Spirit of South Carolina Volunteers: Lowcountry Maritime School offers Volunteers a Traditional Wooden ship maritime community and skill sharpening venue

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Lowcountry Maritime School offers Volunteers a Traditional Wooden ship maritime community and skill sharpening venue

So, now that Spirit of South Carolina is in Shipyard, pending the appearance of the plan for her, how do we volunteers keep our hands in the game, and our enthusiasm for these ships alive?

Volunteers finishing touches on Charles Sneed,
the Yawl boat built for Spirit of South Carolina

LowCountry Maritime School is proving an excellent fit for Volunteers waiting for Spirit's shipyard project plan to be made known, as well as our part in it. LMS Mission is similar to that of Spirit of South Carolina. Director Sam Gervais envisions young students completing their LMS projects to naturally migrate up to the larger skill maritime opportunities offered by Spirit of South Carolina. And so we are looking at concepts that will synthesis, in a word, out goals and efforts into something mutually beneficial.

In this one sense, LMS offers an environment for Volunteers thru boatyard building, restoration, and maintenance to sharpen the inherent skills there, but to stay involved in this traditional wooden boating community, which has a larger footprint in the low country than you might imagine.

Boat Day on Colonial Lake

Their active period has begun with start of the school year, where they'll be at a number of middle schools with tools, materials, stories, and teachers to use their math reading and other skills to build a floating operational Bevins Skiff. In between that work, the staff, and volunteers have been building a Penobscot 13, as well as working some other projects.