*** Attention *** (Disclosure)

This is a personal Blogsite! The text and images contained within are the opinion of T.C. "Bhodi" Sheridan and Erin Doak and are in no way representative of Pride of Baltimore Inc. or any other commercial intity.

The text and images within this site, and those associated with it are free for PERSONAL viewing and use & free to be copied for that use, but are, (unless otherwise noted), the intellectal property of T.C. "Bhodi" Sheridan

and copyrighted "(c) Bhodi 1998 - 2005".

Any commercial use is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the owner.
Thank you & Enjoy.

And the beat goes on...

These pictures were sent to me a few days ago by Guillaume, a friend and Pride's French language teacher in St. Nazaire. I asked if he wouldn't mind if I share some of these shots and he graciously consented. So, here are just a few shots of Pride during her uprig and sea trials.
She is beautiful, non?












(The city of Saint Nazaire, as seen from the west. Pride was docked in the first basin on the right hand side.)












(Captain BBC)














(Crane Day II: Jamie and Maria)














(check out that lamination)














(Pride underway in the St Nazaire basin)



















(Going through the locks. She looked much different the last time she passed through the gates.)











(Passing the Ouest Lighthouse)











































Seeing these shots definately touched a heartstring. I'm glad she's sailing again. Thanks again, Guillaume, for sharing these photos.

Tents, Holidays, Repair, and Farewell

The crew of the Pride of Baltimore II in early December in front of that darn tent. They are, from left to right, back to front... Brad, Krista, Jamie, Miles, Capt Miles, Maria, Sophie, Rubin, Bhodi, Dave, Alan, Erin, and Martina.

Good day all, from the US of A. Bhodi and I have left the Pride of Baltimore II and returned to my parents home in Tampa Bay, FL to await our next sailing gig. This posting has been long coming between choosing pictures, travel, getting over long aggrevating colds, baggage that ended up in Frankfurt instead of New York, meeting the families, Christmas, New Years, etc. I hope that everyone had a good holiday season. I am unable to report how Pride's was since Bhodi amd I left on the 20th of December, but with Rubin cooking scrumcious (I have no idea how to spell that word) roast duck and the Secret Santa, I'm sure it was wonderful. Before getting on with the update and pictures, a word on leaving Pride. As you can imagine, it was a difficult decision. We had already put so much effort into her and wanted to see it through. But as with any project of this scale, the dates of completement are hazy and there were a few things (namely summer school) that I wanted to be sure to be back in the States for, and if we stayed past our contract end date, then that was it, we were staying for the sail back. Also, the crew are sailors, its what we base our lives around when we get on a boat and its what drives us to take that step out there in the first place. Without sailing, with spending months at dock, especially in a foriegn country, problems in the crew can arise that would not necessarily happen if the boat was working its scheldule and out at sea. Passive understanding could not solve them and there were times my anger and frustration blocked out the reasons I wanted to be there. Taking this into account, I came to a decision that it would be for the best to move on. The ship and her crew are in my thoughts every day and I wish them and fun and safe journey back home. And now, for the pictures...


Sometime in October (dates are fuzzy) , we got ourselves a nice tent (at least we thought it was nice until the zippers started breaking) to hide under and keep the deck dry for caulking. It worked for the most part, but sounded like two dozen squeaky shoes on a basketball court when it was windy. Here Alan holds two beams while Capt Miles offers moral support.








Up it goes. The whole thing was quite heavy. We had to move it around the deck regularly to change the coverage area or when the wind pushed it to one side or the other.










Martina with groceries before we attained a vehicle. Pretty awesome when you think about it. Ferrying food and supplies back and forth 1.5 miles on a bike for 13 people!











Halloween!!! We woke up to this scene on the morning of the 31st. Each of the napkin packages on the table contained candies and toys.
(Not shown here, Josh, depicted in many previous posts, left the Pride in mid October and was replaced by returning crew, Krista, depicted later.)








