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June 1, 2004

I am home and Pride II is underway heading toward Charleston, SC, with my new partner Captain John Beebe-Center in command. This is John's first voyage offshore with Pride II and it is the ship's first time out of the Chesapeake Bay this year. Since the 2004 crew came aboard on March 1, all aboard felt it was "high time" Pride II went to sea rather than fiddle about in the tight Bay waters of home.

This spring has been marked by several challenges. John Beebe-Center spent the spring coming up to speed on how things are done both in the company as well aboard the ship. New US Coast Guard (USCG) regulations laid on us the requirement of writing policy for Pride II's security for each of the national alert levels. In addition, the International Marine Organization (IMO) brought us the requirement of installing a $6,000 electrical device to help insure against collision. Compared to most springs, this one has brought us more new responsibilities than has been the case for almost a decade. Now, with the ship happily underway for sea and me at home, it is the first time since March 1 that I can look at a period of time I can call my own. It won't last long, however. I return to Pride II on July 9 before she heads off for New England.

With so much happening on top of the normal responsibilities of converting Pride II from her winter storage status to a fully seaworthy vessel, John and I did some "dividing to conquer". He took on interpreting the new security regulations while he also got familiar with the ship. I took on the task of getting the new anti-collision device aboard while I showed John and the crew what we normally do to bring Pride II up to her usual levels of seaworthiness. We got all of our tasks accomplished but one. Security is still on going and immensely time consuming. The problem is that the USCG is as unfamiliar with the new regulations as are we in the commercial marine public. Since these new regulations affect all applicable vessels simultaneously, the USCG is somewhat overwhelmed by the requirements of enforcing the new regulations. Another problem for us is the regulations are written with bigger vessels in mind. Consequently, Pride II does not fit very well. This requires yet another layer of communication with officials and others in the industry as we try to meet the requirements. While John did yeoman's work bringing us to the point we are now at with security as Pride II heads for sea, I must take over the challenge in hopes of meeting the deadline of July 1 so Pride II can continue working in her usual way. And yes, there is a risk we won't meet the regulation deadlines. So my opportunity to take some time off before I get back aboard is quite limited. But I do have time to catch all of you up-to-ate on our activities earlier in the season.

Crew

The new crew this year is made up of more returning crew from previous years than is usual in a year when the ship is not sailing overseas. David Bradley is back as Chief Mate from last year. PJ Meyer has come back from a couple of years ago as a deckhand to serve as a new Second Mate. Jason Yannuzzi and Tracy Nichols both come back from last year to again be deckhands. Altogether these four make up a great spread of common knowledge of the 'way of Pride II' and make the job of showing the new crew the ropes much easier for us captains.

The newer members of the crew represent two groups. One group is those that worked all winter on the ship and the other is those who have come to Pride II for the first time on March 1. Joe Lenguiza worked on the winter crew and is now Pride II's bosun. Will Ryall and Eric Shefland also worked aboard Pride II during the winter and are sailing as deckhands. Of the newest crewmembers, Ben Hall is our engineer/deckhand, Kathryn Strand is cook, and Danni Davis and Cory Nellissen are deckhands.

So, altogether the 2004 crew represents a higher degree of familiarity with Pride II than is usual on the first day of coming aboard for the season. Still there is a lot that needs to be imparted to all hands as the season begins. First, of course, is becoming knowledgeable about safety equipment and procedures such as fire prevention and fighting. Along with safety issues are knowledge of where tools are and our methods of maintenance, including record keeping. At the same time the ship must be converted from an empty and winterized hull to a livable and functioning sea going sailing vessel. With this year's crew, this process has been more efficient than in previous years which has made it possible for John and I to work on the new regulatory requirements with greater concentration.

Dry-Dock

Pride II motored down to Portsmouth, VA, again for her annual dry-docking. We returned to Ocean Marine Yacht Center in Portsmouth and had a good experience there. They are friendly and helpful. We had enough rain to delay our work and our forced living ashore in a motel lengthened as the weather delayed our work. One may wonder if living ashore is so bad compared to living in more crowded conditions aboard. But I can tell you that low cost motel life does not measure up to the life Pride II's crew has when living aboard. When the ship was finally re-launched, all were hugely relieved to get back aboard.

