Yarns from the Yard - Summer 2020

by Sam Vaale, Operations Manager

During this unexpected shoreside summer, we’ve been able to spend large amounts of time on schooner maintenance. With the dedicated work of our crews, we’ve been able to tackle many projects that have been on our wish list for years, and the ships are looking great!

 Pacific Swift

The Swift has been getting quite the refresh! We have used this time to refinish, repair, and rebuild many elements onboard. The entire crew has been busy making new jaws on the main boom, making replacement and new baggywrinkles, and tracking down and preventing deck leaks.

Our bosun Brock has undertaken almost a complete refinishing of the fo’c’s’le, including removing all the bunk boards for refinishing at the shop and renewing or replacing the yellow cedar tongue and groove as necessary. First Mate Steve has been busy removing and repairing all the seat lockers in the hold to make them look as good as new as well as to improve the stowage within them. He has also done a full paint strip and refinish of the inner bulkwarks. This refresh has been overdue, but it’s incredibly difficult to find the time for such a job when we spend most of the year sailing with trainees out on the water. Skipper Tristan is refreshing the steel hardware on deck. It has been sent off for sand-blasting, re-galvanaizing, and painting before it will be reinstalled onboard. In our shop, Patrick has been redoing the bunk boards Brock removes, as well as building two beautiful new deck boxes to replace some of the Swift’s current ones.

Pacific Grace

Onboard the Grace, the crew has been hard at work refinishing everything, from the bowsprit to the topmasts! Their checklist includes the caprails, skylights, booms and gaffs, masts, companionways, and interior sections of the hold and fo’c’s’le. They have also done a tremendous amount of painting, focusing on the deckhouses, bowspit, ironwork, hull, and rig. In the shop, Patrick is building a new box for the Grace’s zodiac. This will provide more storage space for equipment in the zodiac, and also make loading and unloading easier. Finally, the crew has built a new fife rail around the main mast out of purple heart to replace the original pieces of fir which have been worn by thousands of feet of halyard running over them every week each time the mainsail is set.


  We are extremely grateful to our crew for all their hard work this summer. Thanks to their efforts, the ships are looking better than they have in decades! And when we can once again sail the coast together, all these improvements will give our  trainees an even better SALTS experience. We can’t wait to welcome them onboard to laugh, learn, and grow in community.