Me, with vampire gummy teeth. Sorry, I couldn't resist.















Rubin and Dave sorting through pumpkin innards to retrieve seeds for cooking.


















Back to work. Alan working on ... hmmm.. the main dorade box? One of the dorades was damaged by the fallen fore mast so the box was taken apart and the brightwork refinished.











More bunks invaded. Erin in Sophie's rack to access the channel lags. (note: it was always amusing to watch Sophie empty her rack. She would act like a bulldozer and push all of it out on the sole and the pile would almost reach her shoulders in height)








Dave rolls the neverending oakum as the deck project works back past the midships hatch.


















Oakumlocks.... Bhodi models the newly rolled oakum as I steal his camera.

















Hard to reach places were always a challenge for both setting the oakum and pouring the pitch.

















The time for holidays. Thanksgiving at Mike's house. I believe we have mentioned him before, but Mike is a great guy, boatbuilder extraordinaire who would come down to the ship to help out on occassion, always with a big grin on his face like a kid in a candy store. Raised in America, he and his wife and a few other French/American couples would get together to celebrate Thanksgiving every year, and this time extended the inviation to the Pride crew as well.
You can see Captain Miles cutting the Turkey in the background.



The pre-feast party


















Our host, Mike, and one of his very energetic kids. They all got dressed up and ran around the house, dangled off the stairs, and pushed each other around and around on the spinning lazyboy. Entertainment for hours. And speaking of entertainment, out that open door in the background were black sheep. Sophie, Krista, and maybe Maria, and I went out there and chased them for a good 5 minutes. Too bad it was too dark for Bhodi's pictures of it to come out.








Miles and Maria show off their hairstyles.













All partied out. I was told later that just about everyone in the party came up and took pictures of us like this. I had no idea, I was out like a light.













Into December, with carpentry work. Dave, Bhodi, Alan, and Brad.














Sophie on the grinder and looking good too...
















Snow!!! One Saturday evening we walked up on deck to this, our first snow in St. Nazaire.















Alan keeping warm while sanding away at the midships hatch.








Notice the change of clothing. It got cold in the mornings we got up before dawn to start work. Even though the weather was semi clear for the most part, there was only a half an hour right after luch were we felt we could shed layers. Any other time, it was with numb hands and feet that we continued caulking.















The Christmas party at Wall Street English gave a few crew members a reason to dust off those goodwill outfits and represent! I never liked the scarf, so I went with the tie.















"Why yes I speak English, Wall Street English. Do you have any Grey Poupon?"

















Our last day on the Pride. The caulking project just feet from completion.

















And if you didn't see it in the last shot, check out the new transom. The first coat being applied by Capt Miles himself.


















Erin works on serving the new main runner, with Sophie looking on. In the background, the contraption for wire seizing.











Now this is a rare sight. The Captain, First and Second mate in the Lazarette hatch, inspecting the binnacle. Why am I reminded of Whack-A-Mole?










The Pride as she looked on our last day. We left early in the morning on a Tuesday, before most of the crew were awake. As I passed over her rail, I gave the ship thanks for seeing us through the dismasting. Fair winds, Pride of Baltimore 2.5!

BIG Announcement

For those of you who haven't heard Erin & My BIG BIG BIG announcement... Clicl here:
http://tallshipadventures.blogspot.com/2004/11/engagement.html

~~B.

Outing to Mont Sainte Michelle

Check out the Photos and story of our crew outing to the "Wonder of the West"...

Click www.mtstmichelle.blogspot.com

& leave us a comment to tell us what you think.

A Weekend in Paris

On the weekend of October 21 - 23, Erin & Bhodi decided to take an extra day off and jump on the TGV Train to spend a weekend in Paris.

Click on:

www.weekendinparis.blogspot.com

to Check it out.

