Challenge Accepted! The story of a "Little Dory" .

It was Spring of 2017, and the Tall Ship's Charleston Festival was taking shape. SSV Spirit of South Carolina was the official Host.  The Mate, and Engineer of Spirit of South Carolina had pooled funds to purchase a "stitch-and-glue" kit of a 16-foot lapstrake "Swampscott-style Dory".   Their intent was to have aboard the schooner, an easy rowing/sailing dinghy available for teaching students, and of course, for fun.  They suspended the contents of the kit in a forecastle berth, just inches over my head.. yeah,, my berth. I shared my berth with this "dory" from Charleston to Bermuda, and to Boston. Over our 5-day visit there, the kit was finally pulled out of my berth, and we began stitching her together on the dock.  She had all the lines of an authentic dory, except her wales were lower, not the deep draft of a true working fishing dory. In addition to two banks for oars, she would sport a mast with a Marconi rig mainsail and a small jib.

Crew setting base brackets for thwarts
 on the new little dory.

I disembarked for Charleston when the little craft was still just held together with baling wire. Over the next four months  Spirit of South Carolina and the Tall Ship's Challenge sailed north to ports at Quebec, Port Hawkesbury,  Halifax, and Belfast Maine where she was hauled out; then on to Boston where I boarded her for the last passage home to Charleston.  In that time, her crew and glued-epoxied, fiberglassed, painted, and varnished  a well-found, pretty little dory, complete with a raked mast and mainsail with jib. 

Casting off for night sail
in Boston Harbor

Her maiden voyages consisted of evening crossings of Boston Harbor.

In 2018, the little "dory" was secured on the midships deck starboard side as Spirit of South Carolina sailed south to the Caribbean with a crew of Citadel Cadets for their first ever Semester at Sea.  

Crew piling in for ride to the San Juan Pier.

She proved an excellent tender, ferrying crew across the harbor in San Juan, or landing them on the sands of Isla Beata, Dominican Republic, or sometime, as in Kingston Harbor, a perfect little rowing gig.

Citadel Cadets get a rowing lesson
 with Coxwain Carolyn prior to their casting
 off for a semester at sea.

Ship's' Cat, Pilar, sporting her own PFD
 inspects the dory before launching.

By the time Spirit of South Carolina set her dock lines back in Charleston end of Spring 2018. The little dory had proved her worth several times over in the experience she gave her crews, the cheap rides to the host's wharf from an anchorage, and simply gunkholing around the various anchorage where her mother ship happened to be riding.

Crew unwinding after a long day in shipyard.
Thunderbolt, Savannah

On return to Charleston in late 2018, and following periods in dockyard, the little dory again
accompanied Spirit of South Carolina, serving as a distraction, and practice for other crew members.

Then Covid struck, and then so did the lightning. The full time crew were paid off. Spirit of South Carolina laid at the dock without power,  with the little dory lying upside down on the floating dock in the Maritime Center, her sail rig and oars stuffed underneath. For three years.

In that time, with no one to pay attention, her dacron sails rotted, river otters took to nesting underneath, with bad hygiene habits. 

At the same time, the Schooner's Volunteer program was just beginning. As the rolls grew more volunteers mustered on Saturdays, to take on more projects. It soon was time to  start paying attention to the little moribund "dory" dinghy. 

For the next two years, 2021-2023, Volunteers included restoration of the little dory as part of their project priorities.  Traces of river otters were scrubbed away. A new dacron mainsail was cut and grommeted from a donated jib. rudder, thwarts and railings were sanded and varnished.  Volunteer, Danny Johnson built a new cradle system to secure the hull in either configuration, right-side up or bottom-up, rigging, oars, and accessories underneath, and well off the dock.

By the beginning of 2024, the little dory-dinghy(still not officially named for some inexplicable reason) was ready to be launched.  For the first few months, the Captain and various volunteers would up-rig her, carry her to the edge of the dock and launch her into the harbor water for a fun little sail. 

At some point Stewardship broke down.  The sense of ownership that must be assumed by all, to ensure that things in custody are well cared for, and accounted for, somehow lapsed. No one noticed the  little dory left tied to the dock, while a strong nor'wester blew thru the Maritime Center, violently slamming the dory's hull against the dock. She swamped. The violence of the waves shocked the stern line such as to rip her small transom away from the hull on both sides. She was found the next day, still rigged up, half-sunk.  Her sapele gunwales had been torn away in three areas, and two oarlocks blown away. The rig was inexplicably undamaged. 

Mikell, Walter, and Dallas set up
the next fiberglass strip

Last month, some volunteers took a hard look at her.  The ripped-away transom, could be restitched and epoxy-fiber-glassed back into position. The gunwales could be renewed with battans scarfed into the missing sections.  So, last Week, Volunteer Deckhand Dallas Spencer took home some boat repair literature, scoped out a project, and this last weekend devised a way to stitch then epoxy the transom back into the quarter planks, much like the way she was originally stitched together.  

This last Thursday, Mikell Evatt and Walter Barton joined him to lay out additional fiberglass and epoxy, then sand down their work to fair the surfaces such that evidence of damage mostly disappeared. 

In the coming weeks, various volunteers will muster at the little dory on her cradle to fashion scarf pieces for her gunwales, varnish them, and paint the hull. The rig will be inspected and test-rigged. Oarlocks must  be replaced. 

Hopefully within this next month of June, our little "dory" will be launched for her next sea trials, followed by some great harbor sailing by volunteers who appreciate her and also for the crew-at-large the stewardship that goes along with it.