Winter 2022/23
Number 37
ADVENTURESS
$7.95 (about the cost of a Painkiller)
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EXPER ER IENCE » 5+ yearss’ experience in wooden boat construction E A K Ey and eM I T Ial Mcr E aM Uans SEU M » DemonstrCatHeEd SprAoPficienc xcAepRtion ftm hip 2 1 3 N . TA L B O T S T R E E T, S T. M I C H A E L S , M D » Comfor tability working on a variiety of prrojects including boat restorations,
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WHAT TO EXPECT » Relocation assistance
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» $1000 bonus for starting on or before January 31, 2023 » 4 weeks Paid Time Off Year 1 » Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability & Life Insurancce
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SUBSCRIBE to MARLINSPIKE The quarterly magazine devoted to traditional sailing vessels, sailors, and programs! Annual subscription $29 Two years $48 — save $10! For digital subscriptions, visit issuu.com Subscribe via PayPal to Marlinspike1812@gmail.com via credit card by calling (978) 594-6510 or mail your check to: Marlinspike 98 Washington Square #1 / Salem, MA 01970 Visit us on the web at MarlinspikeMagazine.com or have a gam with our 25,000 followers on
MICHAEL RUTSTEIN
Mind the Gap Subscribers to this publication may have noticed that our print dates are a bit, well... irregular. We always publish when we say we will, but we do not follow a strict quarterly schedule. Our print dates are bunched around the sailing season, with a long gap over the winter — a gap which we are about to enter. “Mind the gap!” as they say in the UK. The gap also allows my wife and I to resume cruising, which finally seems possible again. Those of you who follow the magazine on social media can expect to see lots of Boats, Bars and Beaches from the Bahamas and the Gulf of Mexico this winter. We’ll be back in March to bang out our spring issue — always full of news and events. But not job listings, because why? Because everyone is hiring. We could fill the magazine with nothing but job listings. Want a job in this industry? Call up the boat you want to work for this spring. Tell them to make you an offer! Returning to the gap, though — thank goodness for it! Here in New England, where the weather was relentlessly sunny this summer and days off were few and far between, the gap is most welcome. Those of us who are on the boats and providing the programs day-in and day-out... giving the same safety talk and answering the same questions and telling the same stories until we start to feel like a jukebox... we need the gap, to recover our wits and recharge for another season. The gap is also a great time to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going — to ask ourselves if we’re still learning and growing in our current situation, or if it is time to sail new boats, navigate new seas, and meet new shipmates. And if it is time to make a change... be sure to give us a call. Because like everyone else, we’re hiring!
MARLINSPIKE MAGAZINE Winter 2022/23 • Number 37 Michael Rutstein, Publisher Marlinspike is published quarterly for $29 by Pennant Publications, Inc., 98 Washington Square #1 Salem, MA 01970 Cover Photo: Jan Anderson Postmaster: send address changes to Marlinspike 98 Washington Square #1, Salem, MA 01970 Copyright 2023 by Pennant Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Phone (978) 594-6510 E-Mail Marlinspike1812@gmail.com
Fair Winds,
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Michael Rutstein, Publisher
4 b Adventuress
28 b Making a Custom Knife
Was there any chance that COVID could stop her?
Step by step with Med Chandler of Ships Coy Forge
12 b What on earth is a Necropsy? The Sylvina W. Beal’s “first hull” is dismantled in Essex
16 b Far from Home The volunteer-run Bill of Rights sails on in Chula Vista
22 b Sailing the Sullivan... ...and rebuilding the Roseway; WOS gets busy
34 b 40 b 44 b 46 b 47 b
Boats, Bars & Beaches Boatyards Name That Boat Show Us Your Spike Show Us Your Tattoo
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dventuress The 1913 Rice Brothers schooner has pivoted many times now: from Arctic exploration to pilotage to sail training. Was there really any chance that COVID could stop her? Marlinspike chatted with Sound Experience Executive Director Catherine Collins in November, at the conclusion of Adventuress’ successful 2022 sailing season. Marlinspike: I know Adventuress was built for an Arctic expedition, but she doesn’t really give you that rugged feel that Bowdoin or Ernestina do. She is a beautiful vessel — but maybe a bit yachty for the high latitudes? Catherine Collins: She is a beautiful vessel! She was indeed built by a man named John Borden, who wanted to go to the Arctic to hunt with his friends, and the Museum of Natural History in New York City got word of it. They reached out to Borden and asked, “Can we send along our naturalist, Roy Chapman Andrews?” Andrews went on to discover the first dinosaur eggs, in Mongolia, so he’s a really interesting character. He was responsible for the whale exhibits at the museum. And they needed one more whale, a bowhead whale. So Roy Chapman Andrews joined up with Borden and headed to the Arctic. But luckily for Adventuress, they were late [laughs]. The pack ice came in and she didn’t get there. Other vessels that were on time got frozen in and had a terrible time. And they didn’t get the bowhead whale specimen. Still, Andrews did some seminal research. They dropped him off on the Pribiloff Islands and he did seal research, which actually ended up being pretty important. You are entirely right. Adventuress was a terrible vessel for Arctic exploration. She was built as a yacht. Our Ship Committee chair, David Jackson, who’s also a marine surveyor, he and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum and there’s a file and books with photos on Adventuress and her building. We got to see designer B.B. MarlinspikeMagazine.com
