Farewell, St. Augustine!

Over the past week, the Lynx’s crew has been wrapping up maintenance projects, putting away paint and varnish materials, returning borrowed bicycles, and readying the vessel to depart from our berth in St. Augustine.  The “Oldest City” has been a wonderful host, but when the fenders alongside the dock start accumulating growth and are threatening to send out roots, it’s usually time to leave.

Like everyone else, we found that as we were preparing to leave, each crewmember had a list of things they hadn’t quite gotten around to seeing, eating, or drinking.  In our last days, the crew made visits to Castillo de San Marcos, better known as “The Fort;” the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum, where a wind gauge at the top of the tower was recording speeds of up to 60 miles per hour during our last week; some notable local eateries like J.T. Henley’s, A1A Brewery and Meehan’s, with arguably the best reuben sandwich in town and were even hosted by a former crewmember, T.C. Sheridan, at the Spanish Quarter’s Taverna del Gallo.  I know I didn’t cross everything off my list, so I’ll have to return to St. Augustine as simply a tourist one of these days, and take in all that I missed.

For the vessel, however, it’s on to new adventures!  On a balmy day that would have been perfect for varnish and wasn’t as perfect for sailing as we would have liked, Lynx left St. Augustine for Jacksonville, just a short way up the coast.  While still in the midst of setting sail, we were greeted by two Northern Right Whales, which frequent this part of the east coast during their calving season.  In fact, we saw a pair, presumably a mother and her young, playful calf.  The larger whale stayed quite still in the water while the smaller one swam nearby, creating quite a scene.  We enjoyed the view of the whales for a short time but were soon out of sight.  On the VHF radio throughout the rest of the day, we heard other boaters calling in reports of Right Whales, including one boater off the St. Johns River who was “surrounded” by them.  There are less than 400 Northern Right Whales left in existence, so the amount of activity was impressive.

After playing around with some of our less-frequently used canvas, the port split course and the stuns’l, we were having trouble finding a breeze that would get us to Jacksonville in time for our planned slack water arrival, and had to fire up the main engines.  We motored for a good part of the afternoon, but were able to shut down again and get some good sail training in by tacking the vessel a half-dozen times or so before we had to take in sail and head for the dock.

Our current dock in Jacksonville is at the St. Johns Boat Company, not far from the river entrance.  There are several other vessels here – both alongside and out of the water – but we have largely had the place to ourselves today.  A few visitors have stopped down, after having seen our masts and yards from the road. 

The crew’s main focus for the next couple of weeks will be maintenance on the yards and topmasts, which involves bringing them down to the dock to give them a thorough examination, coat of paint or varnish, and repair or replace anything that is not up to par.  I would liken it to preventive maintenance on a car – periodically, it’s best just to look under the hood and see how everything is.  Someone once gave me this piece of advice about cars, but I think it can be applied to topsail schooners as well – they’re only new the day you buy them!

There have been so many friendly, outgoing and incredibly helpful people in St. Augustine that I am afraid to try to list everyone.  Please forgive me for not mentioning you individually, and thank you to all our St. Augustine friends!  We hope to see you again sometime soon.

LeeAnne Gordon and the crew of LYNX

Hello again from St. Augustine!

