Pinta Crewing: The Final Word

My time as a crew member on the Pinta ended on April 28. It ended prematurely and abruptly, as I had agreed to stay until May 16 - ten days after we arrived in Georgetown, SC.

However, even before the abrupt ending, I was having doubts and second thoughts about the whole Nina and Pinta project. The Columbus Foundation purports an interest in historical information, but in truth, it has only a peripheral interest in the public's knowledge and awareness of Columbus' 15th century explorations.

This is evidenced by the fact that crew members, who spend nine hours each day the ships are in port conversing with shipboard visitors, receive neither training nor supervision in their information sharing. Indeed some crew share little more than data gleaned from historical novels that are far more fantasy than history. Some supplement on-board data with information gleaned from the Internet, but the ship management personnel demonstrate zero interest in the factual accuracy of the information passed to the shipboard visitors.

Indeed, the only interest in shipboard visitors I saw expressed by management personnel was to insure that all visitors paid their admission fee. This, of course, reveals the actual focus of the Columbus Foundation.

The abrupt ending to my time as a crew member on the Pinta occurred on the evening of April 27. A drunken Captain Morgan and I engaged in a one-sided shouting match over why I was reading a book, and was not the third member of the crew attempting to fix a leaking drain in the galley sink. (I am sure three heads stuck under the sink would have greatly facilitated that repair, but to a drunk, ridiculous things may seem reasonable.) Captain Morgan was so drunk he thought it was morning, when it was 8:30 P.M. He kept shouting that I should not "mess with my captain in the morning".

After Captain Morgan left the galley, one of the crew members easily fixed the leaking sink, and I went to bed.

During the night, the captain's son came to my bunk, shined a light in my face, and asked if I was alright. I told him that I was fine, but that I would be leaving the boat as soon as we got to Beaufort, SC. He asked me if I heard what the captain had said, and I said, "Yes, I heard him say he was sorry he yelled at me, but that hardly was sufficient because no one could talk to me the way the captain had, and I was still leaving." The captain himself did not pay me the courtesy of a personal apology, and only mumbled a "morning Fred", as I passed him on the dock while I was carrying away my belongings.

Why am I writing this? It is my hope that potential volunteer crew in the future will read it and beware. The boat management team, the captain and his son, have not the slightest understanding of how to work with volunteers. Nor are they willing to be educated. If they were, some things would be readily apparent to them.
1. You inform volunteers of exactly what is expected of them.
2. You train those volunteers so they can perform as expected.
3. You supervise the work of volunteers to ascertain that they are performing as expected.
4. You have a system in place to correct and improve volunteer performance.
5. You treat the volunteers in a way that shows respect and appreciation for their work.

Captain Morgan and his son demonstrate a woeful lack of expertise in the area of volunteer personnel management. Rather, they seem threatened by any suggestion, as if their domain had been invaded. It is sad because they fail to realize much of the potential available to them in their volunteer crew.

Now, for those of you who want to discount this whole posting as "sour grapes", ask any of the crew members who served with me if I failed to carry my share, or if I performed poorly or grudgingly.

The Crew on the Pinta

This is our Captain: Morgan Sanger. He is the principle in the Columbus Foundation who originally envisioned building the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria for the 500th anniversary of Columbus' exploratory journeys to what became known as the America's. However, the financial and political climate in the 1980's precluded building all three ships, so they settled on the Nina first (1992), then building the Pinta in 2006. There most likely will not be a Santa Maria. The ships have no home port, but travel continually from port to port on both coasts of North and South America.

This is our First Mate: Steve Sanger (the captain's 22 year old son), who plans to follow his father's work in the Columbus Foundation.

This is Don Bradley. He has been crewing on the Pinta for about five weeks, and will leave the ship in Brunswick, Georgia to return to his "other" life. He and his wife are the operators of  "Palestinegardens.org", which is a miniature recreation of the Holy Land in rural Mississippi. He is a special guy! 

Sally (no last name) has worked with Captain Morgan for 30 years, and has served as crew on the Nina and Pinta many times. She has volunteered to do most of the cooking for us, and is very knowledgeable of the boats and their operation.

Brad Johnston has been a crew member on the Pinta for about six months. He is a former firefighter who plans to become an "Able Bodied Seaman". He needs 360 days experience on a boat for his license, and plans to stay with the Pinta until he has the required number of days .

We are in Brunswick, Georgia and will be here until Sunday, I think. The captain has given me the day off tomorrow - for good behavior! I don't know what I will do except sleep late and maybe walk around

town.

You can see how small the Nina is when alongside a modern container ship!

This boat is docked next to us here in Brunswick. It is a 1930 Electric Launch Corp. boat, that was about to be destroyed when the present owner boat it and had it restored. It is immaculate. The picture does not do it justice - especially the mahogany.

Osprey & Manitee Day in Titusville

Today we were open for visitors the usual 9:00 A.M until 6:00 P.M. Visitation was light, but tomorrow and Sunday will probably change that. The Manitees made themselves at home in the marina today, and a haughty Osprey watched over it all from her perch on our Mizzen Yard.

Two Manitees spent several hours scratching their backs on the bottom of a small sailboat, oblivious to all the attention they were getting.