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Far from Home This Maine-built schooner might seem out of place in Southern California, but a dedicated group of volunteers have kept BILL OF RIGHTS sailing out of Chula Vista for eight years now
Marlinspike chatted with Don Johnson of the South Bayfront Sailing Association in November. Marlinspike: Don, let’s start by talking about the history of the schooner. How is it that a Maine-built boat came to be in Chula Vista? Don Johnson: Now, that is a real good question. I have pieces of that answer. I don’t have the complete story. I know the early parts better than the middle parts. Joe Davis, of course, commissioned the boat to be built. MS: That was in the early seventies..? DJ: His family apparently at some point had had a large schooner and I think it had been in his blood pretty much all along. So he wanted to build his schooner, did a lot of research, spent time with Howard Chappelle getting suggestions as to what would make beautiful, fast schooner. I guess a lot of the material referenced the Wanderer. She’s not a replica of the Wanderer, but a number of the characteristics are incorporated. MS: Is this Sterling Hayden’s Wanderer you’re talking about?
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DJ: I don’t think so, I think it precedes that. MS: But was he looking for a yacht? He wasn’t thinking about doing sail training, about getting passenger certification. DJ: He did get passenger certification. He did do sail training, but I believe that had a lot to do with financially supporting the vessel. But it was built more along the lines of a yacht than a sail-training vessel. The original boat had private cabins. The A compartment, which is now open and has 16 open bunks, had eight cabins of two bunks each, each with its own lavatory. Not with a head, but a sink. No engine, of course. And it was built, I believe, to do sail training and to race. Davis was a racing enthusiast. So the rig at one point was quite a bit bigger than it is today. Apparently, it wasn’t performing quite as well as he liked, so they increased the area of the main, raised the rig, put a taller topmast on and sailed her that way for a while. When she changed hands, that rig was cut back, and an engine was added. So she operated on the East Coast for a little bit after that, and I’m getting fuzzy about the years at this point, but somewhere in the late 1980s, a different owner had her put the engine in, brought her around through the Canal, and all the way up the West Coast up to Coos Bay, and up to the
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Vancouver area, and she operated up in that part of the world for a while. MS: So when did she come down to Los Angeles? DJ: My understanding is that the Los Angeles Maritime Institute (LAMI) came into a substantial amount of money, through port grants, that enabled them to design and build their two brigantines [Irving and Exy Johnson]. In order to scale up their programs, they cast about for a boat that was available, and Bill of Rights apparently was operating in San Francisco at that time. Bought her, brought her on down to Los Angeles, and operated her for several years while the brigantines were being built. MS: And then after that, the Bill of Rights was sailing under the American Tall Ships Institute? DJ: My understanding is once the brigantines were launched, [LAMI] basically set aside the Bill and she was languishing. Stephen Taylor with ATSI entered into some kind of lease arrangement with LAMI to operate the vessel, and sailed her out of Ventura for several years. MS: Tell us about the genesis of your organization, and how you ended up with the Bill of Rights. DJ: Well, several of us had been doing sail education down here at Chula Vista Marina for literally 30 years, teaching mostly the Coast Guard auxiliary classes, but also serving as sailing instructors in small boats. We were talking about starting a branch down into Vista Harbor. In order to do that, we needed to organize as a nonprofit. So we turned in an application to become a nonprofit in early 2013. Now, later that same year, the Bill had come into the yard down at Marine Group. Work was being done on the stem and some of the planks on the starboard bow, and the project went over budget. Stephen Taylor didn’t have the funds. LAMI went through a process, took back the boat, but didn’t have a use for it, didn’t have a budget for it, and had this yard bill owed against it. I had been working with the ship. Typically we’d try to help whoever came into the yard to purchase things, figure things out. Any way we could help out. And so the shipwright on the job, Doug Shear, mentioned to LAMI, why don’t they give me a call? So they called me up and offered me the vessel for what was left on the yard bill. MS: Wow.
