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The year is over. A new year is begun. The past crew is scattered. The winter crew is now working on the list of things wanting doing. Pride Of Baltimore II is now at rest under winter cover. She is secure in her winter berth on the south shore of the Inner Harbor. She is devoid of most everything that makes her a recognizable sailing vessel. She has no foremast or bowsprit, nor topmasts or yards. With her winter cover of wood frame and sheet plastic, she looks more like a floating warehouse.

On deck, she is devoid of all her sailing clutter. The only thing left is her long expanse of evenly laid deck planking with a few center-located deckhouses. Below deck, she is nearly an empty shell. Except for her engine room, every space and locker is empty, clean and open. All of her floorboards are up, leaving a scattered series of treacherous holes into which one might accidentally fall. Except for the engine room, there is no heat below which further underscores the feeling of a near dead ship. Surprisingly, all of this is good. For now comes the chance to clean, repair, modify, paint, or varnish those bits and areas that are hard to get to while in the midst of a busy sailing season.

Pride II's winter crew numbers about half of her sailing crew of twelve. This winter, all of the winter crew save one sailed aboard her last fall. Jesse Kenworthy, the bosun, has come back to head up most of the work as have deckhand Chris Landers and cook Erin Cloherty. New to Pride II is Paul Gill who is down from New England and the Maine Windjammer fleet to help with the general work list. In the engineering department, last season's engineer, Cal Ocampo, has returned to work on several items on the engineering work list. The carpentry jobs are being handled by returning deckhand Brad Fluery.

This winter crew and a some faithful volunteers have eight weeks to complete a four page work list that ranges from "must be done" to "if we can find the time." The crew has chosen to work weeks of four ten-hour days, from Monday through Thursday, so they can take three day weekends. This means they start the workday at 7 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m. with a half-hour for lunch. With an on-shore storage area full of the equipment and gear that used to be aboard, the winter crew will be split working either in the storage area or on the ship, which is docked four blocks away. At the end of February, whether the entire work list is complete or not, a new spring crew year will replace most of the current winter crew. This will leave an additional six weeks to complete the list, dry-dock the ship, and re-rig her in time to start sailing in the Bay in mid April.

Re-pitching the Deck

During the last weeks of the 1999 season as Pride II sailed around Chesapeake Bay, the fall crew completed one of the items on the work list. That was re-pitching the seams of the deck which they turned to at every spare moment. This project was started in October when my partner, Captain Dan Parrott, was aboard. I relieved Dan in mid-November and found the crew had developed a very efficient way of handling the re-pitching job. Still, the requirements of fitting ship maintenance in between scheduled events meant the job did not get completed until the last week of the 1999 sailing season, which ended December 3.

The process of re-pitching is a simple but very dirty one. The pitch used aboard Pride II is primarily a tar composite. Hence, when the old pitch is pulled out of the seams of the deck, it breaks up into irregular size dust and gets everywhere. While it is cold, it remains as dust. If it warms to body temperature, it becomes soft and may melt into the surface it is on. At the end of each work period, the crew can look as if they have been working in a coal mine. The new pitch must be melted to a liquid state and then poured carefully into the cleaned seams. This pouring process is not a precise one and leaves a lot of excess pitch to be cleaned up off the filled seam. The crew found a means for doing this that enabled the excess to be recycled. This recycling also meant there was less pitch dust to contend with. Over all, Pride II's deck took some 15 gallons of pitch that was poured into seams that were only a half inch deep and a quarter of an inch wide!

End of the Season - Oxford & St. Michaels

In between the periods the crew was working on re-pitching the deck, they moved Pride II from one Chesapeake Bay port to another. I joined the ship in Oxford to relieve Captain Parrott. After Dan and I had completed our captains' rotation and he drove off towards home in my car, the crew and I left Oxford bound for St. Michaels. The sailing was limited to a light air sail the length of the Choptank River. After reaching the Bay, the wind died and we motored a majority of the day to St. Michael's and tied up at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

