The Ship Really is Ours, A Start-Up finally "Starts UP" with SHIPYARD

 The feeling is truly Amazing when, after weeks,  a major obstacle falls away, and thru the boulders and brush one can see a clear path down the road. The the Ship is officially the property of Spirit of South Carolina Trust, no longer hamstrung by the failings of the old organization. We were, and are a Start-up, by any definition. Our organization is designed from scratch. Only three members of the past Board of Directors remained, Pierre Manigault, Teddy Turner, and Hank Hofford, who volunteered to join our Governance body. Their experience, connections, and more practically, many hard lessons learned from the previous 10 years have already added immense value to our decision making, fund raising, and influence.  

Spirit of South Carolina's 2d Ten-Year Shipyard project officially kicked off this last Saturday, the 28th of February. For the previous month, preparations were made, experts contacted, budgets were created and some funding was made, but the actual work could not begin until this week, after the Shipyard had been paid it's arrears, and the Schooner's Seizure status was lifted. 

With that lifted, Bryan Oliver organized a full Saturday, on January 28th,  from 9 AM to 3PM aboard to start off Volunteers in what would be an intense series of events, complementary to the other planned Projects of hull planking, Mast unstepping and inspection, Coast Guard intense (Every 10 years) assessment and evaluations in all these areas. 

Walter Barton slices up another great gob of
 roast beef sandwich for Bryan.

 The Volunteer operation isn't made any easier due to the remote location of the Shipyard. Stephen's Towing  sits at the end of State Highway 165, a remote spot on the Intracoastal Waterway and a 19-mile drive from the Citadel Mall parking lot, where we chose as a common marshalling area for those wanting to ride share. To raise, or maybe just retain the excellent volunteer morale thru the day, Walter Barton brought out a pair of humongous submarine sandwiches with fixin's, spreading it over the butterfly hatch,as the only surface not already buried.

Bryan Oliver stops for a minute to examine
 the 8-inch rot or worm hole
 in the rudder bottom.

The Volunteers would be concentrating first on totally emptying out the ship of everything. Yes, everything, and stowing it temporarily in two Shipping Containers, posted nearby for the purpose.  Next;  A Super Field Day or days, cleaning up and out, months-even years of dust, spills, mold(yuck), one overflowed Head. Spars and Masts are to be un-stepped and lifted off the deck to rest horizontally beside the hull, for a Barn-raising-atmospheric of cleaning/sanding/finishing and preserving, and of course USCG inspection

The first phase began, with Volunteers partly marshalling at the Citadel at 0830, and others making their way individually to the Shipyard parking lot. Here Volunteers consolidated into three vehicles, primarily to avoid a crowd of private vehicles obstructing already crowded alley-ways among huge marine vessels, ferry's, barges, Landing craft, etc.

Davie Reid and Adam Reed, stabilize their load
of mattresses while Nick Swartz
 readies to 'take'er down'.

Hank Hofford, anticipating a challenge in removing so much  gear off the vessel from a height of 25 feet, rented a scissors-lift, for it's cargo elevator capability, and trained three Volunteers in it's safe operation.  Along with the schooner's own canvas web cargo net, one full container's worth of boxed, and loose gear including stripped bedding, was lowered down.

Nicholas Swartz prepares to
 swing over his cargo net and
lower to the ground his load
 of Galley hardware 

On the next day, Sunday  the 1st of March, Bryan Oliver and Nick Swartz drove down to take another chunk out of the project, mostly packing out miscellaneous stuff into moving boxes purchase for this purpose. The two quickly mastered the drill of spreading and balancing the cargo net load, easing it down with a long tag line tensioned to prevent the load's tendency to twist the purchase.