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PRIDE II is dry-docked at Ocean Marine Yacht Center and has been since March 22. During these times when our sea faring home is ćon the hard,ä life is disrupted and particularly inflexible. We are not permitted to live aboard, so we spend nights in a motel. To keep costs of feeding down, we have all of our meals at the ship up on the hard. We cannot have access earlier than 0700 hours and we cannot stay beyond 1800 hours. As a result, our day begins and ends with a commute. But when we arrive at the motel, there is nothing to look forward to but the next day. In contrast, for me at least, commuting from my real home ashore means that there are any numbers of rituals available to participate in before and after work. None of which are available in this motel. I can only imagine how the crew feels.

This year, PRIDE II is headed to Europe. There are several financial opportunities available there during a time when there are not many available on the East Coast of North America.  All the American tall ship activities are focused on the West Coast this year. With the decision to go to Europe made public, we have had quite a field of clearly suitable crew applicants to choose from.

The chosen few have been working together now since February 28. In these last four weeks they have taken PRIDE II from an empty shell to a complete jumble of rigging parts, stored spares, and tools still not put into proper place. With any luck, that should be altered by the middle of next week when I hope PRIDE IIās bottom repainting will be completed and she will be back in the water ready to be sailed home. That sail will be the first of the season and will bring with it another chapter in the processing of this year's starting crew into a fully informed and practiced group.

This winter and spring has kept us busier than in recent winter/spring fit-outs. Two significant projects have been our focus. One was the upgrade of the shipās 24-volt DC charging, storage, and inverting electrical system to 20 volt AC system. The other has been a surprising amount of wood related repairs in the spars and the deck. In fact, the course yard is still under repair as I write.

The 24-volt system upgrade is an expensive project made possible by a donation of $25,000 from Constellation Energy, a Maryland-based energy company. We have spent all of that and more, I am afraid, on a system that more than doubles our battery capacity, triples our alternator capability, and quadruples our inverter capability. I have been working with the builder, Peter Boudreau, since the final stages of PRIDE IIās construction to equip the ship for a 50 day endurance capability for non-stop voyaging. In terms of food and fuel, the goal was met immediately. In terms of water-making and refrigeration, it has taken one or two upgrades. In terms of electricity, this recent and fourth upgrade should be the last for some time.

With this replacement of the 24 volt electrical system, PRIDE II can now sail happily with quite a bit of reserve built into her essential systems. Of course, our dependency on water-making could be seen as border line with a water storage capacity of only 300 U.S. gallons. But with the ability to make about 50 gallons an hour, we can replace our water usage quickly. Some would also say our fuel capacity of 900 U.S. gallons is trifling small for any long distance voyaging. I would not begrudge them that assessment. However, it is feasible and practical to expect 900 gallons to provide 50 days of generating and thus provide the energy to keep us in water, electricity, and frozen food for that length of time. So far, the longest leg PRIDE II has ever sailed has been 5,000 nautical miles and the longest she has been at sea non-stop has been less than 30 days. The only times we have been concerned about our reserves has been when we have been using fuel more than we like as a means of keeping to a schedule. In the three most significant occasions where the schedule drained us of our fuel, we either made it in with fumes in the tanks or diverted to an unscheduled port to top up our tanks and continue on our way. Considering these last sixteen years, it would seem we have been doing pretty well with the size and capacities of our fuel, water, and refrigeration. But the electrical capacity has been problematic. Thus the major change.

The repairs to the wood in the rig and on deck have been more of a surprise than I like to admit. We were fully aware of the need to pull the foremast yet again for a repair to a newly identified rot pocket. That repair was straightforward. But the surprises in the rig were the need to re-build the wood around the foretopmast hounds collar, carpenter out three cracks in the course yard, and replace the ends of the course yard. In each case, we had previously observed and recorded stress but found the degree to be acceptable and un-alarming. For some reason, all the early signs of stress that had remained stable for several years had suddenly (relatively speaking) showed signs of increased stress. So we attended to them all.

The repairs to the deck were mostly planned, but one surprise was a rot spot that we found in-way of the Samson posts in one king plank. A new six-foot section replaced that rot spot and we were able to attend to some leaky wedges at the Samson posts as well. The planned work we did on deck attended to some caulk seams that had been hard to caulk for some time due to the degree of width in the old caulk seam from the wood drying out. All simple and straight forward fixes. I hope we fixed those leaky areas for good.

Today the caulking is underway and the seam putty is beginning to go in. Thursday the crew will get the last of the patch painting completed. Then the hull will be ready for the yard crew to paint fully with anti-fouling paint. They will not be able to do that Friday due to wet weather headed our way. But Monday and Tuesday look good weather-wise, hence my hopes that PRIDE II will splash down in the middle of next week. Then we will get back to life aboard the ship as well the first actual sailing of the season. Halleluiah!

Cheers,
Captain Miles