Shenandoah

This one is about Summer 2017 when I worked on the Black Dog tall ship Shenandoah.

Shenandoah is a classically rigged tall ship, which means it uses sailing technology from the 1800s - no engine, just wind and man power. Looking back, this was a crazy experience. When I arrived in Vineyard Haven the boat was completely disassembled.

We did everything to get it ready to sail including setting the massive wooden masts, painting the decks/hull, and installing all the rigging.

Unfortunately I dropped my phone in the water about halfway through the summer, so I don't have many pictures from the initial setup.

We had 8 crew members living onboard and Captain Bob who showed up to steer the boat.

1 first mate, 1 boatswain, 1 cook, and 5 deck hands. The deck hands (that's me) and the boatswain sleep in the "fo'c'sle" which is tall ship slang for "forecastle".

That's 6 sweaty dudes in 1 dingy pit of a cabin. When it rained, water would slide down the walls of the focsle into our bunks.

Unfortunately this is the only content I have from the focsle. But if you've ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean it's not far off from that.

Growl you may, but go you must. Sign at the top of the focsle ladder.

We did indeed growl.

This summer gave me a huge appreciation for manual labor, which there was a lot of, and days off, which there were none.

To install the rigging we climbed over 80 feet in the air without safety equipment. This is the only tall ship in the US where harnesses aren't used.

We spent two weeks dry docked in Fairhaven, MA to sand, paint, and raise the topmasts. Although it looks picturesque, this was a miserable time.

Captain Bob with Shenandoah dry docked in Fairhaven, MA

The crew. Captain Bob, Bear, Casey, __, Dewey, Nate, Michael, Me, Nick

Things got better once the rigging was up. After the dry dock in Fairhaven we got tugged up to Boston for the tall ship festival.

Tall ships from around the world gathered for a parade into the Boston harbor.

Tall ships preparing to enter Boston harbor

This way to Shenandoah (not a picture of Shenandoah)

During the day we worked on jobs around the boat and gave tours to people who came to check out Shenandoah. We had to memorize all kinds of stats and fun facts about the boat that I have now forgotten.

Docked in Boston

I spent a lot of time aloft.

I'm on the top left.

This is a navy training ship of a country I forget the name of. The crew was in the rigging and singing their national anthem as they entered the harbor.

Boston was better than Fairhaven. Unfortunately I did get a staph infection and had to go to the hospital and get on antibiotics. 3 out of 6 of us sleeping in the focsle got similar infections: an authentic tall ship experience.

After a week docked in Charlestown, we were tugged back to Martha's Vineyard through the cape cod canal.

This was where we hung out on land, in the sail shed and workshop.

The building was actually reported and condemned towards the end of my time there, so it's probably demolished now.

Dewey under the bowsprit. He would go down there while we were underway to secretly smoke cigs.

Left to right: Inner Jib, Outer Jib, Foresail

After Boston we started doing charter sails.

Charter passengers doing the titanic thing

Basically we would sail the boat with a group of people onboard eating hors d'oeuvres and drinking wine

The anchor. We would have competitions to see who could raise the anchor by themselves the fastest. This is possible because of pulleys and mechanical advantage.

Sailing was by far the best part of this job. If I remember correctly, we would routinely get up to 11 knots, which is pretty fast for an old boat like this.

July 4th fireworks from the rigging in Edgartown

Here are some pictures from down below.

All the lights on board were kerosene lanterns. I loved nighttime on the boat.

The kitchen, coal powered stove and pump powered sinks

The head. When it got clogged we had to take it apart and put it back together again. It got clogged often.

I think in these pictures we're securing the square sails at the top. During sailing we had to climb up 80 feet in the air to untie and set the topsails, and after sailing we had to do it again backwards.

Here are the topsails set:

Shenandoah sailing with the square topsails.

A lot of time was spent coiling lines to keep the deck clear.

Towards July I became a camp counselor too. We took groups of 5th graders for weeklong sleep-aboard sailing trips. Sometimes there were up to twenty 11 year olds and their chaperones staying on the boat. The chaperones were often more annoying than the 11 year olds.

Michael and camper playing cards on a rainy day

This was enjoyable. It was cool to watch these kids have such a good experience.

We taught them all the parts of the boat, how to raise the sails, and how to tie knots. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together in the saloon, and at night we would have talent competitions or tell ghost stories in the lamp light.

These are the books I read that summer. I didn't finish Herodotus (still haven't).

Sometimes we had Captain Bob's dog Fluffy on board.

We had to row fluffy to shore to do his business.

I forget the name of this thing, but we inserted wooden bars into the holes and walked around in a circle to raise the topmasts and do some other heavy lifting.

Weeklong sailing trips means staying on anchor, which means we had to do night watches. Below is the night watch schedule and associated tasks.

Night watch tasks. Nothing makes you appreciate sleep more than oiling the soles at 4am

The most important thing was to keep the coal powered stove going. If the stove went out overnight, the cook, Nick, who was grouchy but had a kind heart, would put coffee in the brownies for dessert, and that would keep the campers bouncing off the walls well into the night.