The first real sail for the crew was during the return to Baltimore from Portsmouth. It came about five weeks after the full crew first came together. So, in addition to the relief of moving back aboard after too long being in the motel, the crew had their first sailing experience. Everyone was charged with willingness to haul sails up. On the trip back to Baltimore, we raised and lowered sail at least a couple of times before reaching Pride II's winter berth for a week of cleaning up the shop, the ship, and completing crew training before the USCG Safety Inspection and the formal commencement of the 2004 sailing season.

June 11, 2004

Due to various priorities related to Pride II and home, I have been preoccupied and unable to get the spring log completed. I now have that chance.

Security Plan - or Not to Plan

The delay has mostly been due to the Vessel Security Plan process. The deadline of July 1st was coming fast and our ability to write our plan in a fashion acceptable to the authorities was just not happening. The biggest cause for this has been the immense scope of the regulations for both the USCG and the commercial marine public hitting everyone all at once. This has caused a lot of "discovery" of how the regulations, all written in a vacuum a couple years ago, are impossible to implement. In turn this has forced rapid and reactive correction to "official guidance" and "interpretation" by the folks in Washington to their people "in the field" on how to implement and enforce these new regulations.

In our case, the problem is that Pride II's mission takes her to places that the regulations say are not permitted with a vessel that possesses an approved security plan. It is a real "catch 22." Any vessel that must have an approved security plan is not permitted to lay alongside docks that do not posses an approved Facility Security Plan or have not been officially designated as a Public Access Facility. For heavy commercial interests, this is not a problem. Most passenger vessels and cargo-carrying vessels ply their trade between specially established facilities that are designed to handle the kind of vessels that serve their particular trade. Such facilities are pretty easily able to meet the new regulations.

However, there are examples of vessels in the passenger trade that do not make use of these specially constructed and securable commercial facilities. In Pride II's case, almost all the docks she goes to are docks that bring her as close to the public as possible. Bigger cities possess officially recognized "inner harbor" type facilities that take advantage of the harbor shoreline by providing "public access". As such they have a lot of land-based and water-based police. Smaller cities and towns may have a local town dock or even a marina or yacht club that may also serve as "public access" to the water and may accommodate Pride II with the intent of permitting the public to come down and visit the ship. Bigger city public facilities, due to their function and popularity, become officially designated "public access" by the USCG. But the smaller facilities do not unless they specifically seek this designation through a formal application process. Since none of these docking facilities are doing this, Pride II would not be permitted to dock at such places once she is officially approved as possessing a Vessel Security Plan. To add to this conflict, Pride II would also not be permitted to have any exchange with another vessel unless that vessel also possessed an officially approved security plan. Considering Pride II is identified as a tallship by an admiring public and often mingles with other tallships that are not required to meet the new security requirements, it is easy to see how the new security regulations can impact Pride II. Not being permitted to go to unapproved docks will be a tremendous loss of revenue as well. I won't even go into the paperwork required to record all interactions between a vessel that has a security plan and the approved facilities or vessels it interacts with.

As John Beebe-Center was reading the regulations and writing a security plan to meet them, I was reading over his shoulder. It was slowly becoming clear to both of us that with an approved vessel security plan in place aboard Pride II, she would no longer be able to do just about anything she usually did. The new security regulations would essentially put Pride II out of business.

So what were we to do? Further study of the regulations brought both John and I back to the "applicability" of the regulations. This is the word the regulations use to indicate who the regulations are to be imposed upon. Obviously the regulations were meant for the larger vessels that ply the oceans. So the regulations exempted domestic passenger vessels that do not carry more than 150 passengers. Pride II does not carry more than 49 persons. The regulations also say that passenger vessels that go on international voyages but do not carry more than 6 passengers are exempt. Pride II falls into both of these exemptions. But we have voluntarily carried a special international safety certificate called a SOLAS Certificate because it did not cost us anything and it provided an internationally recognized description of Pride II's acceptance as a well equipped vessel capable of international voyaging. But now that very SOLAS Certification requires that Pride II be equipped with a security plan despite the exemptions I listed above. And until she has such a plan, she will not be permitted to do anything i.e. she would be forced to remain tied up. Plus, once she had her plan approved, she would be unable to implement her mission, essentially putting her out of commission. It seemed to both John and I that we could no longer afford to carry the SOLAS Certificate. Obviously the USCG is reluctant to see us drop this certificate. They may try to force us to continue to carry it, in which case the whole situation goes back to the point of can we still execute Pride II's mission?

