The weather was not cooperating with us this year.  The day started off with the wind topping off around 40 knots.  It settled down to an easy 20-30 knots by the time the event started.  People still came though to see Santa on the ship and enjoy all the fun crafts and activites in the museum.  I think it is testament to the people of Erie that you will still come out to an event in that kind of weather.  Our volunteers also were there in large numbers to make sure the event went well.  We even had one of our volunteers celebrate his 16th birthday with us that night.  In case you missed it take a look at these pictures:

Last Saturday we had party at the Sunset Inn which overlooks the channel that we come out of and go back in every time we leave and return to Erie.   It was well attended and a great time was had by all.  The Sam Hyman Band provided some music to dance to.  The staff and the Sunset provided some good food to eat.  Captain Heerssen made his wassail and eggnog which are both always crowd pleasers. 

We also gave out some awards which were:

3. Freshly Tarred Award- presented to the volunteer whose technical skills or knowledge of the ship have shown the most improvement and growth in the last year.  This award was presented to Beth Landers.

4. Sea Mouse Award- presented to a volunteer who is under the age of 18 and has either contributed the most volunteer service or shown the greatest dedication and achievement toward the practice of good seamanship.  This award was presented to Jamie Badams.

5. US Brig Niagara Volunteer Crewmember of the Year- presented to the ship’s volunteer crewmember who participated in winter sail training, and contributed greatly toward ship’s maintenance and frequently sailed as a crewmember.  This award was presented to John Stanford.

Once again, to all the volunteers, Thank You for all your support and help this year.  This program exists because of you.

The last forecast I saw had 2-4 inches of snow in it for the Erie Waterfront.  I guess that means that summer is finally over.  Luckily, we got the winter cover on before the snow came down.

Pat, Rob and Isaiah have been working to get the rest of the small pieces of the cover put in which hasn’t been too bad so far but as the wind had increased

the temperature has been dropping.  Tomorrow there will be snow and they will be outside seizing off the Main Shrouds.  We will most likely be working outside for another 2 -3 weeks until eveything is finally ready for winter.  So, think warm thoughts for your friends down here on the US Brig Niagara.

The day everyone has been waiting for is finally here!!  Cover Day will be on Saturday November 21st.  Muster will be 0830.  The Pro Crew will be working all this week to start assembling the framework and hopefully will be done by Saturday to spread out the canvas.  Anybody who can come down and help us out this week are more than welcome.

See you Saturday!!

As promised there has been some changes to the schedule and here they are.

2010 Sailing Schedule Version 12-15-09

I have also changed the schedule in the previous post as well.

2010 Sailing Schedule Version 12-15-09

So the schedule has been put together as best we can this far in advance.  We wanted to get this out there as soon as possible so people start making plans now.  There is always a chance that the schedule will change and we will contact anyone who is affected by the change if you have signed up for a particular passage.  As soon as we have determined what the TBD(To Be Determined) sections will be I will update the schedule with a new post.

I encourage all of you to sign up to be a trainee for passages soon.  This is a big season for us with many great passages to make and thousands of miles to sail on all 5 Great Lakes.  We are also going to be a part of the Tall Ships Challenge Race Series with ASTA racing against many other tall ships.  With ports stops of Duluth, Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, Green Bay and Put in Bay it’s sure to be a fun summer and quite the adventure.  Trainees will start joining the ship once we start uprig and will leave once downrig is complete.  Let’s fill the ship this summer!

Who wants to go sailing?

The Stbd Main Channel is back on.  This project is only possible through the skill, dedication, and hard work of our head shipwright Bob Arlet.  Bob does his work in such a way that most people have no idea how difficult of a job he is getting into.  There are very few pieces, if any, left on Niagara that Bob has not built or rebuilt in the past 19 years.  Next time you are down on the ship, take a look around and I’m sure you’ll be looking at Bob’s work.  Next time you see Bob you can thank him.

The channel is the piece of wood that holds the lower shrouds and topmast backstays off the ship.  It is fastened to the ship just under the cap rail.  The Shrouds and backstays have irons that run through them before they terminate at the chain plates. 

We found some rot on the inboard edge of the Stbd main channel and in the whale strake just behind the channel.  The decision was made to remove the channel in order to repair the channel and replace the rotten part of the whale strake.   In order to remove the channel we were required to cast off our lower shrouds and topmast backstays.  This means will be tuning them this fall.  This project coupled with our extended sailing season is the reason why Cover Day has not been published or decided upon.  We need to finish this project and we will then decide on a day. 

These pictures should give you an idea of scope of the work that Bob and Pat are doing.

Today marks the end of the 2009 sailing season.  We will be down to only a couple seasonal crew left to help with maintenance.  The galley will stop operations and the crew will start living semi normal lives again.  We have sailed more days this summer than any other summer here in the Lakes.  In 84 days at sea we sailed 2673 nautical miles.  That is a lot of sailing for not doing a large voyage. 

I am very pleased with how the crew how done this season dealing uncertainties the entire time but still holding true to taking care of the ship, their shipmates and when they had time themselves too.  It has been an honor to sail with this crew and I can only hope that the 2010 crew will work as well together.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Winter Maintenance.  I know it’s not winter yet but it will be soon enough.  As usual there is a big maintenance project going on.  We will be replace at least one of our Main channels.  I will post about that project as it happens.  In the Rig Shop out goal is to get through all the pallets of rigging this year and we can use all the help we can get so anyone interested in volunteering come on down.

We made through this season and with everyone’s continued support we will hopefully be able to make through 2010 as well.

OK, so I didn’t finish telling everyone who the crew is/was this year but they have all left for the most part.  I also didn’t update anyone on what we’ve been up to this summer.  Well, I apologize for that.  I had the best of intentions sitting in my office in April but as soon as the sailing season hit I wasn’t sitting in my office anymore and the blog suffered.   I do intend on updating more often this fall and winter as the work progresses. 

That said, tomorrow will be our last sail of the season.  We will actually will be sailing with Pennsylvania Sea Grant and doing a program with them similar to the program that we have done with them twice this season.  We will be sailing with students from local schools both in the morning and afternoon.

If any of you are volunteers and would like to sail tomorrow let me know and we’ll go sailing!  Just send me an email at wisabatini@state.pa.us.