The Spirit of South Carolina, a 140-foot-long replica of a 19th-century schooner that once sailed the waters of Charleston harbor, was moored at the pier for months, mostly inactive by a series of unfortunate events.
It is a showcase for a non-profit organization co-founded by hotel mogul Michael Bennett and luxury car dealer Tommy Baker. The ship was made with local wood and other materials and completed in 2007. Its brief history has been difficult, and its managers have been forced to reconsider the ship’s mission, purpose and use on more than one occasion.
Now the Spirit faces new opportunities and another chance for reinvention. Potential partnerships with the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program of the College of Charleston, or CLAW, and the Maine-based schooner Harvey Gamage, could breathe new life into Spirit, reinvigorating its educational mission and filling the ship’s sails with a breeze. fresh.
But first he will need to check several boxes on his task list. You need a captain and a crew. Needs essential repairs. You need a new inspection certificate. You need volunteers.
And he needs to overcome a problematic Catch-22: to do the tasks on the to-do list, he needs money. But you cannot generate revenue without first performing the tasks on the list.
“He’s been pretty much dead in the past nine months,” said volunteer coordinator Bryan Oliver.
In 2019, the nonprofit’s executive director, Fletcher Meyers, abandoned the ship. A few months ago, his paid full-time captain, Dan Cleveland, landed in search of warmer waters and a little wind. Oliver, himself an unpaid volunteer, along with the volunteer chef who takes care of the boat are the only crew left.
The pandemic was similar to a hard ground in the lowlands of Charleston harbor, with no crew available to pull the anchor and remove the soft mud. The revenue stream dried up like a riverbed on the other side of the dam.
Then lightning came last year that fried the electronics and deactivated the diesel engines.
The costs of maintaining the boat are significant and it is unclear what the board of the non-profit organization plans to do. A message left to Baker was unanswered, but a statement from his office included this statement: “It is our intention to make the Spirit fully functional and operationally restored.”
Oliver and the people who run the CLAW program have hope.
The schooner Harvey Gamage approaches the dock at the Maritime Center in Charleston, where the Spirit of South Carolina, seen in the foreground, is moored. Adam Parker / Team
Two ships
Meanwhile, Harvey Gamage sailed to Charleston harbor on February 20, with a crew that includes 15 students from Ashley Hall, and tied up at the Maritime Center. It is to do what Spirit leaders want to do: take students out to sea and teach them some things about astronomy, physics, history and the art of sailing.
Paula Harrell, director of marketing and communications for Ashley Hall, said the school’s Offshore Leadership Program has been providing students with navigation opportunities for years. It is a year-long commitment to a curriculum that includes celestial navigation, the history of the transatlantic slave trade, Charleston’s maritime history, aspects of science and practical experience in navigation.
Maine’s schooner Harvey Gamage docked in Charleston on Saturday, February 20, 2021. Andrew J. Whitaker / Staff
Students aboard Harvey Gamage were quarantined for two weeks to sail from Brunswick, Georgia to Charleston, said Harrell. Usually, the trip – the culmination of the program – takes place in the fall, but this year’s circumstances forced a change in schedule. Routes vary from year to year. The boats too.
The girls leave their smartphones on the beach. Under the guidance of a professional crew, they learn to handle the ropes, hoist and lower harpoon sails, turning and turning, measuring the weather and the state of the sea, reading letters, adhering to the rotation of the clock and much more.
“It’s a transformative experience,” said Harrell.
It can transform your stomach too, when the sea is rough. But that is part of the package.
Oliver said the teams operating these two boats discussed the possibility of forging an alliance of some kind. The sailing community is small and its members look after each other, he said.
Harvey Gamage, a 131-foot wooden schooner, was built in the early 1970s. It is typical of the type of large Maine sailboat that previously carried timber or participated in the state’s fishing culture. It is used to great tides, rocky shores and colder climate. And it’s part of Maine’s maritime history.
It may make sense to collaborate on educational programming, said Oliver.
Harvey Gamage left Brunswick, Georgia, for Charleston, arriving on Saturday, February 20, 2021, with 15 Ashley Hall students on board. Adam Parker / Team
Alex Agnew, president of Sailing Ships Maine, the nonprofit organization that operated Harvey Gamage, agrees.
