Marlinspike #36

Fall 2022

Number 36

MATTHEW TURNER

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MICHAEL RUTSTEIN

The Chimes At the Gloucester Schooner Festival on Labor Day weekend, the principal topic of conversation was the recent announcement from the current owner and captain of Victory Chimes, Sam Sikkema.

“After long and careful consideration we have come to the difficult decision that 2022 will be Victory Chimes’ last sailing season. Upcoming Coast Guard compliance, cost and availability of materials for upcoming maintenance, the lack of ability to haul the ship in Maine, and the losses of the 2020 season have all become a hill too big to climb.

“We are working diligently to find a new home for the vessel. I am optimistic that there will be a way for the ship to exist and continue to tell its story in a meaningful way for generations to come.”

The schooner is currently listed by Artisan Boatworks, but without a price.

Any purchase price, of course, would just be the first step on a long journey to secure the future of this iconic schooner.

H Josh Rowan of Hindu, Bloodhound, and Argo Navis is banging the drum for the Rose Dorothea Cup, the race from Gloucester to Provincetown immediately following the Schooner Festival, and says he plans to bury a bottle of rum — good rum — in the sand at Long Point as a prize.

“If Gloucester happens on Sunday, it’ll always be Monday. Any schooners going south have no excuse not to get up in the morning and do that part of the race. They don’t even have to stay for the party! They can just keep on going through the Canal!

“For all the people that are going back to Maine, it’s just a nine-hour, outtayour-way dogleg. Why not do that if you can?”

MARLINSPIKE MAGAZINE Fall 2022 • Number 36 Michael Rutstein, Publisher Marlinspike is published quarterly for $29

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Fair Winds,

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Michael Rutstein, Publisher

4 b Matthew Turner: How It’s Going

40 b Back to the Bayou

Call of the Sea’s new brigantine is ripping up the Bay

Delivering the rebuilt AJ Meerwald back to Bivalve, NJ

12 b Keep Calm and Sail On Sea/Mester’s secret? Sailing right through the pandemic

20 b Can a Shipyard be TOO Busy?

We chat with Chris Sanders of the Mystic Seaport yard

32 b A Quiet Beauty Josh Rowan is persevering with his rebuild of HINDU

42 b 46 b 52 b 54 b 55 b

Boatyards Boats, Bars & Beaches Name That Boat Show Us Your Spike Show Us Your Tattoo

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Matthew Turner How it’s going Call of the Sea’s new brigantine Matthew Turner received her Coast Guard Certificate of Inspection during the first summer of the pandemic. Clearly, the timing could have been better, but Captain Adrian McCullough and his crew have persevered with a schedule of day sails while building a structure and culture that they’re very happy with.

Marlinspike: Tell us a little bit about how Call of the Sea has weathered COVID, and how the Matthew Turner been used since she was launched.

Adrian McCullough: We got our COI during the pandemic, in July of 2020, and then just started doing socially distanced, just very careful three-hour day sails, just to try to generate some revenue. Obviously, it was a new build, and we were behind on funds and we had to survive somehow. I crewed the vessel up with some of my local Sausalito crew and just a couple friends from the Tall Ship industry and we made a go of it. We ended up having a pretty successful year!

We had no COVID exposures and we made it through the season. So, there’s that.

through telling the story of Matthew Turner. Turner came out for the gold rush, and he was a successful prospector. So it ties in really well with the story of early San Francisco, through this shipbuilder named Matthew Turner.

MS: The Turner is a fairly large, fairly complex vessel for running day sails. How did you find that worked out for you? Were you doing more than one a day?

AM: Mostly one a day, although in 2022 we are doing multi-sail days and overnights. And, you know, when we put the manning plan together, we built flexibility into it so that we could safely run with fewer crew, with reduced sail plans.

I just got the manning down as much as I safely could, based on other vessel COIs. I looked at some vessels on the East Coast and here on the West Coast, mostly square riggers of comparable size. And then, you know, my Coast Guard inspector, who I’m good friends with, we took the ship out a number of times to see how it went with the numbers we were proposing, and they signed off on it.

MS: What does that COI look like?

MS: How did your day-sail schedule match up with what you had anticipated doing in your first year of operation?

AM: The ship was built for coastal and blue water voyaging, but without being able to do overnight programming, we had to shift our focus to what we could do, based on the market conditions, which weren’t very good. The schools weren’t coming. Nobody was confident doing overnight programming out here in California. So we just had to make it up as we went along, basically doing mission-driven charters.

We called them community sails, with some educational components to them, but essentially it was us selling tickets to get the ship moving, gain exposure and generate interest by having this beautiful ship sailing during the shutdown, and to at least pay the insurance and the staff, and just get the ship visible on the Bay. MS: What were the educational components like?

AM: One captain and seven deckhands for a three-hour sail under full sail. We also have an oceans route with overnight accommodations.

MS: The Coast Guard must be comfortable with that diesel-hybrid system; they didn’t try and drag an engineer into it.

AM: We don’t have an official requirement for an engineer. I take care of the engineering. And I have other experienced people on board. Right now we have a crew of 12 and we always have a few licenses around with a lot of experience, so we can handle the engineering and the rigging and do a decent job of maintaining the vessel and operating safely and also voyage.

But we do have that flexibility, when there is a crew issue or when it’s early in the season or late in the season, when people start falling off, and going off to their other gigs, we can still operate with a lower crew number.

AM: We do local history of California and the Bay MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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MS: Is there a tradeoff? Do you need to not set your squares, or..?

AM: No tradeoff. It’s just whatever we’re comfortable with. I can set every sail on the ship with six deckhands. The tradeoff is that it’s just a lot to handle and you have to have some experience. Having a good mate, and a couple of really solid, overqualified deckhands that can just get in there and do it for us.

MS: When you have a sexy boat and you’re in a sexy place, sometimes sexy people just come out of the woodwork and do things for you.

