Spirit of South Carolina nears completion

The 91' wooden schooner, scheduled for a 2007 launch, will serve as a floating classroom

By Jim Flannery

 

Brad Van Liew is more accustomed to raising money to build carbon fiber racing steeds than sturdy wooden workhorses.

Yet the workhorse, Spirit of South

Carolina, a 91' adaptation of a 19th- century Charleston-built pilot schooner, Frances Elizabeth, is on top of the round-the-world racer’s to-do list these days.

“I’m not as used to chain saws as I am to titanium and carbon,” says Van

Liew, co-director with his wife, Meaghan, of the South Carolina Maritime Heritage Foundation. The foundation’s chief goal right now is to finish building Spirit of South Carolina and develop a school-ship program for it.

 

The 91' ship is taking shape under a big tent in downtown Charleston.

Spirit’s launch is scheduled for early 2007. On July 18 the Van Liews announced Anthony L. Arrow, a 20-year school-ship veteran, as Spirit of South Carolina’s captain. He will lead the final phase of construction and work on Spirit’s education-at-sea program, which is its reason for being.

Arrow is an experienced educator and crewmember who worked his way up from deckhand to captain on the tall ships Niagara, Californian, Spirit of Massachusetts, Harvey Gam-age, Westward, Highlander Sea, Mystic Whaler and Rose. He will be developing youth sail-training and education programs ranging from daysails to multiweek voyages.

Co-director Van Liew has raced in two Around Alones — now called the Velux 5 Oceans Race — and won the 2002-’03 single-handed race in the 50- Foot Class. The Californian retired from around-the-world racing after his big win, moved his family to Charleston, S.C. — home for several runnings of the Around Alone — and put out a shingle for Van Liew Ventures, the couple’s marketing and consulting firm.

As co-directors of the foundation, the Van Liews are helping the city of Charleston showcase its long-neglect-ed maritime heritage while providing youngsters with an alternative classroom where they can learn while they sail.

The foundation is building the tall ship, and it is the organizer of the Charleston-to-Bermuda Race and the yearly South Carolina Maritime Her-

PHOTO: CHARLES SNEED

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