Shore Power regained, Progress picks up, and a New Volunteer Joins the Crew

The loss of shore power over the last two  weeks had crimped our style on a few levels, such that we agreed to concentrate our efforts in the morning, and muster off by noon. The  inability to run the fans below in the saloon and forecastle left those  spaces torridly stagnant and humid even with all hatches opened.  Worse, the lack of refrigeration  took away capacity to make our block ice in the freezer for our water jug topside, leaving us with warm drinking water for hydration.. Speaking of refrigeration, it's absence was sorely felt on discovering 150 lbs of frozen groceries, thawed out in the freezer; which had to be pulled out, bagged and carted to the dumpster.   Only the rigging up of the midships awning provided some respite.

So it was a welcome surprise that Saturday, when the five of us, tepidly stepped aboard, we notice the power had been restored.  Capt Heath had come aboard earlier in the week, and restored power by first cutting off all power from the distribution panel, then powering up from the dock pedestal, and one at a time,  bringing each circuit back on line. I guess even electrical power doesn't like being "shocked" by a suddenly large demand. 

Progress on the dory, turning her upright,
 sanding then varnishing her gunwales.

With fans below blowing, and all hatches opened the below decks environment soon became habitable, and Bryan organized the crew around three projects:  Ryan Smith, Tony Marchesani, Lance Halderman, and Steve Folwell set up power sanders, scrapers and varnish, onto the dock to work on the dory.  Wayne Burdick with  Brody Smith, pulled out of the foc'sle a role of salvage sunbrella awning to fashion a UV protecting wrap to cover the schooners topmast, which had been lying on the bench for three years.  

Jeff  inventorying the varied contents
 of the paint locker.

Bryan took new volunteer, Jeff Fabian in tow for an orientation tour of the ship, followed by first lessons in safe line handling and coiling, finally on the traditional New Volunteer Scavenger/Treasure Hunt, scouring the ship to identify location and contents of every storage area above and below deck. 

  

 Tony and Wayne secure the outer straps and come'a'long
before starting to roll the outer end, while Jeff observes.

As noon came around,  the crews secured tools and materials, then mustered under the awning to start the drill of furling it.  The crew made short work of it, down rigging the out board edge and rolling it up to the foresail gaff, where Bryan had staged five seine twine "gaskets, all set to spiral around  the furl and the gaff. 

With the awning now tightly furled onto the gaff and all gear and tools secured in their rightful places.  

In the coming two weeks, starting the 25th, Bryan will be traveling out of state,  so Volunteers will keep our momentum alive.  Bryan will leave behind a Punch List of projects simple enough for one or two Volunteers to tackle on their own schedule any day of the week.  Volunteers can find it on a clipboard, suspended above the Saloon Table, and Sign-up, via SignUp Genius, for any day of the week, time and duration of their choosing.