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.