The New Possible? New Purpose for Spirit of South Carolina in Charleston's Maritime Heritage

 It started as just another chance to go Sailing

Today I was editing some old video footage from 18 years ago. Me and four other fellas, all sailors of some sort were together delivering a Hunter-31 sloop from New London, Connecticut, down the eastern coast to Charleston-12 days, four days off-shore-off-soundings, and then into the Intra-Coastal Waterway at Norfolk for the rest of the passage.  

2007-coming ashore-The crew
and me on the Battery

The video footage had it's cringe-worthy moments as the 5 of us, 12 days out, wooted, backslapped, pointed at dolphins, and wildly celebrated as we passed under the Ben Sawyer Bridge and out into to the harbor towards the Ashley Marina and the sloop's new home.  It was my first time setting foot in Charleston, and it just now occurred to me-I came  sea. 

For next 8 years, living in St. Louis, I returned to Charleston once, or twice a year to go sailing, with my old Army buddy, the Hunter's skipper. My wife, Jane came along too, not to sail, she won't do that-my fault- long story. But our attraction to the area grew, just like everyone else from "off", the charm of the city, the culture, big water,long beaches, wide porches, slow living,, and the history.  

So, after 8 years of visits, we talked ourself into moving here, Mount Pleasant to be more exact. In the first six months, I quit/retired from my second career, enthusiastically explored the low-country from Hilton Head to Georgetown, soaking up historical lore, diving into the seafood, the breweries, pretty much wallowing in it. And I also sought out the schooner, SSV Spirit of South Carolina. She was the solution to a sixth-grade childhood fantasy that never died.

Something about Traditionally Rigged Wooden Sailing Ships

During my next 10 years  as deckhand, to now, I spent countless hours digging into the schooners' history, how did she came about,? Why was she built in the first place? Why does she look like she does?  What happened to her that led to her bankruptcy? What about all those other tall ships out there, why do they exist? How do they do it? I mean, be successful?

 Thanks, if you're still with me.  I'm getting to the point.

While aboard Spirit and also aboard four other schooners with their crews, I spent time in other ports up and down the coast. I noticed the extent to how "Maritime Heritage" defines those places. By that I mean, how has the inheritance of their history and their connection to the sea influenced how they see themselves; thru their art, commerce, language, festivals and tourism, stories, folklore, jokes, music.  Oh, and tall ships. They seem to be interwoven thru all of it. 

Gone to Look for Charleston's Maritime Heritage

Back in Charleston, on deck, I've got the best view of the Harbor, all 360 degrees of past, present, and future. I can't help but make comparisons. Charleston is as rich in history, and a connection to the sea, as any port on the east coast,  and low country so large that there's a saying, I think it's gullah-geechee "so much water here down south that the ocean comes out of the rivers' mouth."[listen to the Shovel and Rope song:  "Stono River Blues"].  Plus. we had pirates. All of that underpins what this area is today.  But the thing is,, at most of it appears to be a secret.  It's just not visible, or understood. The curation of the City's heritage is merit-worthy, but its all focused landward. The success of the new International African American Museum is a gem, but it too, appears to be almost totally focused landward.

The College of Charleston's "Carolina, Low Country and the Atlantic World" began a collaboration with Spirit of South Carolina in 2019 before COVID-19 forced a virtual shut-down of the student involvement.  That collaboration would've been the first Maritime Heritage-oriented initiative of any sizable scope. I"m currently reaching out again to that entity.

In the meantime, I've discovered a new thread of heretofore untold stories. "The Seaborne Underground Railroad".  The euphemism is pretty clear.  For 100 years there was a heavily used route for escaped African-American slaves northward by sea,  a large part of it, thru Charleston. Two recent books document the stories.
They relate a scale of movement at least as great as the better known Underground Railroad and the heroic characters involved such as Harriet Tubman, and  William Still. "Sailing to Freedom", published in 2021, has been discussed in a previous blog entry.  "Freedom Ship" published only months ago documents highly personal accounts up and down the coast ,not only slaves escaping, but  the horror of free African American sailors being "blackbirded" in southern ports, the practice of kidnapping legally free black sailors and selling them into slavery. Suffice to say that the stories that make up the Seaborne Underground railway are equally inspiring, and  heartbreaking.  And they are stories of our own city, our sea port, and ancestors. 

