedure for rigging it, labeling components and stowing it with instructions.  

Capt Davis had another priority to set in the mix.  Our newly modified gangway now included a drawbridge style ramp extension to the deck, and a modified hydraulic jack for taking weight of the dock-end of the gangway.  We needed to practice the drill of both setting up the gangway, and taking it off. 

And so we divided into two groups.   Bryan, Tony, and Dallas organized around the project of inspecting, marking, taking down,  stowing, and documenting the procedure of up/downrigging the new awning.

Tony and Dallas neatly folding
 the new awning for its stowage below.

Dave, Walter, Alex, and our new Volunteer, joined Capt Davis on the dock to organize the drill of dismantling the gangway and swinging her back onto the dock, then reverse the procedure.  

The awning crew finished up their project first in time to lend hands to the gangway crew as it began a timed rehearsal of the process.  As Davis set his stop watch, the gangway crew took stations at the  falls, and dock side, and on-deck ends of the gangway.  While  deckhands unhinged the drawbridge ramp and walked it up the gangway to the dock, the falls were taken off their belaying pins and hauled tight. Dock side hands staged the lift jack under the gangway, taking the weight of the shoreside end, enabling one hand to slip the hinge pin out, freeing the deck-side end for lifting and swinging out. Still fixed to the jack, the gangway was rolled back, supported by the falls on the other end, and swung around to rest entirely on the dock. Falls were released from the gangway and swung back aboard. Dockside hands rolled the gangway to it's stowed location, and secured the Jack.  All done. ready to cast off. 

Dave, Tony, and Alex easing down
 the drawbridge ramp of the gangway.

Well, that would've been nice, but now the gangway had to be swung back over onto the deck and secured.. if nothing else, so hands could come aboard with the  bag of East Bay Sandwiches just ordered.

All secured, the gangway in position. The new port-side awning, and it's unfinished other half, stowed away in a forecastle berth, crew passed out sandwiches, while Bryan and Capt Davis recounted their most constructive lunch the previous Thursday with Volunteer, Wayne Burdick and spouse, Joyce Haverly.  Joyce is a watercolor Marine Artist, with a large social media presence, who had been "googling us up", analyzing our online impression.  She had a lot to say, and a lot of ideas to offer, sufficient to light a fire under my own butt, and help focus both Capt Davis and myself on some immediate priorities, to get our online visibility, and personae  well visible and working for us. Capt Davis already has a handle on our Instagram account.  Our website is in development, but online as a pilot, mostly shell,, you can check it out here for another few days before I take it down for more work.  Comments welcome.

Our Facebook remains a challenge. Largely defunct for 3 years, we are having to rebuild from scratch our access and administrative rights, due to two layers of disappearing administrators with usernames and passwords. Hopefully we can catch a break with a clue somewhere to gain admin access without starting a months long "break the glass" process. 

Looking forward, the watchword is Sail Training;  Three Sail Training Opportunities to be scheduled on SignupGenius hopefully over next couple of weeks.  All Hands.. The weather forecast will give some hints when they could happen.  Notice may be short, so watch for emails, from me or SignupGenius. 

2d Saturday of the Year; Crew refocuses on overdue maintenance priorities.

 Saturday's Volunteer Day provided an opportunity to return to a familiar combination of ship's maintenance and building/refreshing deckhand skills.   Walter Barker brought along a new volunteer prospect, Bree, along with a most welcome casserole for lunch. 

Nate Mack working under the
 Mainmast boot looking for the leak

 Alex Laya, and Nate Mack took on the sleuthing of searching for source of the rain leaking around the mainmast into the saloon. The work entailed first creating pools of water around the base of the main mast, to identify the source of the leak

Alex Laya contorted around the mainmast
 boot cleaning grime off the top seal.

Next,  remove the lashings securing the  heavily painted  canvas mast boot, and lifting the  bottom up and away from the base of the mast and its wedges. ..and then searching for wet areas that might indicate leaks. 

While some deterioration of the canvas rim fastened at top of the mast would all small amount of water in, it didn't seem to cause the amount filling down into the saloon. The most proximate cause concluded was a separation between the mastboot ring, and the teak deck.   Nat and Alex made decision to tackle both.  Cleaning the grime off areas surrounding both top and bottom canvas boot seals, they dried it, and sought out the promised canisters of Teak Deck caulk. To Bryan's chagrin, all four cans purchased just over two years ago, had cured inside the canister and were hard and useless.  Fine print on canister mentioned a shelf-life of 18 months.  We were six months beyond it. For now an order thru Amazon would have to make up for lack of stock of any chandlery's in town.                       

