♪ ♪ So haul, haul away ♪ ♪ ♪ We'll have been ♪ hull-ward today ♪ Narrator> In about the 1960s, a group of people, actually a group of idealists, wanted to see what it was like to sail a Hudson River sloop.

They found that, there wasn't a whole lot of information available without a lot of digging.

They had to start right from scratch to build what is essentially now about a 95% accurate Hudson River sloop, reminiscent of the era of about 1860s, the height of the revolution.

(singing) We haul away and will haul away haul the pink.

♪ ♪ ♪ Dennis> Now, the complement of crew that operate this boat oh consists of about eight permanent hands.

A sail for the whole season.

Then of course, we have a very special program that's made up of six volunteers.

Many of them have never sailed a boat before.

We help them out by providing them with what's called a slooper's handy guide, something to sort of prep them for their week aboard the sloop.

Captain> A sailboat can't go straight into the wind.

It tails, You know, you've noticed the sails flap... Dennis> Our current captain, his name is Peter Wilcox.

He's in his early 20s, and he probably knows more about that boat than anybody who's ever sailed it.

Captain> ...The least amount of time.

I think maybe we'll just sit off the channel a little bit.

For this cruise I'm a member of the permanent crew, and I am one of the onboard environmentalists.

In the years that the sloop has actually traveled the waters of the Hudson and the Sound, our main emphasis has been an environmental education program.

But we want to try something new.

And this week we decided to attempt a monitoring program.

Where we would actually sample certain select portions of the Hudson River all the way from Albany, going down south to New York City.

Helping me out on this tour is Nancy.

There are many tests that have to be run simultaneously.

We can do both things much quicker if there are two of us working on it.

We have two guests, Charlie and Carlene.

And they're kind of helping out Nancy and me.

Carlene> Just by looking at the river, you can't tell the pollution just by looking at it.

So that's why we had to run this pollution test every ten miles at different stations.

Dennis> We're down about the Kingston Point at Roundout creek.

And that's where our station six is.

That's right over there.

We can sample close enough right in here with this gear.

Now, the first thing that we're going to use is this dredge.

We want to get some soil samples, of the very heavy silt load that occurs in this bay right out here.

The Hudson River is a very silty river, and it's literally impossible to see all the way down to the bottom.

But we do have a means of, well, sort of grabbing samples from the bottom and bringing them up and testing them.

And we do that with what's called an Ekman dredge.

Dennis> Now, so far, you go in with the dredge.

All right.

Okay, Carlene, you got that pretty well?

Charlie> You take the Ekman dredge, you lower it down to the bottom of the river.

Dennis> All right.

Good.

Okay.

That's... How's it feel?

Okay, so far.

Okay.

She's hit.

Charlie> When it hits the bottom, you send the messenger down, which triggers it and shuts the dredge.

And after that, you pull it up, and then you have your soil sample.

Dennis> All right, just open up the gates there Charlie.

Oh, yeah.

She's filled up with water... After the sample has been dumped into a bucket, we usually bring that bucket down below into the galley itself.

Once it's all dry, we make a soil extract.

It's a liquid extract that we can test for all sorts of parameters, like nitrates and phosphates, things that are contained within the soil itself.

This type of disk, called a Secchi disk, if we lower into the water at one point, will eventually disappear.

At that point, we can get an idea of how far the light has actually penetrated into the water.

It's a very simple, rough, quick and dirty way of finding what's called the photic zone or the planktonic zone.

Right about there.

The plankton are little animals and plants, but especially plants that must have sunlight to live.

And so they have to exist up near the top of the water.

All right.

2.5 feet, I'd say.

You'd say about 2.5 feet or so around there.

Charlie> When we pull the sails up, it's usually about 20 to 25 people helping us out.

But in the 1700s, there was only about a 12 man crew.

So that's six men on each line.

I don't see how they could do it, because we have a hard enough time with 20 people.

It may be a hard job putting it up, but after you finish with it, you take one good look at it and it looks very nice.