Spirit of South Carolina should be a Living-active-experience of Charleston's Maritime Heritage

As Volunteers we have an opportunity to fill a huge vacuum. No one else is doing this. We have capability of telling these stories, using the deck of Spirit of South Carolina as the platform, to reinforce them thru demonstrating and hands-on experience of the life aboard and skills that operated such vessels while. It takes only our time, to learn the stories, and pass them on to visitors who come aboard, or maybe just dockside, maybe just a 10-minute overview, or a half-hour hands-on reenactment of sorts.   Carin Bloom, instigator of the Bloom Six-Knot Challenge, and Historian-reenactor is helping to organize the Stories and the material.

And this isn't the only topic on Charleston's Maritime Heritage.. Look for  "Charleston Pilots, and Development of the Harbor", coming soon.

This doesn't have to wait for shipyard or Certificate of inspection. The time can be a four-hour shift, morning or afternoon, on dock or on deck. 15-minute to 1/2 hour tours depending on depth and experience to explore, and the mentioning of a donation to the schooner.   

And it should be a welcome diversion from maintenance.  

Look for Signup opportunities.  Be prepared for some self-study. The materials are available at this blog. See right side column of Resources and other Materials for Book links and downloadable Talking points as they are posted.                                                                           

Schooners and Maritime Literature

 Thanks to Ken Fonville who stepped aboard Saturday afternoon the 13th,  to pump the Forecastle bilge after no one else had signed up. Bryan Oliver showed up the previous Wednesday afternoon ostensibly to evaluate the effects of the week's rains, before he departed for St. Louis and Father's Day.  Good thing too. It seems that the slippery overhand knots he used to lash the rolled up awning along it's guy line, had loosened, leaving the unraveling awning flapping in the breeze, not very shipshape,, so lesson learned,, "highwayman's cutaway".

So, without much else than that to relate, it's a worthy moment to share a couple of very worthy books..

If you're following this blog you've likely a more than passing fancy of the world of "Tall Ships".. I sure do.. like since 6th grade.  But even if you're not at my extreme end of the spectrum, if you have a curiosity for more insight into that world, the mariners who sail them today, and in recent past, the trainees, student's who crew them. What's the attraction? What are they really like?  Why do they still exist? What's their justification? Aren't they risky? Why take that risk?

Well, I found the most articulate, literate, inspiring answers to those questions, and more, in a book, ironically, about Tall Ships that sank.

Daniel S. Parrott, late Captain of the topsail schooner(-Baltimore Clipper-Privateer) "SSV Pride of Baltimore II", wrote this book, published waaayyy back in 2003. It's an unvarnished amazingly detailed historical record of the sinking of five Traditionally Rigged Sailing Ships, from 1957 to 1995. One of them, "Albatross" was dramatized in the feature movie, "White Squall".  He vividly re-creates each final voyage and then explores the roles played by ship stability, structural integrity, ship-handling, weather, human error, and standards of risk in tragedies at sea. Finally, the lessons-learned. 

Available on Amazon Books
 and other resellers

My personal copy is stained with yellow highlighting page by page of memorable quote-worthy perspectives.  Capt Parrott's amazingly detailed analysis is well written, with a style alternately gripping, and poetic...means it's a page-turner. 

My copy will be on board in the Saloon library for a limited time, should any of you care to peruse. You'll be getting excerpts anyway,, like this one.. If you're a sailor, you'll take a deep breath:

"There are moments all sailors store in a sort of communal emotional archive bound up with the physical sensations of sailing. There is the alarm when one first feels wind fill a sail.  The boat beneath comes suddenly alive with heeling and speed, as if one were astride an unpredictable beast. Even on a pond left by a retreating glacier, the ecstasy of acceleration and the fear of capsize co-mingle in an instant of triumph and panic. Then there is the storm, often anticipated with gusto by the neophyte and less so by the seasoned sailor. In a building sea and a rising wind the bow lifts and smashes into a curled wave, pounding downward with a violence of purpose that buckles the knee and sends torrents of green water aft and into your seaboots.  If one is possessed of a constitution disinclined to feed a perfectly good dinner to the fish at such moments, the jarring exuberance suggests that this is life as it should be lived: rigorous, exhilarating, bare-knuckled.