Lexi Fine on the Foresail gaff
 unshackling the throat halyard

Returning volunteer Lexi Fine, and Rick Washington helped Bryan Oliver rig up bosun's chairs on the fore and mainmast in anticipation of laying aloft to sand/slush masts if the wind would die down.  

As they waited for that, the same trio teamed up to clear more rigging hardware out of the forecastle berths, and move them into the Lazarette. 

Wayne Burdick came aboard and took over the project of drilling out and reseating the strut of a bent bronze stanchion on the starboard cap rail.

Wayne measuring out new drill
 holes for the stanchion strut.

Dave Brennen adjusting steering
 in Capt Davis's Pushboat.

Dave Brennan assisted Capt Davis in bringing his skiff around to the side, and trouble-shoot some engine issues. 

Lexi Fine and Rick Washington on the head rig,
 tightening the jumbo lashing.

After a lunch of Walter's southwest style casserole, Rick, New Volunteer, Bree, and Lexi walked the deck with Bryan to practice their line handling and coiling skills on the pin rails.  As the last task of that session, Lexi and Rick lay out on the bowsprit to take slack out of the jumbo downhaul, running it back through the entire daisy chain, securing it at the jumbo's clew.

Captain Davis and Alex Laya, finishing up the day.

At end of the day, gusty winds prevented going alot,, reserving that project for the next session. Passed expiration dates and dried out caulking canisters prevented the sealing around baseplate of the mainmast, setting it up also for a subsequent volunteer day project. sooner than later,  

 

1st Training Sail on Thursday 11 January cut short with engine malfunction in the pushboat. A full, mostly novice crew still gets plenty of "live" training on the water.

 This past Thursday was to be our first Training Sail of the new year. 14 Volunteers-a full crew signed up; for many it would be their first experience under traditional sail, so the day promised to be quite an enriching one.  We could expect to raise most of our sail, and cut the engines for some serious learning time on the water.

Bryan Oliver pleased to see a full crew aboard,
 sets the watch.

The sail started out promisingly enough.  Bryan Oliver organized the crew into two watches; port and starboard, to more easily manage crew across the anticipated drills, undocking and docking operations, setting the foresail and both headsails. While waiting for the pushboat to arrive, crew dressed both the foresail and headsails, preparing them for raising once we were sufficiently away from the dock.  Disengaging the gangway was complicated by the first use for many of the crew, of a jacking system intended to reduce the number of hands on the dock. Danny Johnson, took some time off from his work to take charge of the dock line handling and gangway removal.  Once off the dock and fenders were back aboard,  the crew turned to the boat falls in readiness to take back on the dock line handlers. As they came aboard, the small boat, rather than hooking up to be hipped on Spirit's side,  stood off again a couple of hundred yards, while Capt Heath and Davis prepared to execute a few "touch-and-go" docking maneuvers, aided by the small boat (pushboat).  

Will Ventress, Coxwain, nurses the small boat
back to Spirit's side at the dock.

There was a pause as those onboard the schooner realized the small boat's engine had apparently stalled. For a 1/2-hour or so, Spirit of South Carolina cut a large circle in the harbor as the small boat attempted to restart.  Crew passed the time practicing rope handling, forward lookout tips and techniques,  After some maneuvering, Capt Davis brought the Spirit of South Carolina up to the dock, without the pushboat, who managed to coax it's engine to life sufficiently to limp back to the dock.  

While Capt's Heath, Davis, and two volunteer crew helpers troubleshooted the engine(water in the gas tank had infiltrated into the engine carburetor, and engine, the rest of the crew rehearsed gangway procedures, anticipating we might cast off again if the smallboat engine was fixed.

Didn't happen. After a half-hour, Capt Davis finally directed the gangway be swung across. The crew wrestled again with the new gangway procedures, improving a bit from the morning's drill then transitioned over to reviewing their dock line handling performance, and what was accomplished, given no sailing and an abbreviated. Chicken from Churches arrived in a timely fashion on the back of Josh Zoodsma's  bicycle, just as morale was beginning to sag.

