Episode 39 Talking South Carolina Podcast Interview with Rick Crout with Spirit of Lake Murray Event Charters

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• Email: Spirit of Lake Murray
• Spirit of Lake Murray Website: Spirit of Lake Murray
• Social Tag: @Spirit of Lake Murray

Angela Barrett – “Hey, Rick.”

Rick Crout – How are you?

Angela Barrett – Good. I am so glad you’re finally on here. How long have I been begging you to do this?

Rick Crout – “Well, it’s been a while. We’ve been kept in, and I’ve been in and out a lot running that boat. So I’m glad. I’m glad to be here.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Nice new behind you.

Rick Crout – “Yeah, that’s. I’m actually sitting in my kitchen. Oh. What was the like there?”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Nice. Nice, nice. So now you and your wife. But, Walt, this boat in 22, right?”

Rick Crout – “Not my wife. Well, I mean, I am part owners with Norman Agnew.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, okay. Where? I got my.”

Rick Crout – “Wife and a half everything I’ve got. So. Yeah, you’re technically correct. Oh,”

Angela Barrett – “Good man, good man. Then she’s listening. So let’s talk about. So the spirit of Lake Murray is actually, an 80ft. I forgot the type of yacht, but it’s.”

Rick Crout – “Skipper liner’s the name the manufacturer lock up and, build it, and, it was. I think they took delivery of it down in Florida. One of the big hotel chains down there.”

Angela Barrett – “I gotcha. It came here to Lake Erie around 2008, and, did charter tours for about ten, 11 years, something like that.”

Rick Crout – “Here’s they had their license, and in oh eight, they, left it at the dock, but they lost their Coast Guard license and, and kept it as a beer garden, I guess, at that time. And just try to keep it going.”

Angela Barrett –

Rick Crout – “The owner decided to put it up for sale and Norman and I bought it, you know. Well December of, I don’t know, October of 22.”

Angela Barrett – “So and what in the world made y’all decide, hey, I want an 80ft yacht to Lake Murray. Well, it we.”

Rick Crout – “Well, a it was already here. That’s a good year. Would have, undergone the trouble of bringing it from Jacksonville, Florida. So I’ll give the Colton’s credit for that. They got it up here, and that was, a mammoth task to get that boat from Jacksonville on its own bottom up to Charleston. Pulled it out of the water in Charleston, took the top half the boat off, did some repairs, brought it up on two different 18 wheelers, I believe.”

Rick Crout – Yeah. Flatbed.

Angela Barrett – Wow. Wow.

Rick Crout – “Yeah. So amazing. Good. Grace. He had a he had a good vision and, brought it up to, I think they they put it in big man’s Marina, put it back together, and launched it with a crane. And, that’s how it got up here. That was expensive. And, something I don’t think I would, but anyway, we bought it in, October of 22, understanding that it needed a total refit.”

Rick Crout – “And so Norman and I decided to give it a shot, and we pulled it out of the water at Agnew’s like service, which was pretty much the only place that could do that. And I was that, oh, we got it out of the water, and we spent 14 months rebuilding the boat. We did everything. We gutted it.”

Rick Crout – “We put temporary supports to hold second, we replaced the whole bottom of the boat. Steel, all new bathrooms, galley, and, a brand new bar. It had never had a long big bar, and it had a little bitty bar in front, but the front of the boat, which was one of the better places to be I was the view was blocked with all the refrigeration in that tight line.”

Rick Crout – “So we just, you know, took all that out and pretty much, stored that made the windows bigger up there. Open that up. It was an atrium was a really nice place to be there. Opened the bar down the starboard side of the boat that this, got got like ten, ten seats, ten, 12 seats in it. And we had a fully licensed they had, restaurant and bar with a liquor license, wine, beer, liquor.”

Rick Crout – It had never had that before. All food had been catered. We we make our own food on the boat.

Angela Barrett – “So, you know, do y’all have, like a ship? That is for the boat. I mean, that’s somebody there.”

Rick Crout – “Yeah. Devil is his last name, and we just got a devil, and he’s from Charleston and, learned his trade down there. He’s very good. Our food has been, consistently. Right? Right. Very, we we all, you know, it’s like a restaurant. That’s what we want people to know is, is is several different things. It’s a boat.”