AM: Yeah! We definitely do not have a crew issue. I’ve been lucky, Call of the Sea’s been lucky. I’ve been in the industry for 25 years. And I do have a small list of friends that have not retired and gotten land-based jobs. And it’s been really nice to work with people that I’ve known from the past, and they’ve referred some really great people my way. And we are fortunate to be the new sexy boat.

That’s been helpful, but at some point, reality will kick in. So it’s up to us, to maintain a good reputation for safety and for good maintenance practices and a good work culture in order to retain crew and to keep people wanting to come and work for us.

MS: How did you find the COI process with the Coast Guard? Did that go pretty smoothly?

AM: It was great. I loved it. But it was also tricky in the sense that were so many unknowns. They don’t have many other inspected passenger hybrid vessels. They only have one other inspected hybrid passenger ship in the area, and it is not a sailing ship. There are a couple hybrid ferries in the United States that they were able to look at, when it came to lithium battery safety and best practices and that sort of thing, but really we’re on the frontier, we’re pioneers. They were definitely relying on us to help find the best way forward.

vessels in our fleet.

MS: Tell me about those systems and how do you feel, now you’re a couple years in — how do you feel about the diesel-hybrid system?

AM: It’s great. We don’t burn fossil fuel. We burn renewable fuel, it’s called R 99. It’s a plant-based fuel that burns 80% cleaner than fossil fuel. So we’ve been able to reduce our carbon footprint. But those are just our generators. They’re not connected to our propulsion. Our propulsion is designed by BAE [British Aerospace Engineering] through these electric traction motors that are connected directly to our lithium batteries. They’re diesel generators, but we put a different kind of a fuel in them.

The specialty around the engineering component is mostly around battery management and how to address things like internal battery temperatures, external battery box temperatures, and charging and discharging rates. I’m learning a lot about how to manage the lithium-ion battery system, which was designed by Corvus. It’s very interesting, way outside of the traditional skill set for an engineer or, you know, the tall ship world. That’s exciting and it’s given me a new skill set, one I’ve been able to share it with a few other people in the industry. So that’s great. We’re starting to share it with other people in the industry, that work on other vessels. They come in, they do two, three months with us, and they learn all about it.

MS: You would recommend it for new builds, for repowers, in our industry? You think this is the way to go?

AM: Well, it’s definitely cleaner. And under sail, our propellers are specifically pitched so that they help us regenerate. Our propellers, they drag — they’re inefficient in that sense — but they’re designed to spin and to cause a certain amount of drag in order to turn our AC motors into essen-

MS: Did you find that the unfamiliarity was mostly about the systems, or was it about the vessel and the rig?

AM: Andy Davis from Tri-Coastal Marine designed the ship along with Peter Boudreau. They did Pride of Baltimore II, the schooner Virginia, a whole bunch of other vessels. They knew what they were doing when they designed Matthew Turner. I don’t think the Coast Guard had much of an issue with the physicalities of the ship’s design.

What was tricky was the safety management systems and batteries and complex electrical systems that were unheard of on most of the 6

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tially little turbines, but they don’t drag and slow us down, which is really nice. They’re designed to drag, but that drag does not really impede our speed or our performance greatly.

MS: What do they look like?

AM: They’re three feet in diameter. They are threebladed, so they actually don’t look much different than any other propeller, but there are some nuances to the way that they’ve been shaped and I can’t really speak to that, but I know it works!

When we’re under full sail at nine knots of boat speed, we can regenerate nine kilowatts of power per hour. So theoretically, when we’re underway offshore or running down the coast, we’re pretty self-sufficient if we’re managing our energy consumption adequately.

MS: You’ve got good breezes in the Bay, right?

So I would think that even during a day sail, you probably see it kick it in some serious juice.

AM: Oh yeah. There are improvements that could and will be made, and there are some nuances to the design, and we’re learning some of the shortcomings of the system. You know: if we were to do it again, what would we do differently? But for the most part, it’s been a really interesting and successful experience.

MS: Tell me about your crew.

AM: I am the full-time port captain — senior captain, I suppose you would call me — and I have hired three other people over the last 3 years to help me: Cassie Sleeper, Rebecca Johnson, and Emma Hathaway, all people I’ve known for years and have a ton of respect for. They each bring professionalism and individual unique approaches to organizing and running the vessel and setting the tone.

Because of the complexities of the vessel, relief captains first sail as mates to learn the system. Obviously, they have driven other vessels, so they come and learn the engineering and sea-handling perspective first. And with that under their belts, they are able to successfully run the ship and give me time to work on project planning and other support roles, as

well as some time off.

MS: That’s quite a collection of talent. We’ve interviewed both Cassie and Emma for the magazine, when they were working elsewhere in the fleet.

AM: And they all have good reputations. The most important thing to me is having a culture of safety and an inclusive work environment, from a cultural perspective. Last year our crew were 90% female identifying and non-binary. This year we have a few more maleidentifying but we have a really diverse culture onboard and that has been a rewarding and learning experience for me. It’s also been good at bringing in some awesome talent from other organizations who recognize that this is a place that we can be who we are and thrive.

MS: I would think that for some of your crew, one of the reasons they’ve gathered around is because they’re hoping that the Turner will begin running the kind of longer-term programs that she was designed for.

What kind of progress are you making towards that?

AM: Sure — she was built to go to Tahiti!

Seaward, our other vessel, has been running down the coast. She did all the Monterey and mid-coast stuff this year.

Matthew Turner, we’ve been doing more Farallon Islands, Drakes Bay, Half Moon Bay trips. So we go out the Gate, but mostly we’re serving the local community in San Francisco Bay. We have a lot of supporters that helped finance and otherwise promote the building of the vessel over the last 10 years. So it’s important for us to serve that local community with Matthew Turner, as much as we can, before we disappear to other places, you know? Matthew Turner’s not going to go to Mexico this winter, we’re going to haul out and then we’re going to finish building out the interior spaces of the ship, which have not been completed yet, to prepare for voyaging next year. We’ll send Seaward down to Mexico this winter instead.

