Learning The Ropes

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED JUNE 1, 2007

On any given summer day, the sounds of another era echo from a schooner near the South Street Seaport.

“Ready on the forepeak?” cries the captain.

“Ready on the forepeak!” the crew responds.

“Haul away!”  the captain calls out.

“Haul away!” roars the crew, hoisting a large white sail up the mast.

So begins a typical sail for Pioneer, an 1885 ship that belongs to the South Street Seaport Museum. From May through October, the boat sets out from Pier 16, at John Street, as many as five times a day, often seven days a week. Her crew, though they tie clove hitches and haul sails like old salts, are mostly landlubbers: paralegals, bankers, computer engineers, retired folk.    

“It’s one of the most incredible top secret volunteer programs in New York,” says Kathy Dwyer, whose day job is coordinating volunteers for a non-profit organization. “You can come without any background and actually learn something.”

In exchange for sanding, painting, swabbing decks, raising sails, making repairs in winter and helping passengers in summer, Pioneer volunteers get a full course in sailing the 102-foot long schooner. And there are plenty of opportunities to practice.  

Pioneer is a public tour boat and a charter vessel as well as a floating classroom, where children learn about marine ecology, navigation, and the history of the New York harbor. All of these voyages need volunteers. (The Coast Guard requires that the captain and first and second mates be paid; but even they tend to be volunteers with full-time jobs.)

One of the oldest ships plying the New York harbor, Pioneer began its life humbly as a flat-bottomed vessel designed to haul sand. Sailors simply beached the boat, filled the hold with sand, and waited for the tide to come in.

“We joke that it’s basically an old-fashioned dump truck,” says Fielding Dupuy, a volunteer and second mate. 

Nevertheless, nearly 50 people interested in learning to sail her came to a recent volunteer recruitment event. Rowana Shepard, an art teacher and part-time clown, was there because her father had been a skipper in Holland. “Saltwater runs in my veins,” she said. “I want to become a captain.”

“I sailed a few times on a boat in Boston,” said Carlos Cadenas, another attendee, “but I didn’t learn much. I saw this and I thought, ‘Wow!’”

Volunteers take two training sails before helping on a public sail. At one recent training sail, about 20 volunteers attended. Some had never sailed before.

Before shoving off, the group gathered amidships to meet the captain.

“Welcome aboard the Pioneer!” said Capt. Aaron Singh. “The cool thing about our program is that you guys can take as much out of it as you want.”

Singh is a prime example. He began volunteering on Pioneer in 1995, as a teen, and worked his way up. Now he is a full-time captain on the boat, when he’s not sailing ships for movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Master and Commander.” In the last 30 years, more than 100 people have earned captain’s licenses sailing Pioneer.

Besides a crash course in the boat’s anatomy, the volunteers on this recent training sail learned to coil ropes and raise sails, a strenuous endeavor often requiring four people to a line. It’s hard work, but the benefit is a camaraderie that keeps these seafarers coming back.

“Normally if you go sailing other places, you have to pay a lot, and it’s not as close-knit. Here you teach one another, you work as a team,” said Diana Moy, who began volunteering on Pioneer several years ago. “It’s more real,” she added, heading off to help tuck in reef points on the foresail.

For information about volunteering aboard Pioneer, call 212-748-8766 or email volunteer2@southstseaport.org.

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