Will Work for Sailing... Eventually

Photo by Erin Doak

Hello! We've been wanting to get this post up for a while but have been waiting until we had a good photo collection of what we have been doing. There is definately a certain amount of Pride (sorry for the bad pun) in the work the crew has been focusing on the last six weeks. Projects are extensive, such as recaulking the deck, repairing and refinishing blocks, patching up serving on standing rigging, painting topsides (often involving removing the many layers of underpaint), stripping and varnishing the rails, and giving the rig loads of love and care against new chafe. And that's just the tip of the iceburg, as projects change as the weather permits. To accomdate all of the work, we've set up rig shop on the grounds of a local boat builders society, who were kind enough to lend us some room among old concrete war bunkers. We've gotten to know a few of the members as much as the language barrier allows - great guys all around. Since our arrival, two of our crew have left us as their contracts came to term. First Mate Miles and Bo'sun Maria have filled the shoes of departing Andy and Kelly (till next time friends!). Life on the boat goes on, as always. The days are getting shorter and we are getting to work right around dawn. The weather is getting wetter and colder. Sometimes there seems to be nothing to do in St. Nazaire... But hey, I'm in France, surrounded by awesome shipmates, and learning a ton putting the Pride of Baltimore back together. Can't ask for much more. Oh, yeah, and Bhodi and I just went to Paris last weekend (photos to come). Woo hoo, y'all! Take care! ~~Erin (P.S. To explain the title photo, in Saint Nazaire we walk past the School of Wall Street English every time we head into town. And on the posters in the window are pictures of people jumping estatic into the air proclaiming that they know Wall Street English. So, we felt inspired one day while measuring the sails. I don't know if they'll go for it.)

Our rack, or some of it. As the fore channels were disassembled for repairs, we moved out and Josh, Dave, or Alan moved in. Made us clean up our stuff, at least.




"That's so unnatural..." Second mate Jamie saws away at the tip of the broken jibboom, in order to carry it to the rig shop and use it to shape soft eyes for the stays.



We looked up form work one day to see a tall ship sail into St. Naz. It was the Stavos... actually, I don't remember the name. The professional crew were nice but there is a reason we chose this shot to show you the vessel. They stayed a few days for repairs.



Josh protects his varnish.














Sophie, Bhodi, and Alan work together to ease the deadeye collar nut. (Not as easy as it sounds)
Photo by Erin Doak



The art of caulking.
Josh and Sophie reef the seams and new oakum is set...








Dave works the pitch to just the right temperature...
Photo by Andy McKee


Bhodi pours the pitch into the seams to seal the deck so we can sleep dry at night. (The players change occassionally)

Photo by Erin Doak








Speaking of changing players, here is a shot of our new Bosun, Maria.










The rig shop, aka the green room. Stay serving and chafe gear.










The rig shop, part 2, block repair and refinishing.








Pro wrestler Josh after he tackled the port topside with the large sanding grinder.








Its a dirty job. Erin tries unsuccessfully to blend into the hull.









Bhodi, Alan, and Dave working on the topside and channel.









First mate Miles.















Dave under the port channel, his home for two weeks of work.








And as we work, the engineer conducts his mysterious business... Here's Rubin workin on the trash pump.

Photo by Dave Castle

A jaunt to Nantes

So, we had heard a lot about it from the few crew members who had gone, so, we had to go check it out ourselves. This last Saturday, Bhodi and I took the train up the river Loire for a nine hour visit to the local "city." And we weren't alone. There was a total of five Pride II sailors in Nantes this weekend. It was a refreshing change of atmosphere and I found myself twisting around everytime I heard a native English speaker, which was often - English, Australian and American. The first hurdle to get to Nantes was to purchase tickets at the station. No easy task when the machine takes only coins and the teller line moves slow as molasses. But, we managed after a time and were joined a short while later by crew mate, Josh. (This is for you Josh's aunt!) An hour later we stepped of the train in Nantes and proceeded to stalk Captain Beebe-Center for a short time before departing ways.