Others spent the day drinking water that was dripping from a hose near another boat. This one laying on her back for an extended drink.

The sailors who thought these Manitees were mermaids probably looked forward to a blind date with someone described as "having a nice personality" also.

This is a baby Manitee holding on to its mother while reaching for the water dripping from the hose.

All in all it was a good day. We did some painting on the "Pinta" this evening, and the captain bought Pizza and beer for supper. Good way to end the week. Now for the weekend and hopefully more visitors. Channel 6 news helicopter was overhead today filming us, so that will probably help.

From Ft. Myers to Titusville

There is only one word to describe it - grueling! We left Ft. Myers at 5:30 A.M. and  motored up the River - the Nina ahead of us (above) - until 11:30 P.M., when we tied up to a railroad swing-bridge entrance. It would not open again until 6:00 A.M. the next morning. Our bow (where I sleep) was not more than 15' from the tracks, and the trains sounded as if they were going through the boat. When the bridge tender came in that morning he was more than a little surprised (and annoyed - our captain promised not to do it again) to find two ships clogging up the entrance.
We left at 6:00 A.M. and arrived in Titusville at 2:30 A.M. the next day. When the ships are traveling, the four crew (we were two crew short) spend two hours on watch, then two hours off, around the clock. We were up this morning at 6:00 A.M. and spent until nearly dark getting the boat ready for opening to visitors tomorrow. It took that long because we had had to remove so much rigging from the mast tops to clear the bridges on the way from Ft. Myers.

The captain has rigged up a neat system for steering the boat. Since it is tiller steered, and the tiller is under the poop deck, he set up a pully and rope system whereby we can steer from up on the poop deck by  moving the rope back and forth to turn the tiller. Pretty neat, but not easy. We steer for one hour of our two hour watch, and the other hour, if it is dark, shining a 15,000,000 candle power search light to illuminate the river edges, or find the channel markers. (I don't know who that old man is.)

It daylight it is not difficult, but at night it is a different matter.

This is one of the five locks we passed through crossing from Ft. Myers to Jupiter Inlet (east coast of Florida) on the Okeechobee waterway.

The Everglades is a pretty desolate looking place alongside the waterway.

Lake Okeechobee does not seem so large on the charts, but you cannot see from one side to the other. I did not get a distance or time-for-crossing measurment, but it is huge. And the wind blew about 20 knots from the east from the time we left Ft. Myers until this evening. Calming now.

The captain says he wants us up and ready by 6:30 in the morning, so......

From Tourist Attraction to Tourist

Sunday was a rainy day, and slow for visitors. For some reason the captain gave the entire crew a day off today (Monday). So I played tourist. Ft. Myers is a really pretty town - especially the downtown revitalized part.

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford had summer homes in Ft. Myers, and Edison had a laboratory and botanical gardens here. I toured them today. It was pretty impressive. Both their homes were pretty modest considering the wealth they accumulated during the lives.

We leave in the morning for Titusville about 200 miles away. The trip will probably take two days. We pass through two locks on the waterway, and that will be a new experience for me.

In the Ford musuem was a restored 1937 Ford. That was the first car I owned, and though mine was a convertible, the memory of that car was refreshed by seeing the one here. I bought it in 1951 when I was 15 years old. I actually drove it to get my first driver's liscense when I turned 16.

It doesn't look right in blue. Mine was black like an early Ford was supposed to be.

Ft. Myers is pretty, but a little artificial and antiseptic. The brick pavers are nice.

Edison's lab looks like a highschool lab room.

I met Tom and Henry walking around their places. They both seemed pretty nice - even ordinary - though kinda' quiet. Neither had much to say.

Tom's and Henry's houses.  They lived next door to each other. Of course Tom had a swimming pool in the back.

Miscellaneous Pictures of the Pinta

Miscellaneous pictures: top left - Main mast and yard.

top right - Anchor windlass & foremast

bottom left - Main Halyward

bottom right - Mizzen mast and poop deck

Today was just another day - Saturday - and we had about 1,000 visitors. Nine hours of being nice is trying for me. We will leave Ft. Myers on Tuesday morning and sail across the Florida peninsula on the Okeechobee waterway - it is not called that, but I am not going to look up the real name right now, or how to spell it. That is about 117 milles and we will reach the eastern coast of Florida. We will then sail north about 100 miles more to Titusville. We will stay there for four or five days and set out again.

And yes, I am still having fun.

In Fort Myers

We left Naples, Florida this past evening about 7:15. I had hoped we would be able to sail, but the bridge heights into Ft. Myers required that we lower the top mast of our main, and that made it impossible for us to sail. The Nina did sail most of the night, but they furled her sails early this morning because we began a 16 mile meandering journey up the river to Ft. Myers. We put the topmast back up after we arrived here this morning (for looks), but will have to remove it again to exit the Okeechobee canal on the east side of Florida sometime next week.

I served two watches last night: 10:30 - 1:30 A.M. and 7:30 - 10:30 this morning. I did get to serve as helsman, even if we did not sail. It is pretty neat sailing a boat this big (85', 102 tons displacement) with a tiller.

Here are some more pictures. I think we will stay here in Ft. Myers until Monday.