This two-masted vessel has carried cargo and partying passengers. It has been a movie star ("Joe Versus the Volcano"), a sailing racer and a luxury yacht.

In its latest incarnation, Spike has been leased to the Kaua'i-based environmental organization Save Our Seas, which will use it starting in January to teach kids about sailing and about the ocean environment.

"We'll turn kids into sailors, sailors into marine biologists, and they are going to save the world," said Steve Voris, executive director of Save Our Seas and a veteran skipper who will captain Spike.

For Voris, this association with the schooner was a kind of coming home. As a teenage boat junkie in Newport Beach, he spent a summer learning about sailing on a then-new "Spike Africa," working as a deck hand, gopher, whatever it took. He said it convinced him he wanted to spend his life on the sea.

"It kind of directed me to working on the ocean and being a captain," he said.

As a kid, he also had met the boat's namesake, a crusty, veteran seaman who was famous in California coastal sailing circles. A photograph of the original Spike Africa, with white moustache, goatee and a Greek fisherman's hat, hangs in the boat's main cabin.

Save Our Seas volunteers Katie Kurtenbach and Justin Kantor sand a wooden rail, or brightwork, that will later be varnished. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

He and a small crew sailed the schooner from California to Hawai'i in October, and he has since begun building a team of volunteers to do all the small maintenance duties that wooden boats require. The environmental group is responsible for maintaining and operating the boat. Voris said volunteers are showing up, but cash supplies remain tight.

"We basically depend on donations. Grants have become really competitive since 9/11," he said.

This weekend he and volunteers were taking sandpaper and heat guns to the brightwork—the nautical term that can apply to polished brass, but also to wooden rails, planks, hatches and other parts that are varnished to show off their warm natural color.

Steve Voris

"Our whole philosophy is, I need to teach the kids. They are the ones who are going to make a difference," he said.

They will walk unvarnished wooden decks and learn colorful sailing terminology, like baggywrinkle and gollywobbler. Baggywrinkle is fluffy unwound rope that is attached to a boat's rigging to keep sails from wearing by rubbing on it. And a gollywobbler is a large, light-wind sail that can require baggywrinkle to limit chafing.

They may also learn that most popular cruising boats may be sloops and ketches, but that Spike has a rig steeped in tradition. The two-masted schooner has a long bowsprit to allow it to carry additional sails, and a main mast significantly taller than its foremast.

They'll also learn that it takes some muscle power to sail the boat. In line with its adherence to 19th century tradition, it is short on labor-saving equipment.