My Second Season with Pride II

I had zero notice that my position was no longer available aboard Virginia.

I wasn't really sure what I would be doing in the next week, let alone the sailing season. At this point, I had already interviewed for a seasonal position aboard Pride of Baltimore II, but I knew that I would not hear from them for at least a month. I decided to ask my sailing friends on Facebook if their were any immediate job opportunities in the industry. Days after Christmas, and everyone was home for the holidays, so I didn't expect to find a job anytime soon. Within an hour of posting on Facebook, I had two job offers. One offer was from a Captain of 

Pride II, they had one position open for

a winter maintenance deckhand! I 

considered this fate and told him I would be in Baltimore January 1st, giving me two days to pack everything and drive to Baltimore. I didn't think I would be able to make it home again before the sailing season, so I also made sure to bring my live-aboard and sailing gear. I should also add that this winter maintenance position didn't include housing, so I reached out to a friend's aunt, and she graciously agreed to let me stay in her guest room for the next two months. Everything worked out absolutely perfectly, and I really appreciate the fact that I'm in an industry where I can get offers quickly and be somewhere at the drop of a hat. I also want to add that one of my other winter maintenance deckhands, was actually from Norfolk and was my camp counselor years ago (2007). Small world.

Photo taken of me by Pride II 

Communications Assistant: Patrick Smith

The next two months, my job was a mix of sanding and varnish all the time. Constant brightwork maintenance is just a fact of working on a boat, let alone a wooden boat. I met some new, exciting and fearless sailors, but the days and weeks definitely started blurring together. Occasionally one of the mates would walk through and ask one of us if we wanted another project, and just being offered a new task for the day felt like a promotion. We varnished spars and blocks, polyurethaned soles and countertops, touched up

white paint down below.

At some point in January, our captains pulled us 

aside and offered jobs to those that had applied for the sailing season. I got offered a deckhand position, and was really excited to have another sailing season with this beautiful boat. There was a good mix of experience amongst seasonal crew, ranging from a week, to a couple years, to five-eight years in the industry. We also learned that the 2017 season itinerary included participating in the Rendez-Vous 2017 Tall Ships Regatta. I plan to write 

an entire blog entry dedicated to this, so stay tuned!

The first few months of the season were all up-rig, down-rig and private events, we also participated in Light City Baltimore. Due to us changing out rigging, but also needing to be fully rigged for the festival, we got a lot of experience up-rigging and down-rigging the boat. We sent the main topmast up, knowing we would be replacing the main forward runners in another two weeks, which would require us to bring the main topmast down again. We sent the fore topmast up once, realized the shrouds were on backwards and brought it down again. Two weeks later we replaced those shrouds and had to bring the fore topmast down again with the yards still rigged. Mid to late April we finally finished up-rig and tuning everything, giving us a few weeks to do daysails, visit Annapolis and get a full press shakedown sail with the crew before heading down to Charleston 

for our first festival!

Fair winds,

Brandi Lynn

Fall and Winter in Norfolk

Wow! Turns out I haven't posted an update in two years, this needs to change.

So since I last updated you guys in 2016, I'll give run-down of what I've been doing and where I've gone. I'm going to separate this into a few posts, to avoid one enormous blog post. 

After leaving Lynx, I spent a few months at home in Norfolk. Schooner Virginia was recently purchased by Sail Nauticus, and I was able to pick up some part-time work on the boat. That part-time work also included a lot of volunteering, because I didn't know what to do with my free time while I wasn't living on the boat. I was able to sail the Harbor 20s quite a bit, although I wasn't a member so I was only able to go out when I could find a member who wanted to sail. I also got to try my hand at match racing a couple of times, and had a blast. I made some really great friends in Norfolk during those couple of months, I still try to keep in touch and talk to them occasionally.

                       

During my time on Virginia, we down-rigged most of the boat in one day. This was due to the large number of volunteers we had, it would NOT have been possible without them. This was also my first time working on rigging projects with volunteers, and it was really great to have more leadership responsibilities. I should also add that the schooner Harvey Gamage was in town that week, and the crew came over to spend a few hours helping us out! It just goes to show how strong the camaraderie is in the tall ship community. 

We were able to build a winter cover for the boat in November-December. We only had four crew, two of us being part-time, so it was definitely a bonding experience and included quite a bit of volunteer work as well. The boat had been sitting at the dock uncovered for two years, so building a winter cover was ideal for us to get some refinishing work as we got into the colder months. All of her brightwork had gone completely blonde and was flaking off in places, so the refinishing she got was overdue. Due to some funding issues that I won't go into detail about, they could no longer pay me at the start of January, so I decided it was time to move on. I will continue my update in the next blog post!

My view for these couple of days wasn't terrible

Our Captain actually designed this mast platform for the mast oiling project, the carpet made great chafe gear around the inner portion of the platform while against the mast. It was really hard to hang it from a halyard in a comfortable and balanced way. He spent a few days on it sanding both the masts, and I followed behind with oil.  

My mast oiling setup, deck bucket with lots of lanyards and rags!

The Norwegian Sail-Training Vessel Statsraad Lehmkuhl came into port in November, and I went over with my friend Coraidh and was able to get a tour and climb aloft! I wanted to include this because I took my GoPro with and got some great pictures of the harbor. 

Fair winds,

Brandi Lynn