Rick Crout – “And once you get on the boat, you order from a menu. And it is like total restaurant week. We always have a ribeye. We always have some kind of fish, whether it’s a mahi or swordfish. We have a chicken of some sort. We have shrimp and grits. We have seasonal specials. We change the menu up, homemade desserts.”

Rick Crout – “Pretty much. And a lot of my sides, too. I mean, you know, just like a regular restaurant. So we won’t people will know you coming on the boat. You pay for a boat ride, which is very reasonable. And then you order from a menu. And we have drinks and, and just just like any sit down a restaurant, you get to.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. So let me ask you this, I know that y’all do both public and private charters, and have, different events on the boat. Yes. So how many people does that actually hold, Max?”

Rick Crout – “Actually, legally, we can hold 96 passengers.”

Angela Barrett –

Rick Crout – “We, and then, like a maximum of of, like, eight crew, but we normally don’t ever fill the boat up. And it’s not that we couldn’t, but when we go out on a dinner cruise, it’s very comfortable for our chef and our servers to handle. And two hours, 70, 75 people. And I haven’t had to 70 or 75, depending on the event.”

Rick Crout – “For a public cruise, because, you know, everybody, everything’s cooked or and so at that your nanny would be pushing that two hour. We need probably about three hours. And we’d have to make sure that the weather was good because about 20 of those people have to sit outside on the back deck, which is a wonderful place to be unless it’s raining.”

Angela Barrett – “Yes. And so, yeah.”

Rick Crout – “We can see, on the roof like 70 people. So that’s what we, we strive for on that amount.”

Angela Barrett – “So how long were your,”

Angela Barrett – The dinner cruises normally three hours.

Rick Crout – “Two hours. But you. Yeah. You know, in the boat or open. Let’s say we sail at 6 to 8. The boat will open at five. And always like an hour before you show up, get on board the boat, have a couple of drinks or whatever you’d like. In that point, you can actually start ordering your food if you want to.”

Rick Crout – “You can order the hand a lot of people order before we sail away. You know that way they can spend the last hour or so enjoying the ride. You enjoy it the whole time, but, you know, get the food thing done and, go out on the buy our book, talk on the back, enjoy the scenery because it’s beautiful.”

Rick Crout – You know? Yes. It just depends on personal touch.

Angela Barrett – “So now, there have been weddings done on the boat.”

Rick Crout – “Yeah, we’ve done a couple, done a lot of rehearsal parties, corporate events. We’re really trying to push the corporate events. We want, to do that more and more. It’s, you know, it’s it’s really nice when you do an event and you have 1 or 2 contact, individuals that come to the boat prior to, you know, week, two weeks or whatever.”

Rick Crout – “And they specify a menu that they want. So you sit down with Emily and Steve, general manager and our events coordinator, and double the, chef, and you, they put together a menu, whatever they want. We’ll put it on there. And so and we’ll price the menu out. That’ll be part of the cost. You know, if it’s just barbecue, that’s going to be one level.”

Rick Crout – “And if it’s something fancier, you know it’s going to be a different level. And we give them a cost of, of the boat, and the, and the food and then of course, you know, sometimes they’ll have an open bar. They take care of that, too, or sometimes they say, well, they’re going to drink that, but let them pay for their own drinks.”

Rick Crout – So it and we can pretty much set it up however you want.

Angela Barrett – “And so how far down? You’re. Because you’re here, closer to the dam on it for people there. Yeah. The probably up or down the lake. The you go.”

Rick Crout – “Where we’re limited. You know, we generally run the boat, about five knots. If I’m not going miles per hour. So for our trip, you know, you go out about five nautical miles. That’ll take you just about to lunch Island or bomb Island, you know, not quite that far, but about in the center of the lake. A lot of times we’ll go up in 40 Love Cove, because there’s some beautiful homes up there and the the end of that.”

Rick Crout – “And turn around and come back. Go back out around Susie Egbert a lot of times will come out, go past Susie, off our starboard and go, through what we call go cut, which is go down and go out in the main part of the lake. Or you can see the dam that just happens to be that my house where we’re sitting right now.”