The day was passed walking through the shopping district's many stores, bars, and restaurants, and spending some time taking in the beautiful Cathedral of Nantes, shown in the shots below. At first, it seemed like the interior was closed, but my curosity allowed us to discover that it was indeed open. With the organ playing and the light streaming through the stained glass, it was a beautiful place to be.































So, that was our jaunt to Nantes. Upcoming posts - continued maintenance on Pride and a trip to Paris! Avoir, mes amis!
~~ Erin

St. Nazaire, France

At the time of writing this update, the crew of Pride II have been in St. Nazaire for three and a half weeks. In that period, the focus has turned from recovery to rebuilding. Management is still entertaining bids for spar and mast production and the crew have settled in for the long haul, with a routine of five days on and two days off, a luxury in the world of tall ship sailing. A few people have hung around the boat on weekends, while others have gone to nearby Nantes and not-so-near Paris, for a little French sightseeing. I have discovered that St. Nazaire has a lot more to offer than seen at first glance, and have enjoyed walking along the beaches, through the shopping district and botanical gardens. Bhodi and I even stopped in to have a beer and listen to the music at a Celtic Festival last weekend, held in the old German submarine base. And now, here is our impression of St. Nazaire.
~~Erin

Below are some Photos of some of the sights here in St. Nazaire

Pride of Baltimore II at her St. Nazaire Yard in St. Nazaire, FR.

Taken from atop an old German Submarine Base, one of the tallest buildings in the city.

Another aerial shot of Pride, lying along side...

In full "Yard Mode".

One of the Locks we have to cross to get anywhere in St. Naz from the boat.

The big concrete building is part of the old Sub Base, inside is a relic U-Boat.

The Local Fishing fleet.

Here's some of the local places near the boat.

The Pizzaria on the far left is really nice.

Le Skipper is the place where we had our nice "Crew dinner out", right after we got here.

Very nice place... Try the Crém Brulè.

The language barrier isn't too daunting

when it comes to a thirsty sailor looking for a sailor bar.

"La Passerelle" is a great place just a walk from the boat...

With Good Beer, Darts, and a friendly bartender.

I really like checking out some of the cars that we see over here.

Many of the cars over here, would never do in the states.

Perhaps they use too little fuel.

Here's one of the standard street scenes in St. Naz.

All of the buildings in the city have been built since WWII, because we bombed all the old ones when the Germans were here.

We left England trying to get to Santander, Spain.

We wound up here in St. Nazaire, FR

How were we to know that the road to Santander was here all along.

You Can't see it here, but this house has a lovely view of the ocean.

Across the street is a really nice boardwalk

where we found our Captain on a nice Sunday afternoon.

Finally. Erin hates posing for photos for me,

so I usually have to catch her candidly.

Crane Day

Today & Tomorrow we have our first days off since we have been on Pride. As a reward for good seamanship (in keeping alive during a catastrophic rigging failure), and for all of our hard work in the recovery process, the ship is treating us to 2 days off in a row. Heres a quick update to the last week's activities: Basicaly, we have been continuing with recovery from "D-M Day"... Un-reaving of running rigging; removing, inspecting, and storage of Sails; removal of standing rigging from broken spars, and accomodating the surveyor sent from the insurance company. Many people can say that they have participated in a downrig of Pride, but how many can say that they have done it horizontally?
A lot of heavy lifting, grunting, and head scratching, but we are done with Step One. On Monday, the crane came. It was a very exciting day, because it meant the completion of the "Recovery" stage & it meant that someone else was going to be doing the lifting for us. The photoscan speak pages for how fun crane day was & how nice it was to get the ship cleaned up, so I won't get into too much detail. Now, we are in "French Yard Period". That is where we all pretend that this is just an extended yard period, (with some obvious extra repair projects), while we are all also trying to learn to speak French. Tuesday really felt like a routene "Yard" maintenance day. We did some painting, scraping of varnish, organizing & inspection of rigging, and listening to french radio. Last night the crew went out to dinner.. I had Duck Liver, Kangaroo Steaks, Crem Brulee, and a nice Cognac. Today, I am relaxing, having beer with lunch, and preparing to get this update out too all of you.

