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Ernestina Logbook Page

Date: Tuesday, September 12, 2000
Time: 2000 EDT

We sat at Fan Pier tied alongside the Schooner Harvey Gamage on Monday. Maintenance took place- tarring the head rig and shrouds, oiling boxes, stopping the leak in the airhorn compressor, swapping out a new jib sheet, end for ending the main sheet etc. We continued orientation for new crew along with a food delivery and other preparations for the next trip. We met with Capt. Doug Liesure and Program Coodinator Jim Coor from Schooner Harvey Gamage to discuss the trip to come, with time in the afternoon for some crew to visit the New England Aquarium, a visiting Viking ship and to grab showers. Pre-trip meeting over dinner. The bunks were prepped, plenty of food, fuel and water aboard as we ready for St. Margarets McTernan.

Today St. Margaret's McTernan arrives for a four day program. The group of 15 arrived from St. Margaret McTernan's around 11:15 this morning: thirteen students and two leaders. We took an hour orientation to the holds before departure, raised the fore and jumbo and satiated our appetites before raising the main and jib off of Deer Island Light. We are travelling in company with the Harvey Gamage who also has a group of 10th graders from the same school. We departed about the same time, both sailinf for anchorage in Gloucester Harbor tonight.

As seen in the chart image, we are just passing the Graves on our starboard after departing the South Channel. The 20-25 knots predicted SW wind is showing up more Southerly at about 10 knots. We are headed downwind Gloucesterbound at the moment....about to set the jib topsail.

Our line and sail handling training paid off as we sailed up to our anchorage and struck and furled all sails just as the sun was setting and the full moon was rising. Dinner on the hook.

Our evening activities explored the cultural and exploritory history of the ship with a creative game show hosted by Crista Mellican. Everyone is asking more questions about the ship now!

Our longtime volunteer deckhand, Gregg Germaine, paid a visit to the Harvey Gamage to offer an evening class in navigation. He covered the basics of celestial and solar navigation (sun and stars) with a demonstration of the technology used from the 15 to 18th century. He demonstrated that the mathematics required for people to make these instruments exceed the tenth grade level, and great achievements can be made with constant learning. Gregg will be giving the same class to our students tomorrow morning.

Wind: S'ly, Force 3
Visibility: Sunny, Good
Barometer: Falling Slowly

Captain: Amanda Madeira
Program Coordinator: Crista Mellican

We would like to thank Lotus and IBM for donation of software, hardware and funding to enable regular electronic updates from the ship.

NOAA Chart is provided courtesy of Maptech using Cruising Navigator 4.3 and grabbing the image using Grabit Pro 6.02.

 
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Copyright 1997-2000
Schooner Ernestina
New Bedford State Pier, P.O. Box 2010, New Bedford, MA 02741-2010
phone 508.992.4900 -- fax 508.984.7719
www.ernestina.org

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