♪ Hudson River ♪ ♪ runs to the sea ♪ ♪ And the winds are ♪ all good to me ♪ ♪ ♪ Sun and Moon ♪ ♪ keep me company ♪ ♪ ♪ So haul, haul away ♪ ♪ ♪ We'll have been hull-ward ♪ ♪ today ♪ Howie> Each morning that we wake up, we just have to look at the chart in the galley, telling us what our job is for that day.

There are approximately five jobs, and everyone gets to do each and every one of them.

You don't get left out.

The one that I enjoy most is probably working in the galley with Phoebe, and like she showed me around the first time, she showed me the wood burning stove which we actually have to cook our own wood and stuff.

And, the ice box they have, which uses like 400 pounds of real ice each week.

we also have other jobs like, clean up the main cabin.

The main cabin is used for sleeping and eating all the meals.

The crew stays in about 12 bunks we have in there and the meal times we all get together and have dinner at the main table.

Dennis> Gather round here.

I want us all to join in something together.

All up and down the Hudson and out in the Sound.

We invite groups of students and adults too, to come aboard for about a three hour educational cruise.

♪ We greet the sea ♪ ♪ and it goes on and on ♪ ♪ watching the river run ♪ ♪ further and further ♪ from things that we've done ♪ ♪ leaving them one by one ♪ ♪ And we have just ♪ ♪ begun ♪ ♪ Watching the river run ♪ ♪ Listening and learning ♪ ♪ and yearning ♪ to run river run ♪ ♪ Dennis> Well, here we are finally in New York City.

We started all the way from Albany, worked our way down all sorts of little towns, beautiful areas.

And finally, in the biggest... the biggest city.

It's a beautiful area.

A lot of exciting things to do here, but there's a lot of terrible things here too.

It's a real lesson in contrasts.

The river itself has a lot of life in it down here because it's saltwater and there's one heck of a lot of variety in salt water.

But it could have one lot more than it has now because of the incredible pollution that's in there.

Charlie> As we got to New York City, everything is completely changed.

Nothing but skyscrapers, tall buildings and, a lot of pollution coming up in the air.

And a lot of raw sewage going down to the water straight from the houses.

Dennis> Well, okay, you can see we've got the probe down there, we're making a reading right now.

Charlie> Fish and other living creatures under the water need oxygen in order to survive.

And a way, you can figure out how much oxygen is in the water by dissolved oxygen test.

Dennis> Okay I see.

Yeah.

About 5.5 we have on the meter.

This is our the electrical, it's a membrane electrode method of running it.

And now you have some sort of understanding how it reads.

Turn it off.

And, where are we anyway?

What river are we on?

East River, right?

Sure.

And over there is Manhattan.

Right?

The East River is a very narrow body of water.

Now it's fed a lot, of course, by Long Island Sound.

The way we're heading... One of the most important tests we can run on any body of water is for the amount of oxygen actually dissolved in that body of water.

And there's two methods of running that.

One is a very traditional method and it's a chemical method.

The other method is very recently invented, and it's through the use of a sort of a meter, some batteries, electricity and a little membrane.

Now, what we have to do is to correlate this electrical method, the membrane method, with another method that's much more, traditional.

The Winkler method.

Charlie> Pollutants really cut down on the oxygen level.

What you want to find is a very high oxygen level in the water, because that means there's a lot of creatures living under the water.

Nancy> In the main cabin, we've got the table to work at and it's all set up for us.

So this is the solution we added with the dry acid and, that turned yellow.

We had a, clear and chemical solution drop by drop, and the number of drops it takes to clear the water sample tells us exactly how much oxygen there is.

And we hope that this corresponds with what we got with our electrode method.

Great.

Okay.

Well, that means that, there you added how many drops.

Carlene> 5 drops.

Nancy> Yeah.

Well, that means that there are five parts per million of oxygen.

If, you have a trout stream or something.

The trout require at least eight parts per million of oxygen to live.

So a trout, even if the water down there was clean, fresh water, they couldn't live because there's not enough oxygen.

Charlie> Soon as I got on the Clearwater, I just felt the warmth of the people who were on the boat.

And most of the people are fairly young, and they're really concerned about the condition of the river.

I mean, everyone's out there trying to do their best that they can to help clear up the water.