There was only the one spot in Chula Vista Marina, down at the excursion dock. And with the help of the political people — the mayor was Cheryl Cox at the time — she helped make arrangements through the port for us to acquire that slip on a permanent basis. And so we had that spot. Then, just as we’re about to conclude the deal, LAMI says, “Oh, by the way, we need to transfer this to a non-profit.” And literally that day, the paperwork arrived from the state of California granting us our non-profit status [laughs]. MS: It sounds like a lot of serendipity there, but it also sounds like you got the boat without the benefit of a planning process. You were just flying by the seat of your pants. DJ: I don’t think it was even that substantial [laughs]. It was one of those whirlwind things — within three weeks from the phone call, we have this boat, and we’re now talking with everybody. Okay, how are we gonna do this? One of the thoughts I had was there was a very good RV park here down by the harbor, and I believed we would be able to draw people from that RV park to take day sails. That did not work out. We never did get a good business from that group. So we kind of languished, paying expenses out of pocket, which luckily were relatively minimal. MS: When you purchased the boat, she still had a COI and you were able to jump right into doing day sails? DJ: No. That was the impression we had! [OCMI] San Pedro basically was happy with the boat, and they were ready to sign off, but we had to reestablish ourselves with San Diego’s Coast Guard. And with them we spent almost six months going back and forth, doing things. Nothing truly major, but proving stuff, doing drills, and reworking a few things, before they actually gave us, South Bayfront Sailing Association, our COI. MS: You came up with a captain, or someone had a license? DJ: There were two of us who had licenses in the group, at the time we bought the boat. Over the past eight years, we’ve licensed at least six additional captains, including myself, and I’ve been operating the boat for a little more than five years. When we were in Dana Point a few weeks back, we had five captains on board. MS: So you have a stable of captains rotating through; it’s not all on you to run all the trips.
DJ: Yeah! [Laughs] I checked with the people I knew in the marina, the ones who’d been teaching classes, and said, “There’s an opportunity to acquire a schooner. Are you guys interested?” and everybody said, “Yes, we are.” So we came up with the money in an extremely short period of time, like two weeks. Parking it was a question.
DJ: That is correct. Me and my second main gentleman, who is Paul Nice, a retired merchant mariner from Military Sealift Command. He has an unlimited all-oceans license. He had been operating tankers for the last 30-odd years, and so he’s an excellent second captain.
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Making a Custom Rigging Knife Step-By-Step with Med Chandler of Ships Coy Forge Text & Photos by Tyler Fields ALL PHOTOS M. RUTSTEIN
For many of us, it would be rare to spend a day without a knife in our pockets or sheathed on our belts. Whether it be carried out of habit or as an frequently relied-upon tool, a blade of one sort or another is never far from reach. For those in the marine trades, a knife is more than an EDC accessory, it can be life-saving when situations go wrong. Readers of Marlinspike are no strangers to rigging knives. Peek in the back of many issues and you can see the knives of readers across the globe. The commercially-available options are endless and companies like Myerchin offer high quality knives in every flavor. If a mass-produced knife doesn’t cut it for you, the custom knife market has every style you can dream of. Need a blade shaped like a shark? Done. Need a handle made from a meteorite? Easy. Want a sheath sewn from an alligator? No problem. If you have the budget, you can buy a knife that would make Dundee jealous. Let’s take a more detailed look into the world of custom knife-making by visiting Ship’s Coy Forge in New Hampshire. Med Chandler is no stranger to the pages of Marlinspike either. An immensely skilled blacksmith and artist, he opened Ship’s Coy Forge in 2003 and has since earned a reputation for crafting tools, knives, and hardware of heirloom quality. Bringing together skills learned as a crew member aboard the tall ship Bounty, boatbuilding at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard, and as a blacksmith for Ball and Ball Reproductions, Med’s work is second to none and the perfect person to walk us through the steps of how a custom knife is made. *1* The forge is a relatively simple system. Boiling it down to the basics, there is a fire box, fuel, and a way to force air into the mix. Chandler uses coke and coal for his fuel; coke being a byproduct of heated coal. As fresh coal is added to the outer edges of the fire, it burns off impurities, releasing green smoke, and what remains is coke. Below the fire box is an electric blower to force air into the fire. The more air, the hotter the fire burns 28
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❂ CORONET NOW
CORONET THEN
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Mystic Seaport Museum received a massive restoration project this month. And we’re not talking about Roseway. Coronet, one of the last of the Gilded Age yachts, was scheduled to arrive in Mystic in early December to begin a three-year restoration. The vessel had been drydocked indoors at IYRS in Newport since 1995. First launched in 1885, Coronet was one of the most elegant sailing yachts of its day. Intended for crossing the ocean in style, the 131’ schooner was designed by William Townsend and built for Rufus T. Bush by the C. & R. Poillon shipyard in Brooklyn. Bush then put forth a $10,000 challenge against any other yacht for a transatlantic race. The resulting race between Coronet and Dauntless in March 1887 made Bush and the victorious Coronet famous — the New York Times devoted its entire first page on March 28, 1887 to the story. Since 1995, Coronet has been under restoration at IYRS, the premier marine trades and modern manufacturing school in the United States. Originally purchased as a student project to provide hands-on experience in historic wooden vessel restoration, the schooner was later sold to a private buyer. However, she remained at IYRS under restoration by a team of shipwrights who included IYRS
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