This past week has brought a wide variety of weather across the area, and a wide variety of visitors across Lynx’s decks!  We’ve seen wind, rain, fog and bright sunny days, as well as a fifth-grade gifted class and two groups of active seniors.  In addition to our scheduled educational programs, we’ve had a spike in visitors since we reopened earlier this month.  If I had to guess, I would say the increase is largely thanks to a recent newspaper article that ran in the St. Augustine Record last weekend.  Reporter Justine Griffin and photographer Daron Dean visited the ship and were given the usual tour around the decks by one of the crewmembers.  As with most of the days here, we were busy at work on ship’s maintenance at the same time, and Justine and Daron received some unsolicited varnishing tips as well as the details for their story.  Since the article appeared, we’ve had a number of visitors specifically mention either the details of the article, or ask which one of the crew was featured in the onboard photograph.  It’s understandable — both Tyson and Dylan have heavy beards and wear knit watch caps, so it’s easy for the untrained eye to mistake one for the other.  Since the St. Augustine Record is published in both print and online formats, it’s hard to tell whether this proves that the newspaper isn’t dead, but it does show that folks still pay attention to the local news!
We are otherwise still heavily engaged in making the boat look pretty, concentrating our efforts on paint, varnish, and whatever else catches our eye.  The ship is starting to sparkle, and the crew can take pride in both the obvious results and in the comments and occasional job offers — everyone seems to have a little varnish that needs done, or brass that could be polished — that the public tourists give us.  As long as they don’t take the public up on those job offers, that is!

Until next time,

LeeAnne Gordon and the crew of Lynx

On behalf of the trustees of the National Maritime Historical Society I am honored to have the Society present you and the 1812 reproduction Lynx with the NMHS Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education at the New York Yacht Club at our 2011 gala awards dinner on Wednesday 12 October. The award is presented to you for your design, building and crewing the 1812 privateer Lynx, but most specifically for creating the Lynx sailing program to incorporate sail training with a hands-on educational experience of history.

Sincerely,
Ronald L. Oswald
NMHS Chairman

The NMHS Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Education honors individuals and organizations whose outstanding achievements in maritime education bring history alive for young people, providing real life results and getting young people involved in the continuous process of learning that will have a fundamental impact on their lives. The award recognizes work that teaches maritime history in a way that conveys the challenge, excitement and leading role of our seafaring past in creating today’s world. Past recipients of this award include David Rockefeller Jr. and Sailors for the Sea; Joyce Huber Smith and the Sultana Projects Inc.; Alix T. Thorne and Ocean Classroom Foundation; and Rafe Parker and the SEA Education Association at Woods Hole.

Happy New Year!

Today is the 11th and it seems the new year is already flying by!  Lynx is once again open to the public in St. Augustine, following a short holiday shut-down, and looking beautiful after the sole refinishing project.  We had the opportunity to go sailing as a crew a couple of times this past week, and it felt really good to get the vessel off the dock and allow her to stretch her legs a little bit.  For some of our new crew, this was their first time seeing her under sail, so we tried to make it worthwhile, motoring out past the St. Augustine inlet and throwing a couple of tacks in for good practice before heading back into the harbor.  To the untrained eye, it may have looked like we were blockading the nation’s oldest port!
After orienting the new hands to the sails of the vessel, we walked everyone through three emergency drills so that they could see the safety and lifesaving equipment on the vessel.  It’s always wise to make sure the crew are thoroughly prepared for an emergency, but we still hope that our drills are just that — drills. 
On Friday January 7th, we had an annual Coast Guard inspection with some of the personnel from Coast Guard sector Jacksonville.  The inspectors were impressed with Lynx and her crew, and our diligence in preparations made over the previous week paid off well.  Kudos to all of the crew for their hard work!
Finally, we are open again to the public, and getting back to work on the aesthetics of the vessel.  We have started scraping, sanding and prepping the fore fife rail and the galley hatch this past week.  Hours and hours of exposure to the sun had dried the old varnish and oil and left the wood weathered and blonde in many places.  We have taken both the fife rail and hatch down to their bare wood surfaces, exposing the beautiful angelique, hackmatack (eastern larch) and rich red mahogany underneath.  It’s a very satisfying process, and we look forward to building up several coats of varnish on the hatch and deck oil on the fife rail and hope that we can stay ahead of the maintenance to keep them looking great as we sail north this spring and summer.
Ah yes…a  new year, with new polyurethane, new varnish, new coats of oil and a new crew to train on the finer points of her sailing rig — what more could a vessel want?

Cheers,
LeeAnne Gordon and the crew of LYNX