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“It’s a mid- to late-1800s style rig, based on Matthew Turner’s vessel Galilee, which was built in 1891 and set the sailing record from San Francisco to Papeete in 19 days, a record that still holds. It is rigged in a late square-rigger style, very loyal to Matthew Turner’s style of rigging, and the other vessels of its era.”

— Adrian McCullough

PHOTO: BENSON LEE

MS: Educational Tall Ship and Call of the Sea raised a lot of money for the build, and were very successful in that aspect. But I’ve noticed that with many organizations, once the boat gets launched, fundraising has a tendency to slow down. I wonder, is it financially viable for the Turner to stay home and run programming? Or is it financially important for you to get out on the high seas at some point?

AM: Well, this is only my perspective, as someone who is mainly on the quarter deck. I’m sure there are colleagues and board members who would have opinions on that! But I do work closely with everybody above me. And I think that most would agree there is a big market in the Bay Area of underserved communities and people that don’t have access to the water. Schools, community groups, that aren’t going anywhere. We could sail them around in San Francisco Bay, and I think it would be financially viable, and it is very important to our misson.

I understand that voyaging equals success in the minds of many sailing people. But if you think about it, in the North American tall ship fleet, there’s really only a handful of vessels that actually voyage internationally, that are going thousands of miles or even hundreds of miles. Only a few organizations that I know of are set up to successfully manage that. Being able to run up and down the coast and service our local community here in the Bay Area, I think that’s really going be our bread and butter. I think that we would be able to change some lives and serve our mission by bringing a select group of people on longer voyages. However, I 8

don’t necessarily think it would benefit under-represented people, because it costs money to do voyages like that.

Small-scale, high-impact voyaging — seven-day, five-day voyages — I think that’s really where the impact is.

MS: Tell us about sailing the boat. How do you find her sailing qualities? Such an interesting rig. I imagine with the wind that you have in that area, you’re probably not setting the topsails or the ringtail all the time, but maybe you are!

AM: I do have a reputation for setting a lot of sail. I’m really comfortable sailing the ship. I know what she’s capable of. In 20 to 25 knots, our standard summer breezes, I’ll set the upper and lower topsails, all the fore-and-afts… we do have some weather helm. I have a reef in the main right now, which is not conducive to setting the ringtail.

The ship heels over — it sails like a much smaller vessel.

We get 16 or 18 degrees of heel. When we get new sailors on board, they’re kind of shocked. They’re not used to ships healing over like that. It feels like I’m sailing my folkboat or something. It goes over to that sweet spot and it just stays there and charges along. We very frequently sail over 10 knots, 10, 11, 11.5 knots is pretty common for us. It’s a joy!

MS: Tell me you have some pictures of her heeled over.

AM: Yeah. I can send you a couple photos. But I’m not laying it on thick when I say that — the ship heels over and it sails fast and it’s exciting! That’s the other thing that helps

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us retain crew, especially in the summer when there’s so many options for people to go sailing on other vessels. We’re doing these three-hour day sails most of the time with a short voyage sprinkled in, but they are just packed full of sail-handling, we’re short-tacking, we’re wearing, all across the Bay at pretty high speeds. And the crew loves it. They get a lot of experience.

While it’s not always bluewater sailing right now, as we

navigate the pandemic and learn the personality of a newlyconstructed vessel, I think the crew is building confidence because they can see the capability and strength of Matthew Turner and what the ship can do, and the crew can see the potential. And yeah, it’s pretty exciting. And it’s new.

Obviously I am prudent and I maintain that high standard for safety and make good decisions when it comes to managing weather and sail plans. That is never compromised, ever.

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MS: Those squares do set you apart from the other sailing options that are available in the Bay. AM: That is true. Yeah. It’s rigged traditionally, all Vintage, New England Ropes. All rigged out of Underhill’s book. It’s a mid- to late-1800s style rig, based of course on Matthew Turner’s vessel Galilee, which was built in 1891 and set the sailing record from San Francisco to Papeete in 19 days, a record that still holds. It is rigged in a late square-rigger style, very loyal to Matthew Turner’s style of rigging, and the other vessels, brigantines, of its era.

MS: What would those shrouds have looked like when she was built in the 1890s? Would they have been galvinized wire?

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AM: Yeah, absolutely. It’s all galvi wire, it’s traditional. That’s the other thing, we’ve had a couple of great folks that we really enjoyed working with. I’ve had Jamie White work with me quite a lot. Courtney Anderson’s done some work with us and yeah, it’s a great rig. It’s quite authentic. We’ve had to make a few little modifications as we sail the vessel: we’re chasing some chafe, you know, we’ve had to tighten some things up. I know there’s a lot of opinions about the Matthew Turner rig. But I think it’s beautiful.

Definitely a West Coast style. Matthew Turner eliminated the gaff main, got that weight out of the rig, because they were just doing these big broad reaches, downwind runs. And so he just eliminated it, with what would later become a Marconi. It was actually a really smart decision.

It’s a great design, but I know it goes against what some people deem aesthetically pleasing, because they’re used to something different.

MS: Sterling Hayden says the same thing in Wanderer, about sailing in the light trades and the swell of the South Pacific and not wanting to have those gaffs banging around.

AM: Exactly. Yeah. We wear ship. We gybe all the time out there and we don’t have to worry about the gaffs. It’s great. We can do these nice

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fast, tight tacks and wears, it’s really handy.

MS: The first time she heeled over, the heeling that you’re describing — did any part of your anatomy retract or pucker?

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AM: Oh no. We did all these sea trials, where we incrementally added sails.

I remember vividly, adding to our sail plan as we went, slowly adding complexity, until one day we had 11 sails up and an all-volunteer crew. We’re looking up and seeing like how it’s going and getting people up in the rig, looking for chafe, and it’s funny — I can’t identify at what point where we were just like, “Okay, it’s finished.”