Cheers!
-- Bhodi

The lifting of the fore mast, the first spar to come off the Pride with the crane. Also one of the most difficult, since the crosstrees had embedded themselves into the aft cabin house top.

The manuevering of the fore mast also required some deliberation on its orientation. It couldn't lie flat because of its spreaders and crosstrees, so the crane was used to twi st the mast around and large blocks were used to prop the mast up, once it had made it to the dock.



Below: The bowsprit being levered out by the weight of the mates - Andrew McKee and Jamie Trost.






In preparation of the crane coming, the crew spent the morning whacking out mast wedges and securing shrouds and stays to their spars. Below, Captain Miles oversees the lifting of the lower lower fore mast.




Below: The main mast, lower and even lower sections, departing Pride II.












Hello all! Bhodi covered it, so I have very little to add. To my memory, the past week is a blur of hard work where at the end of the day I felt very tired, yet satisfied with what we have managed to accomplish. Each day, the boat has looked better and better. It seems that we have become a local attraction, as many of the townsfolk of St. Nazaire have found their way down to the docks to stare and try out their English. I have to say that we are getting better with our limited French vocabulary, as well. Other tidbits - the mosquitos have found the crew's blood to their liking and so far all our efforts to kill the buggers have been disappointing to say the least. Also, it seems that STI (Sail Training International) has awarded us the Seamanship Trophy as a result of the incident during the Santander race. I appreciate the sentiment and the seamanship the crew demonstrated during the rig failure and the 5 hours of work to bring the wreckage alongside was exemplary, yet I find it ironic that the rig falling down merits a trophy for good seamanship. Personally, I think we should have recieved the Way-to-Duck! award. Anyway, that's it from my end. Hope happiness is where you are!

~Erin

P.S. Bhodi and I are endeavouring to make this page's format more magazine-like. If you have any comments on how we can improve, or would like to see more pictures or write-ups on something in particular, please let us know through the comment form or email. Thanks!


Photo by Erin Doak
Dave Castle and Bhodi lament over their broken marlinspikes, both of which were sacrificed to the starboard quarter-tackle deck shackle.

Below: A new figurehead? No, its the surveyor taking in the damage. Patches of red lead paint cover the port bow where the head rig chafted alongside during our tranist to St. Nazaire.

Below: Remember I mentioned that the fore mast had embedded a crosstree in the aft cabinhouse top?

Below I encourage you to scroll back to the picture of the decks following the incident and compare to the decks in this shot. It was heart-warming to see the decls clear and mast free.

Recovery in St. Nazzere

Sept. 08, 2005

Recovery from Demasting.

I am not as good of a writer as Erin is, so I will be brief.We are now here in St. Nazzare France, recovering from this disaster. And believe me, this is no simple task.

Photo by David Castle

This crew, however, is exactly indicative of the reputation of the Pride of Baltimre II crews: In short, World Class and Top Notch. We have all rallyed together with the dedication to the ship that you would expect to see on a vessel as fine as the “Pride”.

Photo by David Castle

The plan is as follows: Clean up the wreckage while the office makes arrangements to get us new spars made, then stand by for further news. The hopes are that we will fix the boat here in Europe & then sail her back to Baltimore in the early spring, and almost all of us are planning on sticking it out to the finish.

Photos by David Castle

Meanwhile, we are just keeping busy working on the boat, having beers after work (last night we had a “Survivors” party), and exploring the community that will be our home for some time.

Without further investigation, what we have is just speculation. Erin has gone into more details about the chain of events that followed after the bowsprit broke, but as you can imagine.. Bowsprit carries away - Main causes us to round up even more - Fore-Topsail goes aback - Foremast [with no forward support] falls aft and takes Mainmast with it.