Rick Crout – “I’ll come in this cove a lot, because that’s exactly what our.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah,”

Rick Crout – “Water even at us or whatever. And, we’ll turn around and go back. Back that way. And maybe we’ll go outside of of, go. And that way you can get a better view of the bomb on that type thing. But we don’t go unless we have a private event. And they say, well, we want to be picked up somewhere that we could actually pick you up.”

Rick Crout – “You know, then we can go farther. And one of the things we’re going to start doing is we’re going to be Putnam’s on Sundays, pretty much is a food truck for them because they don’t really have any food. And that’s going to be from, like, I don’t know, noon to about 4 or 5:00. And, we’re going to do that starting the 18th.”

Rick Crout – “I think of, I think is well, April, I’m not sure what’s what’s better than that. 40th April. Yeah. Okay. April may be in May, but you’ll have to check the the calendar. I forget, but we’re going to be up there for the summer. On Sundays.”

Angela Barrett – It was a reservation. People need reservations.

Rick Crout – “Do not you just come? It’s a food truck. But if you want to make them, that’s fine. We’ll know who’s gone, and. But we’re going to be there. Yes. Come on. They’re very excited about it because and rightfully so, we’re going to bring a lot of people and it’s going to be very visible on the like.”

Angela Barrett – Right.

Rick Crout – “They have spots for people to park their boat so they can come by boat, get off their boat, come over, get on ours. So it it’s going to be fun thing today we’re traveling, you know, cohabitate with a lot of different businesses around. Like we’re going to have an oyster cruise, coming up in about three weeks on the fourth, 2 or 3 weeks.”

Rick Crout – “And a good friend of mine, I play a lot of golf with John Sparrow, the, the Oyster Bar, and, Mary is a delight. They’re going to provide the oysters. They’re going to do more. We could do them. We figured, you know, he can invite all his people, invite our people. And then I’m a member of Mid Carolina Golf Course.”

Rick Crout – “We’re going to invite them. And we’ve already got about 40 people already signed up, and it’s several weeks away. So I have an oyster cruise. For those people who don’t like oysters, we’re going to have barbecue. So it’s a couple, but it’ll be fun. You know, people are looking forward to it. So we’re trying eight different things that are exciting and different for, you know, and include different restaurants that might want to guest chef on our boat and bring some of their clients.”

Rick Crout – “And, you know, everybody wind.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. What, so far as y’all been up? Because y’all have actually started charters when I know how long it take to do the renovation was back up. 14 months. 14 months? Yeah, I knew it took a while.”

Rick Crout – “December of 23 is our first cruise. It was, the I thing about the lights cruise or sun Christmas. So. Yeah, that was our first one and we weren’t sure. I mean, we did, but the first year, including that one, we did 200 on the on the money 200 cruise.”

Angela Barrett – “Well and so far, what do you think is the most popular curry.”

Rick Crout – “Where our sunset dinner cruise is kind of our mainstay? Another big, you know, big popular cruise is our purple Martin cruise with those last year. And we were doing 2 or 3 a week and we were getting good loads of people. And we are we already have those out, for, you know, July and August. So if anybody wants to do the Purple Martins, you know, we’re going to be doing them like Thursday through Sunday, every cruise will be out towards the island where you can at least, you know, get a view of the birds and then, incidental cruise too, so you can eat, go out, see the proper”

Rick Crout – Martins and come back.

Angela Barrett – “And by that time of the day, that’s when, when I call, they start doing that, the swarm, you know, where they’re getting ready to go to bed, and they go around for after on. And it looks like. I mean, it’s just it is amazing. The city that.”

Rick Crout – “The largest, raised in North America. And I mean, it’s, they say upwards of a million birds. I don’t I didn’t count, but there’s a lot, and the and the sky just gets dark with birds. Yeah. Some. I haven’t seen it. You need to see it.”

Angela Barrett – “That’s right. It is absolutely amazing. Yeah, I imagine that would be a proper one. I forgot about that. Now you’re also a pilot, right? Yep. So how much flying do you do these days?”

