Spirit of South Carolina gets underway in Charleston Harbor for a day dedicated to crew training. These sails have no passengers and no program schedule to keep, so we can slow down on the evolutions that matter and repeat them until they are clean.

Each training day focuses on a specific part of sail handling. One day the work may center on setting, striking, and furling the headsails. Another may concentrate on the continuous motion setting main to foresail;, tacking and gybing ship, or the coordination between the helm and the pinrails during a maneuver. Crew rotate through sail stations over the course of the day, so everyone learns the lines, commands, and timing of positions beyond the one they usually stand. T

Training days also give us time to run the safety drills our Certificate of Inspection requires, with each person taking a different station on each round.

We…