The result: All spars lost! The lucky thing is that NOT A SINGLE PERSON WAS INJURED. Just seeing the photos of the carnage on deck, can you believe it?

More to come.

Tragedy on the Pride

Sept. 05 - 06, 2005

The Demasting of the Pride

So, whether or not you have heard the rumors, I am telling you they are true. Pride II has been completely demasted. Here is the story. On Monday at 3:45 pm, the second of two similiar squalls hit Pride II. The first had heavy rains and wind up to 45 knots that made the boat heel till the water was up to the tops of the bulwarks. We quickly struck the jib topsail, but before the sail was completely down, the squall was over. In mild conditions, we reset the sail and continued on. 10 minutes later, the second squall hit and the boat heeled again. I was standing on the starboard side of the quarter deck when I heard a loud crunch of wood and saw the bowsprit, jibboom, and all its sails go tearing of off to port. I have never seen the crew rush onto deck so quickly and we all looked to the captain for orders. He called for the striking of the main and we rushed to comply, but it had just barely hit the deck before we heard the noise that sailors never wish to hear, the slow, loud crunching of a wooden mast. Looking forward and up, the foremast twisted to port and fell. Bhodi and I, along with most of the crew were still on the starboard side, and we pushed back against the rail and aft, watching as it fell along the port side of the ship. It collided with the main and the mast broke 30 feet off the deck, and came down with a crash little more than 6 feet from us. Our first concern was for the crew. Two of us were on port side when it fell. Soon they crawled out from under the sails. Amazingly, all of us were accounted for and none of us had sustained even the slightest injury. The masts had missed the wheel and rudder and we still had engine and steering capability. It took us 5 hours of hard work to gather the wreckage alongside and get underway. We arrived in St. Nazairre, France the following morning. As for the damage to the vessel, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. We will continue to post when we know more. We are okay and glad to still be here.

~Erin and Bhodi

(Captions to come)

What Next?

Arrival and Race!

Greetings and welcome to our first post on the Pride of Baltimore II website. I hope that you will stay with us as we chronicle our travels aboard this amazing vessel. Let the story begin... We arrived aboard Pride as the end to two days of travel, including two plane trips, one unconfortable bus ride, and about 5 hours of sleep. Stepping out of the cab at the start of the pier, we hefted our heavy bags to our new home, the only tall ship on the dock, the Pride of Baltimore II. Greeted by the crew, we moved temporarily into an open cabin and managed to stay awake for a few pints at a near by pub. After a month of anticipation, it was great to finally be on board. The following few days were filled with safety orientation and general maitanence as crowds gathered to watch the incoming tall ship fleet. My night off was spent in the company of lords and ladies and knights of the realm at the Officers social (I was invited to fill out the crowd), very grateful that Pride provided the dress outfit, and discussing race tactics and dancing with captains. Bhodi's night off was spent fighting 400 Russian sailors for a piece of the buffet and a few pints of beer at the pre-race party. On Saturday, we cast off our lines and headed out among our larger sisters. The sky was hazy but the sea energetic and the wind swift. By the time we crossed the start line, every stitch of rigged canvas was flying, including the weather studdingsail and the t'gallant. I realized that this level of heel was normal and moved quickly to keep up with the adept crew.

As the day passed we fell into the watch system. I was stationed on C watch, 12-4, while Bhodi was a part of B watch, 8-12. The weather remained the traditional Pride fare, beating to weather and seas but she has a gentle motion and my stomach, long on land, was gratefully undisturbed. Sails were struck and reset as the winds and tacks varied. Bhodi was sent into the rigging several times while my watch remained relatively uneventful. Time passed as I caught up on sleep. It was good to be at sea again.

On Sunday, we passed Mir on opposite tacks, a breathtaking sight, and on Monday morning, Pride II for the first time ever, held the position of first and first in class and fleet. But, as they sometimes do, the tide changed.