Rick Crout – “I haven’t done any in the last year. You know, I’m, I flew for a living. I flew corporate jets for a living. It’s a passion of mine, I loved it, I still love it. Norman and I talk about eventually buying an airplane once the spirit’s up and going pretty well. He wants to learn fly.”

Rick Crout – “And I’d like to, get back into it, too. It’s just a sense of freedom that a lot of people don’t get to experience. And, you know, with, doing it since I was 17, 18 years old, I’m 73 today.”

Angela Barrett – “Not too happy birthday. Oh, is not your birthday.”

Rick Crout – “Baby? Three. When they stop, there isn’t. But that’s a lot of flying a lot of years. So that is giving a long time.”

Angela Barrett – “Now, where did you learn to, you know. Pilot a the yacht, a boat. I know here on library. Yeah, but it’s only that size.”

Rick Crout – “You know, I grew up on, like, Murray, and my dad was an avid fisherman. And so I’ve been running boats since I was ten years old. And so, that was a passion. Just like flying was boating. And, I convinced my wife about, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, really, to buy our first big boat.”

Rick Crout – And I bought a Grand Banks 42 trawler. I had it down in Charleston.

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Those you don’t keep referring.

Rick Crout – “You know, and then, like Murray, too often, you know, it’s really nice to have one here. I’d be a great liveaboard and a fun, fun boat. Just putter Island. But, I had it down in Charleston at Charleston Harbor Marina, where the Yorktown, you know, at. And we go down on the weekends and spend weekends on the boat.”

Rick Crout – “And then, I would venture out and take them. You know, take the boat to the Bahamas offshore. I’d take a bunch of buddies. My wife didn’t do that trip with me. She’d come down and meet us. And like most of the wives did, the guys would just, you know, take off in the middle of the night. We’d leave and stay out.”

Rick Crout – “Stay out there for three days getting all the bombs. But I, I got a lot of experience doing that. And then, eventually bought a 49 and got a bigger one. So it was a big, heavy boat. So I kind of cut my teeth on those boats and, you know, so that’s that’s where that came from.”

Rick Crout – “And, you know, I spent a lot of time in my flying days in the Bahamas. My boss loved the Bahamas. And, we go to the outer islands, Harbor Island, Exxon was Georgetown. All those places. We fly it down there, his jet. And we spent a week or two. And it was a fun, fun gig. I fell in love with the Caribbean.”

Rick Crout – It’s beautiful.

Angela Barrett – “Yes, it is, it is, it is. And it is amazing to me how many people just from our area here in the Midlands do exactly what you’re talking about. It’s to take their boats down to the Bahamas. Oh, I.”

Rick Crout – “It’s an a crossing, especially in the summer. You don’t want to go across there with any wind component out of the north, but because it can get nasty in the Gulf Stream. But is pick your days and it can be like like Murray. So it’s it’s pretty pretty easy in the Bahamas. Banks only 60 miles away. So it’s not that far, you know.”

Angela Barrett – “Right. Right, right. So now, what, I know you said they had the oyster. Cruise coming up, and then also the other big events to be looking for that you’re having, like for the summer.”

Rick Crout – “Well, we got a lot of, we we’re starting to add a lot of music to the boat, and that helps a little bit. And we’re also going to start doing more dockside music venues where if we’re not going on a cruise, people sometimes go, well, yeah, I might come have something to eat and drink, but I’ve only got an hour, so if we’re going out for two hours, I’m not going to come.”

Rick Crout – “So we’re going to, maybe on Wednesdays, which were open at the dock. Now on Wednesdays we’re going to, start adding music to that. So we want people to get familiar with the fact that we’re just like any other restaurant or my Valentine, you know, put us on your circle. Your list, I guess you might say to come by and check it out.”

Rick Crout – “Our food is very good. Our drinks are great. Our view is probably the best. And. And so you’re sitting on the, like, a big boat, having, having a beer or your favorite melt glass of wine and some good food. So we’re going to start doing, more at the dock stuff when we’re not cruising and, and pair that with music.”

Rick Crout – “Also, you know, the time pirates and people like that, you know. So again and most of those guys have played on our boat, but we try to incorporate a lot of music during the summer. We do a lot of private events like you said, during the summer, we do a history cruise on Saturday at LA, and then, well, we go out for two hours when we at Norman did a lot of research and we have a very nice history cruise.”

