At Last! More than two decades after the idea was first kicked around, and 11 years after construction began in 2011, Maine’s First Ship has finally launched their pinnace Over 200 volunteers labored on Virginia, a reconstruction of the first English-built oceangoing ship launched in the Americas. The original was constructed at the Popham Colony, founded in 1607 at the mouth of the Kennebec River, to explore the natural resources of the area and to find the Northwest Passage. When the colony was abandoned a year later, Virginia sailed for England. The Bath area, ten miles up the river from the colony’s location, later became a major shipbuilding site. The new Virginia was built in downtown Bath, on the banks of the Kennebec, into which she was launched via crane on June 4. We spoke to MFS board member and lead rigger James L. Nelson the day after the launch. Marlinspike: It’s been just over 24 hours since Virginia touched down in the Kennebec River. How are you feeling? James L. Nelson: I’m a happy guy! Yes. I’m a relieved guy... MS: After all these years, it must have been an amazing moment. JLN: It was the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people, right up to Saturday. We planned a huge day of celebration for the launch. So on top of getting the ship ready over the past month, we’ve been flat out, lining up musicians, reenactors, food vendors, speakers, getting the stage ready, 4
getting the AV ready… so it’s been a big production, above and beyond just launching the ship. MS: The launch itself was pretty intricate. That giant crane had to pick up and move the vessel, what, three times to go from the build site into the river? Talk about setting that up. JLN: We contracted with Keeley Crane, a local crane company. But the first thing we had to do was dismantle the boatshed in which we built Virginia, that had been standing for a decade. That was no small task. All of the equipment, all of the tools, the saws, all of that had to be moved inside. So the boatshed came down and revealed Virginia to the world for the first time. Once that was done and the site was cleared away, we brought the crane in and they picked the ship up and they moved it once, northward, along the riverbank. Then they repositioned the crane, picked it up again and moved it further north, to where it was ultimately going to be launched. And then they turned it 180 degrees. The bow had been pointing north; they turned it so the bow was pointing south. That was primarily so that the spectators would be able to see the bow when the bottle was broken. And then they repositioned the crane again, and we brought a second crane in, because while the first crane could lift the ship easily enough, it couldn’t get that close to the
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