A large but "local" vessel was moored at the Museum. Victory Chimes is currently home ported in Maine but she started her sailing career in Chesapeake Bay nearly 100 years ago. She is the last of several Chesapeake Bay Ram Schooners built at the end of the 19th Century. These were distinctive, three-masted cargo vessels with hull shapes that are very efficient for carrying cargo (i.e. very box like) but are surprisingly sailable when commanded by a knowledgeable sailor. Victory Chimes is not equipped with an inboard engine (as was typical of the sailing cargo vessels from a hundred years ago) but she does tow a smaller motorized launch that pushes her as a tug would push a barge. Today, instead of carrying lumber and other general cargo, she carries some 40 passengers in cabins that have been built into the cargo hold. Normally Victory Chimes sails the waters of Maine - her homeport is Rockland, ME. She is in Chesapeake Bay now to celebrate her 100th birthday which is coming in April, 2000. During this winter, she will remain on display at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Come spring, she will sail the Bay till June when she will head back to Maine and her normal sailing grounds. Any of you that want to experience a truly original working sail vessel might consider booking a week or weekend aboard Victory Chimes. It is uncommon in these United States to find a 100-year-old vessel still sailing. So don't miss this chance.
	Pride II's stay in St. Michael's presented a good opportunity for her crew to get more maintenance done. It also offered the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum a rare opportunity of displaying two superb examples of different types of large wooden sailing craft produced on the upper shores of Chesapeake Bay. Sadly because of the lateness of the season, only a few patrons got the opportunity to see this marvel. The one unusual experience Pride II had in St. Michael's occurred when we tried to depart. There was not enough water depth to get out! This was the result of a strong northwest breeze that had been blowing for more than a day. Due to scheduled events, it was not possible to depart earlier. But the moment all our obligations had been met, we made ready to depart at the next high water. But mother nature had other ideas.
As an aside, I can tell you that whenever the wind blows hard from the north down Chesapeake Bay, the water levels drop to unusual lows due to the friction of the northerly wind on the water. The wind quite literally "blows the water out of the Bay." Chesapeake Bay is tidal and normally has an average rise and fall of about 18 inches. This occurs twice a day. This very modest tidal range is easily affected by strong winds that blow either from the south or the north. Strong winds from the south can rise the high water some 24 extra inches or more. On the other hand, winds from the north can hold the flood back such that water levels are kept some 6-18 inches below normal low water levels. As we were preparing to leave St. Michael's, the next high water was due at 11 p.m. After checking the depths in the channel leading out of St. Michael's and finding there was still some 1-3 inches of clearance, we made our departure. However, no further than one boat length from the pier, Pride II went deep into the soft bottom and stopped. Despite the efforts of both engines, she moved not a bit. Pride II stayed "parked" in the channel for 24 hours. It could have been longer had the northwest wind not died out just as the new high water started coming in 24 hours after the high water that wasn't. With the new high water, Pride II easily floated off and we got underway at 8 p.m. the next night. We hurried through the wee hours under power to make our scheduled arrival time in Chestertown.

Chestertown and the Sultana Project

Chestertown has a new project underway that seems to have brought a new focus to the citizens of that town. The Sultana Project is the first significant marine-oriented enterprise for Chestertown in a very long time. The Chester River Crafts and Art Association is building an accurate reproduction of an American built, English Crown Government owned sailing vessel dating from pre-Revolutionary America. The hull of Sultana is now framed up and planking has commenced. Professional shipwrights are few as local volunteers and students from area schools are handling a major part of the construction. Pride II was visiting Chestertown not only to "show the flag" in that part of the state where we had not been in several years, but also to help showcase the Sultana Project and participate in its fundraising efforts.
Pride II's role as booster of other budding traditional sail projects is become well established. Those of you with very long memories will remember that Pride II has been in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, several times in the last half dozen years - the most recent visit being just last June. When in Milwaukee, we serve as the backdrop for attention-grabbing and fundraising efforts by the Wisconsin Lake Schooner Education Association which is building a replica Great Lakes schooner on the Milwaukee lake shore. Last June's theme was "See one out of the bottle." We were the one (schooner) out of the bottle.

We gave Wisconsin a good taste of what their schooner is likely to be like.

Similarly, on our way home from the Great Lakes, we hosted the builders of the replica topsail schooner, Amistad, on board for a morning. The schooner Amistad is rising in a shed at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. The Amistad shipwrights explored the innards of Pride II with great interest.

In addition to our public relations functions in these "birthing a traditional vessel" situations, a very enjoyable mingling of crew, staff, and organizers goes on as well. For instance, the Sultana folks in Chestertown were most hospitable to Pride II's crew and staff. In addition to showing great interest in our vessel, they were very attentive hosts and entertained the crew at a number of local homes for relaxation and sustenance.