Rick Crout – “We talk about different aspects of the like how how the dam was built, how much time, how many people, all the different, talk about the birds and Bomb Island and, you know, all the history involved with that island, you know, so we’re and and we’re constantly trying to put new stuff out. So, you know, hey.”

Angela Barrett – “You know, let me in. So go ahead.”

Rick Crout – “If you have any good ideas, let me know.”

Angela Barrett – “Well, I know, no idea, but I did want to ask this. The, So right now, do y’all have sort of a regular schedule? I know when you first opened, you were just, you know.”

Rick Crout – “Pretty much was pretty much, we right now, you can look on Facebook every week and on Mondays that came out this morning, and it’ll show what we’re doing on Facebook a spirit of like Murray. And we also have a group spare like Murray group that you can join and that comes out there. And we also have spear like Murray Akam, our website.”

Rick Crout – “You can always go in there and look at our calendar, but generally we cruise Thursday, Friday and Saturday right now. And then with the birds coming up, we’ll be crazy on Sundays too. So 4 or 5 days a week, and then open. You know, we’re not open on Mondays or Tuesdays right now, depending on how the dockside stuff goes.”

Rick Crout – We may incorporate Tuesdays also at the dock. Sure. So you have the opportunity for you several times a week on the spear like Murray.

Angela Barrett – “And you know, all I know there is the brunch that y’all do or have done. Is that a cruise or is that doc?”

Rick Crout – “The brunch was a cruise. We’re not doing the brunch right now. We’re going to we’re going to incorporate going over to Putnam’s, new truck. And so everybody can just come over there, and, and then when the birds come, obviously, you know, that’s going to be in the evenings, that’s on Sundays to, so our brunch right now is kind of taking a backseat.”

Angela Barrett – “Where you are having an Easter brunch next Sunday, though. Yeah.”

Rick Crout – That’s right where I am. And I used to cruise. We got a lot of people already signed up for that. We always do a mother’s day. Mother’s Day. We always do Valentine’s. Nice. Always. Bay. We do about four cruises during Valentine’s week.

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Nice.

Rick Crout – “So, you know, and then, we always do the, the fireworks for, like Murray Country, you know, every year, like they use the boat for that. They’ll charter for that.”

Angela Barrett – And ice.

Rick Crout – “Various other things, like they use their big promoter. We’re we’re kind of holding hands to everything.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, those guys, well, I am I cannot tell you how excited I was when I realized that the spirit of Lake Murray was going to be back on the lake. It was just, it is beautiful to watch it as it freezes down the lake. I mean, you just you just in all I at least I am.”

Angela Barrett – “I just kind of like the first time I ever saw it was obviously many years ago. But then I realized, you know, they stopped. And then when you brought it back, I was like, yes.”

Rick Crout – “Well, it it’s a you know, it is. We’re very well known on Lake Murray and, and we all we tried to do was kind of give it a facelift and, and and the it’s beautiful, inside and out. I mean, the boat turned out gorgeous, you know, all exploring. Only thing we left on the boat was the ceiling, which was really interesting and unique.”

Rick Crout – “We just cleaned it up. But, I mean, we we pretty much just cut the walls out and dropped them off the boat. Rebuild it, you know? Yeah. Everything. So,”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Sure. Glad you did. That’s for sure.

Rick Crout – “Well, come see it. So you have to come.”

Angela Barrett – Absolutely.

Rick Crout – And just just give us just give us a call. Give me a call. Let me know if when you want to come and and I’ll. I’ll take care of that.

Angela Barrett – “Oh, you’re so sweet. Thank you very much. Well, I, I do look forward to coming out there. And we haven’t been yet, although we did try, and then we had, the couple that we were coming with, plus one of them got sick, so we didn’t get to go, but, we will make it out there for sure.”

Angela Barrett – “So, Thank you so much for being here today.”

Rick Crout – Thank you. I hope I answered your questions.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, well, if I if anybody’s got any questions, get in touch with one of us. We’ll try to answer right. Well, thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you soon I can’t.”