The rig was done, we put a stamp of approval on it, but I don’t remember a day when that was the official thing.

MS: There was no moment where you were like, “Whoa, that’s not what I expected.”

AM: There was a time out in the middle of the Bay on a Friday night, and the boat rounded up and heeled over and really dug in for the first time. I probably had a little too much sail up for that kind of a gust. And it was amazing.

There were a few little moments like that, but they weren’t sustained. They were just these moments, you know, where we’re like, “OK, now we know what that feels like!”

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MS: Apart from the sailing of the boat, what have been some of the challenges you’ve faced in breaking this boat out of the yard during a pandemic?

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AM: I think one of the biggest challenges was that we had no documentation. We had to create that.

It was the middle of the pandemic, and there was really no crew living on board. We had no daily, weekly, or monthly checklists. We had no daily duties for crew. We didn’t have any engineering logs. We didn’t have anything! Like, zero! It was just this big piece of sailing furniture, just a clean slate.

That’s when I used some of my resources and hired a few of my friends from the East Coast to come out and help me implement some good documentation so that we could start running. We just needed some guiding principles on deck on a day-to-day basis. All the things that we take for granted on the boats we’ve worked with over the years. We had none of that, and we had to create it with the best practices from other places that we’ve worked.

And now we’re pretty set. There’s a lot of people that want in, I would say. I guess as things come back to life, people could get other opportunities, but in the last year, the number of inquiries and requests and things has been quite high. So it’s all good, it’s all going great, and we just really want to protect and extend the culture we’ve managed to establish here. ❂ For more info, visit callofthesea.org 10

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KEEP CALM AND

SAIL ON After OCEAN STAR was dismasted and the company’s equipment was destroyed

by Hurricane Irma, Sea/Mester doubled down and built VELA — only to have a pandemic raging when she was commissioned in 2020.

How did they save themselves?

They went sailing.

As fall began, we caught up with Travis Yates of Sea/Mester.

Sarasota-based Sea/Mester ran their college semester and gapyear programs on the steel schooners Vela, Argo, and Ocean Star right through the worst days of the pandemic, keeping their business afloat and earning Tall Ships America’s Sailtraining Program of the Year Award.

Yates supervised the building of Argo and Vela in Thailand’s Marsun Shipyard, and is currently overseeing an extensive updating of Argo, which was launched in 2006.

Marlinspike: Travis, it’s great to talk to you again. Tell us what’s happening with Argo.

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Travis Yates: Argo’s been in the yard since January. This should have been a four-month refit, because I’ve done almost all the same work on Argo previously in four months, but with COVID and shipping and everything else, we gave it through the summer.

We haven’t had students on that boat in the spring semester or the summer semester, and we’re fighting really hard to get them on in the fall. The boat was supposed to be done on August 8. Finally the yard agreed that they weren’t going to finish on time, so they extended it to September 30.

We have to leave Thailand on October 5, if we’re going to get to Bali to start our trip on October 20, which is Bali to

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South Africa. It’s always a fight, in every shipyard, and every time!

MS: I was trying to add up the time that you’ve spent in Thailand. Your Thai must be getting pretty good.

TY: My Thai is terrible! I can get around; I can order food and I can work with some of the engineers in it, but they all want to speak English. That’s one of the reasons they put certain people on our job, to make sure that they can speak English. And then they immediately send them to work-boat shows and things like that in Europe, to keep

them going on the English training, because that’s how you do business with Europe and the Middle East.

I did initially a half a year back in 2005, and then with Vela I did tons of time. This boat, I’ve commuted since January, so I’ve been in the US, I think, not more than 22, 23 days this year.

MS: What is it like, commuting from Sarasota to Bangkok?

TY: The fastest way you can get there is 24 hours and 30 minutes. Qatar Airways, one stop in Philly or Chicago. One

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stop in Doha for 40 minutes and then into Bangkok. some of the wind-farm installations.

I have an apartment there, the same one I had during They’re building two of them right now. That’s the reaCOVID. $260 a month. It’s a cool little apartment, nicer son we’re delayed, because they bid on a European contract than any budget hotel. It’s a hotel apartment. that they weren’t ready for.

Because when we built Argo, and when we refit Argo the first time, you had to live in Bangkok. But now the sky train MS: What’s your day like at the shipyard? from Bangkok goes all the way out to where the yard is, in Samut Prakan, right at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River.

TY: Now that I live out in Samut Prakan, it’s about a It’s a cool town. four-minute It’s the biggest motorbike ride seafood-importing from the hotel to town of Thailand, the shipyard, five so the food’s minutes with trafincredible. So fic. I roll in. I go yeah, same little walk through the restaurants. Same boat. I take a millittle streetcar peolion photos. I ple. When I have come back and I staff out there, I basically answer a give them six zillion questions bucks a day for and correct a food and they are bunch of things eating well. It’s the that are going best Thai food you wrong. could ever eat.

