Seven Volunteers Battle Headsails and Summer Heat and Raise their Seamanship Awareness

 Ken Fonville signed on Saturday morning, at 9 AM,  as likely did a few others of the seven, with intent to participate in a discussion of the extensive lessons learned from our Youth cruise, two weeks ago.  What he didn't figure on was Bos'un Bryan's (that would be me) penchant for whimsy and improvisation. 

Now, in my defense, the audible call I made to shift the agenda was in recognizing the opportunity to define Seamanship, thru real-life example.  Stay with me.. I promise you'll like this..really.

Seamanship is a big deal aboard vessels like Spirit of South Carolina, referring not only on skills, but insight and attitude. Based partly in the Principles of 'Ship, Shipmate, and Self', sailors bear responsibility for recognizing situations, minor or major, that could affect the operation of the ship, or safety of shipmates, and taking initiative to resolve them.

 An hour before volunteers came aboard, I was walking the deck, partly searching for my misplaced coffee mug when my face collided with a length of black dual braid rope swinging freely from the mainmast head, 80 feet over my head. The other end of the rope, after turning thru a block way up to the mainmast head, then downward to a belaying pin on the Mainmast Fife rail.  Worse, on its way down to the pin, the line had been run inside two Mast hoops, creating a chafe risk, and a certain snarl and jam if the mainsail were to be raised without realizing a line was caught in the mast hoops.  The loose swinging line was maybe a few hours away from receding back thru the turning block until it could only be retrieved by climbing the mast.

Searching for a place on the Pin rail to make the black line fast, I noticed an adjacent line on the Main mast portside Belaying pinrail, poorly coiled, it's bottom lengths, dragging on the deck, a "Fail" well known by most of the crew. 

Above the oversized-coil on the belaying pin, a loose rope drooped down onto the deck. Following it back, where it twice wrapped around the main shroud chain plate, it led down to the small boat..it was the Small Boat's stern line. Two wraps of the line around the chain plate might hold John Wayne's horse to the "hitch'in rail, but it would not stand the pull of the 800 lb small boat bobbing on the water.

Moving on to a dock line neatly coiled on the lifejacket locker, I intended to re-purpose it for a later training exercise in dockline handling.  I started to untie the seine-twine "nipper" looped around one part of the coil in order to keep the coil.. 'coiled'.   The standard is for a dockline coil to be "nippered" by tying the twine around the coil with a "slippery overhand knot", which would be released by one jerk of the bitter end of the twine.   This knot was tight and unrecognizable.

Bryan with his now uncoiled and re-purposed dockline
demonstrates the standard for making it fast. Jim, and Martin critiquing.

 I was seconds from just drawing my rigger's knife and slicing off the twine, ruining it for re use when I was distracted by the fenders hanging on the starboard the rail. Leaving the dock line coil I walked the length of the starboard caprail where hung five ball fenders over the side.  Each one had been made fast to a stanchion on the caprail, with a different knot. They ranged from slippery clove hitches, the Davis Slippery PawPaw, something unrecognizable, to just two half-hitches. In the turbulence of changing Captains with their personal preferences, seasoned crew turbulence, the "Standard knot" for making fenders fast to the rail, had become cloudy.   

Each situation posed a risk at some level to the operation of the ship, and/or the safety of  her crew.  I sensed a teachable moment, so re-prioritized the Agenda. 

It being only 9 AM, the temperature was still tolerable, so, Dave Brennan, Nate Mack, Jim Morrisette, Walter Barton, Martin Bull, and Nick Swarts, mustered around the saloon hatch while I explained the tour we were about to take. From there we  moved from site-to-site, allowing each to identify the issue on their own or with help, a quick discussion on what the standard is, and remedial action taken.. All along, ran the thread of continuity of personal responsibility, regardless of your crew role, for "Ship, Shipmate, Self".  

Marty Bull New Volunteer
 lays aloft to rig the awning

View from Aloft (Nate Mack)
as Awning takes shape.
Dave in red hat stands by
 to pass the outboard strap

Once the walk-thru was completed, the temperature and brilliant sunshine on the deck increased into the nineties, so the crew set to unfurling the Main Deck Awning, stretching it out on the port side. 

Bryan, good only at supervising,
 enjoys the shade

That was sufficient to warrant a hydration break in the shade.  Martin had procured from the freezer a mixing bowl full of solid ice to dump into our on-deck igloo cooler.  So, Water bottles out, then set aside, as Volunteers laid out onto the headrig for the last major teambuilding exercise;   harbor furling the Jumbo sail, and the Jib.

All Hands layed out along
 the Jumbo to tighten the furl.

Ostensibly a simple job of flaking a huge jib, while still rigged on it's luff, it quickly becomes complicated by attempting it suspended by footropes over the water. Crews often work together over weeks of sailing  ports of call to master a smooth "burrito" furl, leaving nothing  to the onlookers eye but a smooth stretch of canvas like a noodle, unbroken by wrinkled flake folds.  It wasn't quite perfect this time, but the effort and resulting visual effect, communicated a shipshape look and evidence of a professional crew aboard. 

I did pass on to Ken, a revised copy of the Volunteer's Lessons Learned. Its available on demand.

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