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?