In this case, it There’s no tourists should have been out there, none of really easy. Right the things that out of finishing ARGO’s refit includes replacing mild steel deck fittings Vela, I said, “Hey, I bum you out in Thailand, where want to bring Argo people are trying to take you in and buy suits. We’re the only back and just redo all the systems up to Vela’s specs — lithinon-Thais out there, really. um batteries, new DC systems.” The higher-performance, bigger watermaker, all the things that make our life easier on The shipyard has a project they’re doing right now with the boat. Better refrigerators, the sewage treatment system, these wind-farm support vessels that are super cool. They’re things that required removing quite a bit of the interior to aluminum trimarans, jet drive with a soft bow, so they can do. You can’t get sewage treatment into the floor without sit up against a wind farm installation and surge and stabiremoving the floor! lize and do all sorts of stuff. They’re to replace helicopters in And it would have been easy, if I could have used the new-build engineers and the new-build mechanics who had ! just finished Vela. But because of these ,+*)('&*%$)(#)$+* $ )"!!(% ( ) !)$()#(!$* ) trimarans, I got “Hey, this has got to ( ($*) )* %( * * )$+*)* &( * $ ) $ ( ! ) ) *!* ( )(#)!%+(( * !) come under the repair department, and ' )! ( ) !) ) this is who’s going to lead it.” And then, ( ( !)$+ $ $ ) *) )! $+ ) $+) ( )('&*%$ )' ) $ ) ) *%( )(#) because they didn’t have the engineers or $+*!*) *!!* !) !$ ) ) *!* $ ) )' ) the workers available to us, they got us a %(( ) ) )$+* + ) ) ) ( )(##) % ) )% ! ) ( * "!!(% ( ) !) ) ( )( ( ) +(!*) * '* !) *)( * !)(#) bunch of subcontractors. !%+(( * ! )! ( !) )($+* ) !) )( ( !) $* *!$* ) Some are okay, and some are clueless ) *!* ) ) ( ( )$+*) $ *!)(#)$+*)!%+(( * ) — they just have no history with what ( ) * '* !+ )+* !)! ( $) ( $+)* % ( ) $)!%+(( * )* * $! ) ) )($+* ) $+*)"!!(% ( !) they’re trying to do. Some are really "!!(% ( ) (&*%$! good, but that same contractor is doing ( )$( ) $)+ " %+(( * ( & &( ) the dynamic-positioning system on the

trimarans, so we get them for an hour a !

day.

Basically, what I’ve been doing for the last four months is cheerleading, 14

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VELA was commissioned during COVID and promptly sailed from Thailand to the Maldives, Cape Town, and on to Antigua screaming, stamping my feet, updating production schedules and telling them they’re not making it. It took them months and months to recognize they weren’t going to get it done in time.

Right now we’re re-installing equipment as they’re finishing spaces, because we took a bunch of stuff out. It wasn’t in the contract for them to work on, we removed it, so I got a couple more people coming out in the next two or three weeks. As the boat’s finished in certain areas, we’re going to start installing.

MS: Sounds like you’ll have your hands full.

TY: It’s going to be painful. I want to tell you that I’m going to call you and tell you we launched on time and everything ran. But we’re going to launch on time, and whether everything runs or not is going to be my problem!

MS: You were great about sending us updates during the Vela build. I know that our readers enjoyed following a steel build, which is unusual for us, since most of what we feature

in our Boatyards section is wood construction.

TY: Of course, and that’s super interesting. I’m way interested in that stuff. I read that stuff. I would even read more of it.

MS: Would you consider building or adding a wooden vessel to your fleet at this point?

TY: Not building, I don’t think. Adding — we’ve talked about adding. We’ve talked about where we go from here.

We have the two bigger boats now, and once Argo’s done, she’ll be good for another eight or nine years just the way she is.

Ocean Star is our next big question. Before Irma, Ocean Star was the boat that was supposed to be refit. We didn’t have any plans to build Vela. I had a contract with a yard right up the street in Palmetto [Florida], where a King’s Point friend of mine ran a commercial shipyard, to do a full Ocean Star refit down to the framing. A new rig and everything, and that was supposed to start on December 20, 2017.

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OCEAN STAR was already scheduled for a refit when Hurricane Irma took down her rig and devasted Sea/Mester’s BVI operations Then Ocean Star lost her rig and we lost all our equipment, and while I was in the BVI cutting rigs off and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, [Sea|Mester Director] Mike [Meighan] made the decision to build Vela.

We started building Vela, we rerigged Ocean Star, and we brought Ocean Star to the States. Everything above the deck is brand new on Ocean Star, except the booms, which survived.

MS: So faced with the 1-2 punch of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, you doubled down and made a massive new investment in your business.

TY: Yeah. We’re a bit like a tripod. Sea|Mester is one of the bigger legs. But the biggest leg is the ActionQuest program that we run down in the Caribbean and all around the world with kids on charter boats. We decided to build Vela because we didn’t know if the rest of our company was going to come back. We didn’t know whether we’d ever operate in the BVIs again.

We decided, if we had to have all our eggs in one basket,

we’d have it in Sea|Mester as a college program and we’d run three boats. Now we have three boats. We ran three boats through COVID 100% full and it saved the rest of our business, because everything else stopped. It was the revenue that we generated through COVID that kept us from laying off everybody here in the office.

MS: Talk about that a little bit: generating revenue during COVID. TY: We were the only show in town for international study abroad. It was us and some Irish program where the kids just sat in lockdown the whole time. If you wanted to study abroad, we were literally the only way you could leave the country.

I guess the last time I wrote you was me getting Vela to the Maldives. We moved the boats all around. Vela sailed the fall semester from the Maldives to Cape Town, and on our way to Cape Town, we knew South Africa was going to close. In Cape Town, half the students left. Half of them wanted to stay on. They paid us a little bit, and we headed to Antigua. Some of those students got like 12 or 13,000 miles.

MS: Halfway around the world!

TY: We sailed Argo across the Pacific: left the Caribbean with 24 students, headed for Tahiti. On our way from the Galapagos to Tahiti, Tahiti closed, so we passed Tahiti.

Kept going to Fiji, because Fiji was wide open with a blue-lane system for allowing people in — and then Fiji closed!

They let us into Fiji and then we ended up spending the whole summer there, which the staff loved and the students loved. We

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had our students going out to Fiji, 24 students on a 787 cargo flight, and Air Fiji made it happen for us. Full police escort. The students had to go to LA, take a PCR test, quarantine, and be in the hotels that we provided. And it was a cargo flight with diplomatic service, not a single other passenger and just two air crew.

MS: It wasn’t like you guys got a free lunch operating during COVID. It sounds one headache after another for a couple years, to make all that happen.

But Sea|Mester got it done. The fact that we had three boats made it possible. I’m not sure economically it would’ve worked with two boats. Now we sit in a place where we’d still like to be a three-boat program, but Ocean Star needs the attention she needed in 2017. Not the rigging. A little bit on the systems.