Meanwhile USCG Washington has been adjusting their interpretation of the regulations in reaction to major conflicts discovered through applying them. As I write, there is a possibility that a new interpretation will come that will permit a vessel with an approved security plan to dock at an unsecured facility. But with July 1 only three weeks away, there is no longer enough time left to get an approved plan, and without one, Pride II would have to remain at the dock for as long after July 1 as it takes to come up with an approved plan. Which could take a while as there are over 10,000 security plans from both vessels and facilities that need to be approved. So, the practical thing to do has been to surrender the SOLAS Certificate and continue with Pride II's mission while we wait to see what happens. For the short term, our local USCG are comfortable with this decision. In fact, they were the ones who made the recommendation to surrender SOLAS temporarily to permit Pride II to proceed with her mission.

2004 Lives!

With that decision made and a future now available to plan for, the office is running full speed ahead planning activities and committing to agreements for the rest of this season. In the meantime Pride II is now in Jacksonville, FL, with Captain Beebe-Center for a Tall Ship festival. She will also be joining the first ASTA Tall Ship Challenge Race for 2004 between Jacksonville, FL, and Charleston, SC. Life is good again, at least temporarily.

Through all of this security angst, the crew got familiar with sailing Pride II and executing her mission. Several school group have visited to the ship for School Tours this spring while Pride II was in Washington D.C., Annapolis, Havre de Grace, and Baltimore. There have also been several public Daysails in Baltimore and Annapolis. This is something new and is done to introduce more of Maryland's public to their Pride II. As usual, maintenance continues as well. Re-pitching the deck seams is an ongoing and messy job. Cosmetics and rigging maintenance is also a consuming chore. The new technology - AIS (Automatic Identification System) for anti-ship collision - was also installed.

AIS (Automatic Identification System)

AIS is a surprisingly useful technology. All vessels equipped with AIS are able to actually know how far away other vessels are and what direction and speed they are going verses guessing what is happening by tracking a blip on radar. For those equipped with electronic charts as we are, a data feed can also be created to show other AIS-equipped vessels on the electronic chart. It is quite interesting to be able to watch on the electronic chart the travels of a vessel out in Chesapeake Bay while Pride II is tied to a dock. But the real reason for this technology is to help ships communicate their intentions and actions rather than leave everyone guessing at their movements through tracking a vessel on radar. What is also particularly helpful in this technology is the ability to transmit the name of the vessel, what type of vessel it is, and where it is going which helps tremendously with any radio communication.

The cost of this equipment is now about $7,000 fully installed. It is expected to go down as more vessels become required to carry it. Pride II is required to carry it because she is longer than 65 feet and is classed as a passenger vessel. It will be interesting to see how all this real-time information will work when we are in a crowded harbor with every vessel equipped with AIS. I also wonder how this technology will benefit in a crowded body of water when there are also a lot of smaller vessels that are not AIS equipped mingling with vessels that are equipped. In these circumstances, I could see a collision occurring because an operator was solely fixated on the electronic chart. So, don't forget to look outside the boat!

We had a great deal of assistance completing the final installation of our new Funuro AIS unit. Pride II's Chief Mate David Bradley did the physical installation. Phil Mitchell of Electronic Marine of Annapolis and Matt Taylor, the Annapolis area representative for Nobletec, both spent time making the final connections between Pride II's GPS, electronic compass, and Nobletec electronic chart software. Over the years since the first Pride, Electronic Marine has provided all of our marine electronics. Without this willing assistance, the cost of keeping Pride II up-to-date would be much greater than it already is.

Speaking of technology, during one of my last days aboard Pride II this spring before John took over from me, Pride II was on an overnight sail to Havre de Grace. During this particular day we had an opportunity to set all sail and do some decent sailing. This may sound funny, but Pride II had been in Baltimore for two weeks and the short day sails there in the tight confines of the Patapsco River do not make for great sailing. But being out in the Chesapeake Bay does offer the chance of a good sail with greater room to maneuver the ship with her 12'6" draft.

The sailing did not start till just before lunch as it takes most of the morning to motor out to the Bay from the Inner Harbor. Since the way to Havre de Grace takes Pride II into ever tighter areas of the Bay, I opted to stay down by the mouth of the Chester River where there is more sailing room. All afternoon the crew responded to orders for tacking and jibing. When it started to get late, we anchored near the Eastern Shore in the mouth of the Chester River and got an early start before breakfast. By 0900 Pride II had to be pointed up the Bay and motoring toward her destination. I provide a track of the sailing for everyone's amusement. Even the Chesapeake Bay can get a little small for Pride II when she is sailing speedily.

Cheers

Captain Miles