"It's Always Something!" This time, her name's "Helene", and she's added to our maintenance "Punch List"

I just finished a drive from St. Louis home to Mt Pleasant three days ago, skirting the Tennessee-North Carolina-Georgia borders.  Sobering is an understatement.  Coupled with the news footage of the devastation visible even from the Interstate, is a jarring reminder of how relatively well we've fared here on the coast..this time.

 

Our swamped next door neighbor with damaged
 floating dock being salvaged.

Spirit of South Carolina fared better than many.  This was the scene when I walked down the dock Tuesday morning. I haven't heard the complete stories, but according to Capt Bobby, at one point, the floating docks rose higher than the fixed docks. (Dory survived on her cradle just fine, if you're asking). Coupled with winds 45 kts plus,  and wave action driving from the SSE, as I remember my PredictWind app, our Schooner rode pretty well, but not without  some injury.  The mechanics of those injuries will be discussed in subsequent crew gatherings with more lessons to be learned.  Stay tuned. 

Welcome to copy and paste: For now, our maintenance punch list has been revised so it now reads:

• Sand down and refinish 8-foot length of starboard caprail forward of gangway.
• Remove for repair/replacement, two damaged stanchions from the caprail (same area) 
• Repair with Herringbone stitch and sail tape(temporary), the hole center of the Jumbo.

• 

  Our starboard rail took a good scraping
  from the gangway pulled along the rail
   before being torn from the dock.

  Repair the air leak in the Tender (Capt Bobby may be ahead on this)
• Remove shackle from the Jib Clew, "Cow-hitch" the jib sheet pendant directly to the Jib clew.
• If available, measure out new rope (1/2") and up-rig "Spencer blocks" to port-side bow falls.
• Start Prepping for Georgetown Cruise.
• Clear out designated Saloon bunks for crew berths
• Deck Wash 
• Organize to rig rope lifelines between Fore and Main shrouds for going to sea.
• 
  

If you can lend a hand, and lay in on any of these projects, please select a date/time you're available and sign up with others. 

Click Here to SignupGenius

With our gangway no longer in operation, we are reduced to crossing from the dock to a shroud to get to the deck; fairly easy at high tide, more of a challenge as the ship lowers on the ebb, but still doable.

Something else to look forward to, next month.  This is a big deal.  For the first time since 2019, our crew will include a professional Tall Ship sailor.

Around 3 November, we're planning to welcome aboard our new Mate. Not yet authorized to provide a name, but I have seen the CV.  Turns out some of you older volunteers may have met this person at one time. Five years in tall ships, schooners mostly, South Pacific as well as east coast up to Maine as Mate.  This person knows our ship, thinks highly of her, and already knows what y'all do. Yes, I"ve been talking.  You can expect standards to go up a bit ;-).  But that's what Mates do.   

PS.  Since I can't be everywhere all the time, I"ve missed some Volunteer Activity( Last week's successful harbor charters), which as a result I've no visibility into what happened, to whom,  with whom, and generally how things went.  With a couple of donated photo's and a narrative  of what happened.. you too can be a productive Blogger.   I'll publish anything you contribute... mostly.