We have to make a decision on Ocean Star, and the decision could be to sell her. But would we add a wooden boat?

We might, but we wouldn’t build a wood boat.

MS: But you’d like to be a three-boat program, whether Ocean Star is the third boat or not.

TY: That’s what it was.

That’s why it was so special for us to receive the award.

Because the year before, we TY: It just gives us some operated through all of geographic marketing abiliCOVID, and then they ty. Ocean Star only stays in canceled all the awards! We the Caribbean, and she is all laughed about it. It was almost always full. It’s a diflike the re-invention, the referent trip. A shorter trip, imagination trophy … no, shorter passages, more divwe didn’t imagine anything! ing, more walking around We sailed every single mile! land, no ocean crossing in That was a big relief for there, but the same academus, not just to get the award ics and it fills the bill. but to come through it and Always packed. I think it’s relatable. to have never canceled a We’re very lucky there’s trip. I mean, we moved a lot of kids that can just trips! That spring trip was close their eyes and say, “I’m supposed to start in Cape from Kentucky but I want Town, and started in to cross an ocean.” It’s an Antigua. We just put it off ambitious thing, but we do 30 days and the students it all the time. But there’s flew to Antigua and then also a lot of kids that close sailed the whole Eastern their eyes and go, “I want to Caribbean and up.

ARGO has been hauled out at the be on the water, but I have We did a double Marsun Shipyard in Thailand since January no idea how the ocean’s transatlantic. That was the going to work out for me.” height of COVID, with That’s where that 80-day trip on Ocean Star works well.

Argo. She left from Mystic and went to Europe and came It’s a smaller group. It’s 16 students, less miles. It’s an easier back to Antigua. One semester, two transatlantics! The stuboat for us to run. If you get to the nitty-gritty of how we dents loved it. run our programs, we bring a ton of new captains in on Was it what we sold them? No, but their alternative was Ocean Star. I was running that boat when I was 23 years old. to sit in a dorm and Zoom all their classes, so we made it happen. It was great, and it kept us afloat. The tripod of our MS: So you tend to promote your staff from Ocean Star business went down to one leg, but we stayed up. up to the blue-water boats?

We’ve come back super strong with ActionQuest. But that third leg of our business is this service program called TY: That’s typically the path. We have had terrible luck GoBeyond and it hasn’t come back. We had some kids in hiring outside. Maybe it’s our culture. Maybe it’s the mission the BVI doing some of the community service work that we of the boat. We run our programs more as expeditions, and do down there. But that brand, which is usually 300 to 400 we have obviously the staff and the leaders and they’re there kids a year in Thailand, Iceland, Galapagos, Peru, in small for the safety and the responsibility, but everybody’s cleaning groups, that’s what we’ve done for 15 years now. Since 9/11 the cap rail. Everybody’s cooking and cleaning. Even if I’m we’ve been doing that program.

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the captain on board, I’m still the Chef of the Day once every rotation through the job wheel. That’s just the way we run.

I think we struggle with bringing in senior, experienced sailors who all of a sudden are expected to do dishes. I hate to make it that basic, but there’s not a lot of captain’s privilege. You do get a better bunk, but that’s the limit.

MS: Even on our little schooner, we’ve had captains who just won’t go down and make sure the head is clean. They’re going to find someone else to do it.

can’t change that on Argo. I can’t pull that out and change it, so I haven’t. But all the dorade box tops on Argo were originally all made in mild steel and they just rust their brains out. A ton of hard work’s been done to remove the places where we have rust where we just can’t control. Whether it’s behind a piece of teak, under a piece of teak or just someplace where you just can’t stop the bolt penetration from rust, we’ve replaced it.

MS: How many heads are on the new boats?

TY: Six. Two for the staff. They’re Jabsco electrics, nothTY: I get that, I went to sea as a cadet on a merchant ing fancy. It’s a lot of heads, so we shouldn’t be putting as ship. But we just many miles on each don’t run that way. one as some people We bring them in do. When we bought in a different way. A Ocean Star, it had lot of times they’ll one head! Actually, come into our team one and a half. The program and run a one in the chart 50-footer for us, get house... if you were a pegged as somebody normal-sized human, who’s got the soft you had to slide back skills and the hard and lean forward and skills. They’ll come you could just about on board and step up hit it. as a mate onto Ocean It certainly gets Star or one of the easier if you can push a button. I had a bigger boats, but not boat a long time ago the first mate.

Then typically that had one of those they’ll go back and OCEAN STAR operates exclusively in the Caribbean Wilcox-Crittenden heads with everyrun as the captain of thing metal on it. I Ocean Star in the Caribbean. Ocean Star gives you a ton of reps. It gives you a mean, you could pump a bike tire through that thing! It took ton of sail raises. It gives ton of sail strikes. It gives you a ton some work, but you could get a bike tire through. of anchoring experience. It’s a hard boat to drive. There’s no bow thruster, it’s a reverse prop.

MS: You can get it through the head — what happens She’s a big boat, 80 feet and 80 tons, but she can teach once it passes into your plumbing is another question. you. Then you step up to the bigger boats and certainly I’ve got to say, your website’s great. I love the tracking there’s a pucker factor when you’re trying to go stern-to in page that you have set up for the boats. I love the way that the little capsules for each voyage includes how many days at the Med somewhere with all the shiny boats. My first time running Ocean Star, I had to put her between Velsheda and sea each trip includes. It’s great information and I don’t Endeavor in St. Barts with Jimmy Buffett watching! think that’s always available for all programs.

MS: When this refit of Argo is done, what will be the differences between Argo and Vela? They’re sister ships, right?

TY: Yeah. Their systems will be identical. The same lithium systems, same sewage treatment, same heads, all the same refrigerators, freezers. Their main engines are just one arrangement off each other but they will be substantively the same. The rigs are the same. They were built, I mean, they’re within six centimeters of each other in most dimensions.