There is also a catalog of more sublime moments that weave rapture with achievement: sunsets followed by the green flash, plotting a passable celestial fix, quiet anchorages, crossing an ocean, island landfalls, trade-wind passages, and dolphins lunging under the bow mere inches from the surging stem as the ship muscles through the seas with athletic vitality. And then there comes a moment, perhaps aloft beyond the sight of land, beneath the stars as night relieves twilight. Out on the footrope one feels at once solitary yet in communion with the vast splendor of sea and sky and creation, alone in thought, yet part of a community of shipmates as an organ is to a body. You pause with a fistful of canvas and glance back at the rail of phosphorescence roiled to life by the turbulence of the keel scribing its way across miles of latitude and longitude like the blade of an ice skate traversing a small round pond..

..These ships always did transport more than cargo. Whatever ostensible purpose they served in the past, sailing ships are vehicles of human experience and dreams, and not only for sailors...  We cling to them through art, literature, museums or by actually going to sea.."

It goes on.. 

Coming UP:  Stories of the Seaborne Underground Railroad. and how vessels like Spirit of South Carolina played a part.

Steamy Saturday and another check'-offed the Maintenance Punch List.

 This Saturday, 7 June, was sunny, hot, humid, breezeless,, what else can I say describe the situation four of us volunteers faced as we mustered together at 0900 onto the deck in the brilliant sunlight. The good thing was, we had a specific job to do, to keep us focused away from this sultry morning.  Ken Fonville took on the task of posting the National Colors on the transom, then hoisting the Palmetto Flag and Tall Ship's America courtesy flag up the mainmast. It was the resurrection of a maritime tradition we had allowed to lapse for several months.. Now onlookers knew that Spirit of South Carolina was indeed alive. Lance Halderman rinsed out the igloo water jug then filled it over a big chunk of ice Bryan Oliver  had picked up at Harris Teeter on the way down. Walter Barton and Bryan teamed up to lower the gang way a reasonable amount to make disembarking and reembarking manageable. The last task, and most critical, was to rig up the deck awning over midships.  Actually only the port side could be rigged, due to the starboard gangway setup. Already half rigged up, it was an easy four minute drill to unroll the awning from its lashing, hoist up the lifts and belay on the sheer pole, tie off the apron line extending between the shrouds, then tensioning the come-along strap on the main shroud.. Voila! Shade!  

Next came our focus single project.  The prior week, Lance and Tim Kolb had completed sanding the boat hooks, now waiting for linseed oil. and had started grinding off old peeling varnish  on the main gaff. Unfortunately, the sticky-backed sanding disks, the only ones left in the locker would not adhere to the hook and loop style orbital sanding pad, and they could complete only two square feet before muster off at lunch.  

Now Nick Swarts and Lance went below to bring out two orbital sanders, a handful of assorted sanding disks,  extension cords.  With everything powered up. Lance and Nick started grinding way at the old, blackened and flaking layers of varnish.  Meanwhile, Ken and Bryan conducted their own search for any remaining remnants of thinner, and varnish left over from previous projects.  The heat and absence of any breeze made the open deck oppressive, so crew took regular breaks filling up bottles from the ice water igloo, and stretching out under the awning.  

Ken Fonville securing the thinner after mixing up
 a pint of thinned varnish for the first three coats.
Nick is starting at the aft end.

Now onto the home stretch, Ken mixes up a diluted mixture of thinner and varnish while Bryan, Lance and Nick use the remaining thinner to tack down the surface of the gaff, taking off all sawdust  and sanding debris. Bryan and Ken stretch out a drop cloth under the gaff.  Once tacked down, Lance and Nick with clean rags, soaked in the thinned varnish start on opposite ends to apply it down the length.  