While the morning was largely a disappointment, due to no sailing time, most of the crew, their first time aboard casting off, found themselves immersed in on-the-job training in the basics of tall-ship deck handing.  

New Year starts with modest Volunteer Turn-out. But rewarded with great weather and lots to do.

 Happy New Year! 

 It started out small for Spirit of South Carolina, this first Volunteer Day of the Year. I was a little disappointed that only three of us mustered. We chalked it off to a blustery wet rain that blew thru around 0900. However by 1040, the sky had cleared, water's and wind had abated to a really pleasant sunny day on the water.  If you weren't with us, you missed out. 

Boarding Saturday morning, I was met with a new contraption bolted onto the deck end of the gangway. Capt Davis had commissioned an extension six-foot walk ramp hinged onto the end, to eliminate need of the plastic staircase. Seems to work well enough but needed a few immediate mods to minimize it's tendency to scrape the saloon butterfly hatch varnish. As the schooner shifted fore and aft on it's lines.  

 Below in the galley, Rick Washington, still aboard, made the last of the coffee. and was scooping out bacon, grits, and eggs for whoever wanted some.  He had been boat-sitting thru the Holidays, while Capt Davis took some time to visit family, and I went back to St. Louis for grandkids for two weeks.

Dallas Spencer, new volunteer joining us just before Christmas, had already mastered half the knots on his first day.  He must've been practicing over the holiday.  While I was testing my coffee below in the saloon, Dallas already had opened the Marlinspike sailor book  and was trying a short splicing of two ends of some salvage rope out of the rope locker. 

Capt Davis's Dad, Peter Alford was aboard also, his last day of a short visit before returning to Charlotte. He joined in  the bowline knot-tying fest. 

Breakfast put away, everyone laid up on deck to survey  some immediate priorities.  With the gangway-fully extended, it ended exactly midships between the Mainmast Fife Rail and the aft end of the Saloon butterfly hatch.  Capt Davis directed hand' to standby the dock lines for adjusting, while he went ashore to retrieve the "Skiff", his personally purchased center-console skiff mounting an Evinrude 90. to try out as a push-boat. While hands alternately held, eased, or checked the four dock lines, Capt Davis alternately pushed at the port bow, then at the main chains, enabling Rick, Peter, Dallas and Bryan to reset the ship's position so the gangway lay comfortably  athwart the midships line, safely away from the butterfly hatch.

While Rick lay below to troubleshoot a problem odor around the gray water system, Bryan and Dallas, pulled out the drum of 1/2"  rope from the lazarette.  Bryan assigned Dallas the task of using his newfound marlinespike skills to make up a "lizard" or 'toggle' - a 24" line with an eye spliced in one end, and a double wall-and-crown knot (button) made into the other; used for hanging the Main boom's starboard quarter-tackles onto the rail. The standard: Make it look just like the one mounted on the port quarter rail.  

During a break for fried chicken, mac and cheese and a darned good biscuit, Capt Davis laid out a priority over the next few weeks;   Sea Trials.  Four of them. Successful completion of these would release the schooner to the full command of Capt Davis with the freedom to plan, and start executing programs aimed at generating revenue and fulfilling the ship's commitment to education under her 501(c)3 mission. The complication is arising, in the attempts to coordinate schedules of critical individuals; Capt Hackett, who must observe and rule on the success of the sea trials, and  the schedules of sufficient volunteers to crew the schooner. 

Dallas Spencer in the head rig retrieving
 the Christmas light string.

After lunch, Bryan measured out a length equal to the new gaff vang that Ken Fonville had completed just before the holidays.  As Dallas finished and mounted the toggle, Bryan promptly handed over the new vang line with directions to splice an eye into one end and endsplice the other end.  Dallas was gonna be pretty good at this by end of day.  Once the second vang was completed, Bryan and Dallas rigged them onto the gaff, and gasket coiled the rest, securing the coils to the fore boom throat cleats.

Rick and Bryan then joined up to start down rigging the six-odd strings of Christmas lights along the port rail and foremast shrouds. Dallas laid out into the head rig to retrieve the last strings. Once balled up and consolidated into a bag, Rick secured them in the forecastle.  

All done. Now leaning forward in the saddle for those sea trials.