On Vela, I went with way more things as stainless steel. I 18

TY: No. We have a product that we offer that’s very regular. I mean, as much as we’re in the industry, we straddle two industries. I feel for everyone else who’s doing a great job running tall ships. And trying to run these programs that are tied to government funding or tied to grants or even doing day trips…

I guess maybe it’s an easier thing to do. It’s got to be hard for staff burnout, but we learned to sell our product by selling our other products. We adapted it to what we do here. b For more on their vessels & programs, visit seamester.com

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Protecting Mariners & the Marine Trades Since 1866 E N D O R S E D BY

Flagship Niagara

Chris Richmond crichmond@allenif.com

AllenIF.com/tallships

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(800) 439-4311

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Can a Shipyard ever be too Busy?

Marlinspike chats with Mystic’s Shipyard Director, Chris Sanders, about competing with commercial yards, taking care of the Museum’s large fleet, and the Syncholift Marlinspike: Chris, it seems like there is always a big vessel on the ways at your Shipyard. Mayflower II, Victory Chimes, Amistad, Shenandoah, Pilot aka Highlander Sea… and those are just the most recent ones.

Chris Sanders: Yes. Pilot comes every other year. We’re basically restoring the boat in six-month chunks, so that she can actually have an operating season.

It’s been really busy here the last four or five years, ever since we decided that — instead of being the largest financial black hole on campus — we could actually generate some income for the Museum and offset our operating costs. It’s like a million dollars a year to run this place, if you’re not generating income. We took one look at the books and were like, “Why are we not helping?” And over the last couple of years, it’s been incredible.

The wooden boat industry is kind of this poor belea20

guered little industry where you have to go to Florida or Maine or here to get hauled out. If you’re an old wooden boat, most yards will just tell you where to go! And you know, it’s our bread and butter. This is all we do.

So, it’s been pretty wild the last couple years. We have a lot of long-term clients, repeat clients, people like the Pincuses out of New York; they own schooners that we work on [Pilot and Sherman Zwicker]. Kalmar Nyckel will be here in about three weeks. And pretty much everything in between, too. It’s a great time to work here.

MS: So while previously you were working on a lot of in-house projects, now you’ve turned your Shipyard into a more commercial, revenue-generating yard.

CS: Exactly. Fifteen years ago, the Museum was relying pretty heavily on just the visitor draw of the shipyard,

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AMISTAD

which, to be honest, is a very popular — MS: Has that been measured, Chris? Having a highprofile vessel like Mayflower II in your yard, completely up out of the water — does that have a measurable impact on visitation?

CS: Absolutely! When we had Mayflower II out of the water, the number of people that came down to the Shipyard was, I would say, at least 50% higher than before or after. Not everybody is a maritime historian, but these people came down to see a boat and to learn about it.

We set up an exhibit specifically for Mayflower II. We had viewing galleries in the tent while the restoration was happening. I think that’s going to be our boilerplate for the next several major restorations. The stuff that we do here, it’s too good to keep it a secret, so we’re going to have viewing galleries. We’re going to let the public actually get onto the boat, to see what the shipwrights are doing from day to day.

You know — and I mean it — we’re not purely a business. We are trying to offset the operating costs of the Shipyard. If you were a shipwright who works in an industrial yard and you came here, you would think that the pace was a little bit different. The crux though, is that we’re not trying to net a profit. We are trying to offset our operating costs.

And at the same time, we are trying to make sure that every visitor who comes down here sees what we see and appreciates what we do. And I think we’re getting really close to a model where we can work on a boat efficiently and we can allow the public to watch what we’re doing.

It’s a really exciting time to work here. I am really jazzed about the next 10, 15, 20 years.

MS: When non-profit organizations move into for-profit sectors, they are often resented by their competitors that are not non-profits. I’ve occasionally heard complaints from smaller yards in New England that Mystic absorbs a lot of the high-profile projects.

But I guess it’s also worth pointing out that there were two new vessels launched this summer on the East Coast…

Ernestina-Morrissey is nearing the end of a long rebuild… the AJ Meerwald just got an extensive rebuild… and none of those projects happened at Mystic Seaport.

SHENANDOAH CHARLES W. MORGAN

CS: No, that’s right. Tim Clark is a buddy of mine. He did the AJ Meerwald.

You’re treading on very dangerous ground when your business model allows you to underbid pretty much any yard in the world. So what we do is, we are forthcoming and we’re honest with the shipyards in the area. I’m going to give you an example.

We had a project that we were talking about doing, and there was some uproar from a local shipyard. The owner came over, we sat down, we talked about it and we said, MarlinspikeMagazine.com

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TALK OF THE YARD Overheard on the Marlinspike facebook page during a discussion of the Mystic Seaport Shipyard’s expanding operations.

“Does anyone else here have an opinion about Mystic Seaport doing commercial ship repair? Mine: they are taking work away from commercial shipyards and higher-paid shipwrights like me.”

“I'm just as frustrated with the fact that all the boat schools dominate the small-boat market.

Sucks all around for those of us trying to make a living with wooden boats.”

“Every nonprofit is struggling for funding and needs to maximize revenue. Mystic has trained shipwrights who probably need employment between their own projects.”

“Mystic does have a skilled staff. But in my experience, museums don’t usually produce shipwrights that perform to the degree of efficiency and speed of those who learned the trade the old way. There is no shortage of incredibly knowledgeable and skilled traditional shipwrights up here in Maine who started their careers in commercial yards. I have seen the difference time and time again. I'm not knocking the non-profit world of apprenticeship. There is obviously not a universal precedent for how effectively or ineffectively they work ... but generally speaking this has been the case.”

“While I greatly respect many of the fine shipwrights at Mystic I was very disappointed in the institution when, during the lead-up to the Ernestina project, they described themselves as the ‘sole source’ in writing. It felt as if an institution that is supposed to help the industry was damning it.”