Bryan and Lance starting from opposite ends
 of the main gaff,  wipe on successive coats
 of thinned down varnish for sealant.

The thinned varnish soaks in quickly, and dries as fast, allowing for applying a second coat.  Meanwhile, everyone else starts securing tools, hardware, rags,  and deletris to trash cans.  As Bryan laid down the third coat to set in the sun, remaining crew disembarked. Next week, maybe one more thinned coat, then the varnish, full steam. 

The gaff will be saved.. ;-)

We Happy Few This Weekend.. and it Worked.

 [This entry published a week late,, have mercy on the editor] This past Saturday the 31st of May disrupted the normal rhythm of Volunteer effort with the annual Salute to Veteran's Regatta, hosted by the Charleston Offshore Racing Association, and sponsored by Blackbaud. Over 130 competitors in over 35 sailing vessels of all sized competed. 

At least six current or past Volunteers participated, including myself.  There would have been more, I'm certain, if our Navy contingent had been better informed.  As it was, Volunteers, Lance Halderman, and Tim Kolb, and I believe David Reid, all mustered Saturday morning on deck.  While the Punchlist was full, it turns out a shortage of tools and materials frustrated some of the effort. Nevertheless, Lance and Tim finished sanding the three boat hook staffs-now waiting  for the linseed oil now on order.  

The Gangway configured at High Tide, just clears the cap rail.
No worries, one can simply step across from the dock
 to the rail, or we set two aluminum "gangplanks across."

We also adjusted and set marking twine in the starboard bow and stern falls - to mark point around the belaying pin that will keep the gangway sufficiently high to clear the schooner's cap rail at high tide. Of course, the low tide situation results in the gangway resting a full seven to eight feet above the deck. In the days when the schooner had a liveaboard crew, someone was always responsible for adjusting the gangway twice per day to insure it's accessibility.  

Emma pauses in making the bow falls fast
to expose the position of the black marker twine
 at the belaying pin, marking the correct length
 for the bow falls.

In an unusual arrangement that turned out just dad-burned pleasant, Volunteers Benji Norman, Emma Etheredge, and Kevin Mirise, making his first appearance, mustered on board on Sunday afternoon, 4PM, and stayed for over three hours. The weather was mild, seas were calm perfect on deck, and the late Sunday afternoon vibe..perfect for a Scavenger Hunt. But first, Benji and Emma, tested their memories from their first time last week, and took charge of handling the bow and stern falls for the gangway, carefully taking lines off, controlling strain, safely easing and hauling, finally taking the line back to the pin, making fast, coiling and hanging.  

Bryan then explained to the three, the significance of "The Scavenger Hunt". The object is: given a list of tools, hardware, and consumables, and a map of below-decks and on-deck,   find the location of each of the objects by their location. The second part of the exercise involved an illustration of the mainsail rigging, and the Head rig, with numbered points designating a part of the sail, rigging, or spars. Objective, match the numbers with the name of the object.  

Both these exercises were aimed at accelerating  the familiarization of new deckhand volunteers with where things are, and what things are called-the two most challenging memory tasks of any new person coming aboard such vessel. 

The Six Knot Challenge; from left..
 Round Turn and 2 half-hitches,
  Bowline,
Figure-eight Stopper,
Highwayman's Cutaway,
 Sheetbend,
Slippery Reef Knot

 The last segment of the evening was devoted to introducing the Bloom Knot Challenge. Bryan arranged six ropes of a fathom's length (six feet) along the fife rail, and explained, then demonstrated the six most common knots  used aboard the schooner.  The Challenge is to complete all six knots within 30 seconds.  Kevin, having a bit of a background already in the "arts" gave it a go, and on first try, without trying,  came within 25 seconds of hitting the 30 second mark. His could very well be the next name to go on the plaque in the schooner's saloon.  Unless Nick shows up.

2 h