♪ Haul away ♪ ♪ Summer sun ♪ ♪ shines down on my back ♪ ♪ ♪ August loom ♪ rolls over the deck ♪ ♪ ♪ Autumn rain ♪ comes out of the west ♪ ♪ Dennis> The idea of having a Hudson River sloop called the Clearwater is to have people come on down to that river.

Take a look at our sailing craft sail on it with us, up and down what is really a beautiful river.

And then tell them to not forget it, to start remembering it and start doing something about it.

To make it really beautiful again.

As beautiful as it was when the Dutch came over here at first to see a brand new land, pristine water, water that they could actually drink out of.

Something that they, they really cherished.

♪ Haul away ♪ ♪ We'll have been ♪ hull-ward today ♪ ♪ ♪ (indiscernible chatter) (bell ringing) Coach> Cayman Brac is a very small island.

And therefore we have small population, a small school population and sports as such... are not very sophisticated.

The knowledge of sport and the technical areas of sport is very limited.

And so we adapt as much as possible with a very small amount of money and a lot of enthusiasm.

They do all sorts of work to make a go of an activity.

We raise money for trips.

We will beg or borrow almost any type of material to make our own equipment.

Okay, that's enough stretching.

Let's get out to the practice area and get a good workout.

Let's go now.

Made our own high jump pit.

We dug our own long jump pit.

We don't have a track nor anything that resembles a track, so we paint chalk lines for running lanes in the street.

When we do have a track meet here at the Brac, we actually line off the airport runway so that we can have our running events.

Okay listen up now, will be going up to Gainesville on Thursday, and I want you to take care of the few minor problems that you've got with your different events and get them straightened out so that when we get up there, you are all ready to do some heavy work and some good performances... against a lot, a lot of people.

Okay, now everybody knows where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do.

Let's get some heavy action in and some good performances today.

So we got all the problems taken care of just as soon as possible.

Well the Florida Relays are probably the outstanding relay carnival in the southeastern United States.

Last year, when we came up for the first time and none of the kids had ever been to the States, we had 19 kids and none of them ever been to the States before.

Athlete> On your mark!

Get set.

Go!

On your mark!

Get set.

Go!

Coach> Well, I have a training program for each particular type of event, but, they have to do a lot of work on their own.

And they also act as assistant coaches.

Athlete 2> Good jump.

Kick it in.

You got to really use a knee.

A lot of times I help out in our high jump and I really enjoy coaching the kids.

And to really get the people who are interested in sports events and people who are not interested in sports to pick up sports and to do it the right way.

Great height, but you got to get your head to drop to get the arch in your back.

♪ ♪ ♪ Athlete> Hi Mr... Is Carl here?

Coach> Of course.

I can't really say.

Run so many, 660 yard runs and stuff like that.

But what I do is, I've measured off the distance.

I tell them, run so many light poles.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Athlete> Life on Cayman Brac is, different from United States.

Because living here is like, families everywhere you turn.

And everyone is like a jolly big family on the island.

You go to school, everyone knows each other.

And it's like, it ain't a large school.

It is a small school where everyone can really call you by name.

And it's no stranger that come there that they don't know about.

♪ ♪ ♪ Running on the island shore really toughens your feet.

You got to pick a spot to put your foot for every step.

And if you get a nice spot to step on, it's easy.

If you're feet ain't hard, you can get a real cut up.

But for me, I can just run on the shore, and it doesn't affect my foot at all.

(indistinct chatter) I really like traveling, cause a real excitement to see such things.

Like to get some idea of how everything is on the outside.

And I really enjoy going to somewhere else and coming back and feeling, you know, fresh again.

Get back on the island.

Coach> Okay, listen up.

Let me have the passports, please.

Everybody... And we'll be ready to go.

It is a big deal.

And that's just what it is.

It's a big deal.

It's a community project and it's a community idea.

And it really generates community pride.

(plane engine starting) (crowd cheering) Coach> Okay.

Listen up now.

This is what it's all about.

I want you to pay close attention to everything that's going on today.

I want you to watch the people who are in your kind of events.

The people in the colleges, the people in the high school.

Learn from what they're doing.