It will be interesting to watch the long term effect of the Sultana project on the Eastern Shore. Might it be that this project will revive the rich maritime shipbuilding and sailing tradition of the Shore - a tradition mostly written about in the recent past? We will certain watch with interest.

Homeward Bound

The end of the season sail from Chestertown to Baltimore was one of the better sails Pride II experienced during the last six weeks of the 1999 season. This scarcity of good sailing is not uncommon when Pride II is in the Bay. The ship is uncommonly deep for sailing the many rivers that flow into the Bay. Often the wind can be from the south or the north (usually the direction we want to go) so it can be difficult, if not impossible, to sail to the schedule that is made a year in advance. This challenge brings home to those of us who think about it just what kind of life our forebears must have had before the days of mechanical propulsion.

In this transit from Chestertown to Baltimore, Pride II started down the Chester River in a near dungeon fog. Anyone want to bet what the "older generation" of sailors did in the event of dungeon fog? Turned on the radar, of course! Slowly Pride II negotiated the many turns of the Chester River as she proceeded from Chestertown to the Bay.

In the lower and more open part of the river, we passed several oyster fishermen in their deadrise motor vessels. They don't usually have radar, as they are very shoal draft and can get close to shore and find their bearings. The proceed without the fear of going aground that we aboard Pride II constantly have in fog. Also, with GPS it is almost unnecessary to have radar in small vessels, unless one is moving very fast.

Around midday, Pride II set sail in the wide part of the Chesapeake Bay in a very light breeze. Once all sail was set, including all of the light air sails, Pride II proceeded nicely at between 3 and 7 knots as the light zephyrs came and went. Late in the afternoon, Pride II passed a few Skipjacks dredging oysters in the shoals of Six-Foot Knoll in the middle of the Upper Bay. One of them radioed us and offered a bushel of oysters if we could come get them. I immediately ordered Hippo, our rubber utility boat, to be launched to fetch this most generous gift.

For those of you who are not intimately aware of the way oysters are harvested, let me say that there is no easy way to do it. Skipjacks have a dredge device that is sent down on a wire from a reel drum. The dredge drags the bottom and scoops the oyster into a sack. This is reeled back to the surface and the heavy load of the dredge and it's contents are lifted out of the water and dumped on deck. The dredge is then sent back down while the crew sort each oyster by size into keepers and losers. Today the oyster industry is in a devastating slump for a combination of reasons that include pollution, disease, and poor management. For any oysterman to provide a gift of such labor, it is an honor not to be received lightly. I think we paid the gift proper respect. Imagine yourself standing aboard a vessel that harkins back to a period long before mechanical power sailing into the quite cool dark of a mid-November evening while savoring succulent, raw oysters and looking out upon the modern skyline of the City of Baltimore. Imagine further sailing silently through the evening all the way into the Inner Harbor past Fells Point and dropping the anchor, engineless. That's how we enjoyed the oysterman's generous gift. Thank you.

Thanksgiving and Christmas - 1999

Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by all aboard in different ways. For only the second time in the ship's life, all hands went their own way for Thanksgiving Day. Three of the crew stayed aboard and enjoyed reading and a chess tournament. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the crew came back in watches to man the ship while it was tied up at the Inner Harbor Amphitheater near the Constellation. Over the weekend, we welcomed the general public aboard for open-ship visiting and buying of souvenirs.

Now the season was truly over, except for preparing the ship for winter and hosting a large group of friends of Pride II during the annual Parade of Lighted Ships held December 3 in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Winterizing Pride II is a lot of work. All of the sails come ashore. All of the smaller spars come down and ashore - the same for all of the running rigging and blocks. Then the winter cover frame is built and covered in plastic. Every locker down below is emptied and cleaned. All mattresses and cushions are stored ashore, as are all galley tools and left over food. Then go all the electrical and traditional navigation gear and the ship's library. In the engine room, the engines and the generator are winterized after changing their oil. The water maker is winterized, too. Finally, the potable water system and heads are winterized with anti-freeze, and all through-hull fittings are closed. The heat is turned off everywhere except the engine room. As everyone leaves, all compartments and deck hatches are left open for ventilation. With lights off and everyone and everything ashore, Pride II is left to rest for the holidays. Soon enough there will be a crew of workers back aboard to ready her for the next year's voyaging.

Happy Millennium to you all!

Cheers,
Captain Miles