“We would love for them to come to Maine in the summer, visit them and sail with them in the winter,” he said. “It increases our capacity if we have two ships.”
While Harvey Gamage is at the port in Charleston, his crew will assist the Spirit team in solving some of the problems on board. And maybe that is not all.
“We hope to help the South Carolina Spirit organize the programs,” said Agnew. “We are coming to help.”
The Spirit is a replica of the ship Frances Elizabeth from 1879. In 2014, the foundation that controlled the ship struggled with growing debts and decided to sell it. In 2017, Bennett and Baker purchased the boat at a foreclosure auction, refurbished it to meet Coast Guard standards, and donated it to a newly formed nonprofit, Spirit of South Carolina Inc., for use educational.
Normally, it has about 15 volunteer crew and sailors. Before the pandemic, the nonprofit partnered first with The Citadel, then with the College of Charleston, to provide a “semester at sea”, but none of the ventures proved to be sustainable due to high tuition costs and a lack of interest among students.
Oliver thinks an expanded mission can help.
Why not focus on the maritime heritage of Charleston Harbor – the stories of Robert Smalls, the Mosquito Fleet and the story of so many anonymous black sailors?
And that’s where CLAW comes in.
Doing the best
Its director, Sandy Slater, said the program is focused, among many topics, on the fascinating history of black sailors, and a collaboration with Spirit makes a lot of sense. After all, their missions converge. Both are concerned with educational reach, both are interested in Charleston’s maritime history, and both want institutional partnerships.
The Spirit of South Carolina is a replica of a 19th century schooner that sailed the waters of Charleston harbor and the nearby coast to guide large ships to the port. Adam Parker / Team
Both are also financially limited because of the pandemic, but Slater is committed to maintaining a relationship with the Spirit so that students can have access to the sea and so that the non-profit organization can access a scholarship, she said.
Blake Scott, a professor of international studies and a talented sailor, designed a curriculum for AmeriCorps volunteers using Spirit as a classroom. Much more could be done, said Slater. The story is rich.
“As Charleston was an urban slave city, slaves worked and gave permission to enslaved people, especially skilled artisans, to work in the city and keep a part of the payment for them,” she said. “So we see a lot of people working and buying their freedom, living and working in Charleston.”
Many of these people were free colored sailors, or Creoles from the Atlantic, as they were called. They circulated through Charleston’s ports, often carrying not just cargo, but vital information about what was going on in the world.
Harvey Gamage, a schooner built in Maine in the early 1970s, has a diesel engine and must assess the current and wind direction in order to dock properly. A dinghy provides assistance. Adam Parker / Team
The South Carolina white power structure sought to deny blacks access to news, especially after Denmark Vesey’s failed slave revolt in 1822. The city’s rulers did not want the black population, who for most of the 18th centuries and 19 was larger than the number of Whites by a wide margin, to learn about the Haitian Revolution or other rebellions.
“You see a lot of laws trying to restrict people of color from getting together or getting together, preventing movement,” said Slater. “Slavery in America was exceptional in its brutality compared to the rest of the world.”
In the early 1800s, this vigorous censorship ran counter to international trends. Elsewhere, the slave trade was on the decline. In the USA, white supremacy was intensifying.
“The enslaved population in the southern United States is very aware that their circumstances are very different from those of other people of color,” said Slater. “It’s a heartbreaking finding.”
It was the maritime networks through which information about the situation of blacks passed. This was an urban and unique phenomenon in port cities where no secrets can be kept, said Slater.
“Free colored people in Charleston have had a degree of financial and professional success,” she said. “They could maneuver into better social positions without the constant threat of violence against them.”
White people sponsored black shoemakers and blacksmiths, stonemasons and caregivers. Civil interaction between races was common, even when institutional discrimination and oppression became increasingly ingrained.
Thus, blacks in Charleston persevered and forged a unique cultural identity informed largely by the seafront. As a port city, Charleston is inextricably connected to the Caribbean and West Africa, said Slater. It is truly an international city with a dynamic and successful black population.
“This is not to lessen the cruelty and violence of slavery,” said Slater. “It is to draw attention to the fact that the black experience in America is not defined by slavery. It is defined by people who do the best they can in the circumstances. “
These are some of the lessons that can be learned on board the Spirit.