Learn from how good they're doing.

Okay, everybody, let's get out here and warm up.

Expecting everybody to do their best today.

Come on now.

Let's go.

♪ (starting gun fires) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Coach> Great, Dex.

Good effort Dex.

Great Paul, fine, fine work.

We come to an event like this one with the idea that we're going to do our best no matter what that is.

Being first is good, but competing is, is our bag.

You might say.

(music fades) ♪ (bluegrass music begins) These beautiful duck calls were handmade by Bill Grant, a lifetime resident of Camden.

Grant, a duck hunter for many years, has turned his hobby of making duck calls into a thriving business.

♪ Bill> I started about ten years ago trying to find a duck call that would fit my needs, what I wanted.

I never could find one, so I made my own.

And once I got the first one made like I wanted it, I made me up a jig.

And of course, my friends wanted one too cause they sound pretty good.

So, then I started making them and they told other people about them, and it kind of grew from there.

And, we make probably 5, 600 a year now, and sell them pretty well all over the country.

(machine whirring) We start off with just a square block of wood, usually comes in boards about eight feet long, 2.25 inches thick.

And we saw it in blocks.

Then we turn it on, and lathe it round.

Once we get it turned we cut the blocks to length, four inches long.

As soon as we get those cut then we drill a hole in it.

And put it on, back on the lathe and then shape it.

To shape it, we want... for the barrel for the duck call.

♪ The, wood we use is called a Tigerwood, comes from South America.

It's a real hard, dense, very dense wood.

and it won't absorb moisture.

Course it's heavy, it won't float either.

And we get it from a lumber company out of New York, that handles most all kinds of exotic woods from foreign countries.

And that's the main reason we use it, because it is so hard and makes an excellent sounding chamber for the duck call.

We usually take, about 50 at the time and work about 50 times over it.

We do each step on each one, all 50 of them, so that when we get through, we have all 50 of them done pretty well at the same time.

Instead of just trying to make each call individually, go through all the steps on each one, we do a whole bunch of them at the time.

It takes us about, ten days to two weeks to make 50.

♪ Course during the duck season, it takes us a little longer than that because we have to stop to duck hunt a little bit.

♪ And we turn the wood, basically, we turn it round just with a lathe tool.

And once we get it, start to shape it, we use a regular hand wood chisel then we use two or three different types of chisels.

Ones a roughing chisel and the other's a finish chisel.

And after we get the shape that we want, we use a rough sandpaper first to smooth the wood down and then use two other types of sandpaper a little finer.

And of course the brown, the black rings on the call are burned in there with a wire.

That's kind of a trade mark.

We put three rings on each end of the barrel and three rings on one end of the insert, so that they match up.

♪ Most people looking for the call, it sounds more like a duck.

And they want one that's easy to blow, and that you don't have to put a lot of wind in to blow it.

Of course, they have to learn to blow any duck call, but this is an easy call to blow.

As far as the amount of air that you have to put through it to get the volume and sound out of it.

♪ I won't make a duck call that doesn't sound right.

I won't ship one out to anybody that doesn't sound to suit me.

(scraping sound) ♪ Course some different people, the same duck call will sound different when different people blow it.

But basically this, this call sounds as much like a duck than anyone I've heard.

The insert part is made basically the same way.

It's just a square block of wood turned to shape.

And then we put the jig and saw it to shape, and cut it and tune it where we put the reed and cork in it, and then we put the finish on it.

We use a tru-oil which is a gun stock finish, basically a varnish type finish, and we use five coats.

We sand between each two coats, and when we get the five coats on there we buff them with a buffing compound and then wax them before we send them out.

(machine humming) This is the final step we go through before we ship them out.

Polish them, wax them and test them out to be sure they sound right.

(mimicking duck sounds) quack, quack, quack Studio See wants poems and ideas from everybody that watches the show.

If you have any, just put them in an envelope and send them to...

Studio See, SCETV, Columbia, South Carolina 2-9-2-5-0.

And remember, get them there fast.

Get'em there any way you can.

(horse galloping) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (children laughing) Announcer> Major funding for this program is provided by this television station and other public television stations.

Additional funding was provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.