“The field of traditional marine craftsmanship would benefit considerably if organizations would be more selective in what they want to save and the purpose they put the vessel to once it has been saved. How many light ships, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines etc, do we need? Each of these are whirlpools that suck the money out of more practical, more achievable efforts that better reflect our maritime past.”

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“We’re not trying to take food off your plate here. We’re trying to do what we can to maintain the Shipyard.” I went so far as to suggest, “Hey, maybe we do a joint effort on this boat.”

Mystic Seaport is really good at timber-framed, large vessels. We are not a cabinet shop. We are not set up for really high-end varnish work, that kind of stuff. That’s where we make it a joint effort with the local boatyards.

And if I really need raised panels, I’m gonna call Dave Snediker, suggest maybe he takes over that part of the project. That way, everybody in the Mystic-Stonington area gets a slice of the pie.

It would be selfish of us to try and do everything that a high-end yacht requires. We’re not set up for it. We have five, six, seven boatyards in this area that are way better at that kind of stuff than we are. You know, the guy who came into my office and was concerned that we were stealing a project from him? I said, “We work on big, beat-up wooden workboats. We don’t build yachts here. So if that project actually does come here, you’re gonna be part of it. I promise.”

MS: Following up on that collaboration: tell us about the crew you have. Are people coming from local yards to work on a particular project and then going back to those yards?

Are people coming and going, or do you have a stable crew?

CS: Right now we have a dozen shipwrights, riggers, and finish people. The nice thing about Mystic is that they make it worth your while when you get here. So we have very little turnover. We’ve had retirement parties for people who worked here for 50 years at least twice in the last six months. We take care of our own.

When it comes to the subcontracting, we do get a lot of people interested in coming back here after their project is over. And we’re treading pretty lightly, because we don’t want to steal people from other boatyards. The boatbuilding world is a very, very small world. If I get a phone call from somebody who wants to come here, the first thing I do is I call their employer — whom I probably know already — just to be like, “Hey, is this all above-board?”

What we do at Mystic is timber-framed wooden work vessels. We still use axes and adzes and all the traditional shipwrights’ tools. But we also, since we started trying to bring commercial work in here, we’ve started to watch our time in our man-hours and stuff like that.

The rate that we charge is significantly less than a typical shipyard. If you took Mayflower II up to Boothbay, you know, their shipwrights hit the ground at $90 an hour or $100 even. We don’t charge nearly that much, but we also warn our clients that, “Hey, we might have the public crawling all over your boat and it might slow things down.” But that’s included in our rates.

We have a Syncrolift, which might be the smallest Syncrolift in the country. It’s measured for almost 600 met-

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ric tons, and it is the easiest and gentlest way to haul a vessel out of the water, which is why we get vessels like Victory Chimes. I think they got a stiff-arm from three or four yards before they ended up coming down here.

MS: You’re a long way from Rockland. But the Chimes is almost 130’ long and over 200 gross tons. There are a limited number of places that could handle a vessel that size.

CS: That’s exactly right. So, we have a great relationship with the Coast Guard. As soon as a boat comes out of the water, they’re down here. And they understand, this is literally all we do. When the Coast Guard is on site, they’re looking to us for advice and guidance on a particular vessel.

When Victory Chimes came out of the water, we were a little bit concerned about parts of the stem assembly. And the Coast Guard, instead of fixating, they said, “Well, what do you want to do?”

I said, “Here’s what I want to do: I want to build a fiveyear plan for this vessel, where she comes back after her operating season. We’ll do all of the work that we possibly can over the winter, so that she can go back to Maine and have an operating season.”

The hard thing about Mayflower II was that she missed a season [in Plymouth]. I mean, there were people who were rioting about her not being there. She’s a huge draw. We try to impact the client as little as we can.

So I sat down with OCMI Sector Long Island Sound and I said, “This is what I want to do right now. This is not going to affect the integrity of the vessel, but I think it is something that we need to address in the next three to five years. And they listened and said, “OK, that sounds great.”

The Coast Guard, being our governing body, obviously has the final say, but it’s really nice knowing that they have our back. That’s comforting.

MS: For people who haven’t been to Mystic, tell us about the Synchrolift and your procedure for hauling the largest vessels that come to your yard.

CS: The Synchrolift is a European method of hauling a boat. It has eight Rolls Royce electric motors that drop or lift a wooden platform the size of a basketball court.

Whenever we have a new client that wants to haul out, I ask them for construction plans and line plans. We generate a blocking plan for each boat, we build cradles that we can move around, we build up the blocking. We put in towers, jack stands, whatever. We roll that all out onto the Syncrolift. And the entire platform goes 23 feet down into the Mystic River.

We drive the boat over the top of the cradle. Then we send divers in, equipped with come-alongs and strapping and stuff like that, so we can make adjustments. Then we ground the boat and then we lift her out of the water. Once she’s out, the railway system that we have allows us to push the boat pretty much wherever we need it to go. Boats under a hundred tons or so, we can usually just push around with a single forklift. Sometimes we need two different forklifts, but we also have a sidetrack. If you come down here, you will see this.

We are working on three different boats right now. It’s like playing Tetris; you gotta push one boat up, you gotta push it over, then you bring the next boat up and then you slide the other one behind it, and that kind of thing. That increasingly is becoming the modus operandi.

We’re just really busy. I talked with the mate of Amistad yesterday, and I’m still trying to rack my brain about how do I haul Amistad this winter, and get the work done that they need done, because boy, are we busy!

MS: You have a fair number of vessels in-house: the Conrad, the Morgan, Brilliant, the Dunton, your steam launch Sabino… how much of your time and energy is spent on your own fleet?

CS: When I took over for Quentin Snediker, I looked him in the eye and

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promised him that for every outside project that we worked why we work here. on, we would work on one of our own boats. I’m actually way ahead of that curve right now. I think we’re working on [Lengthy discussion of the pending rebuild of the L. A. four of our own boats, and we’re only working on one comDunton; see page 26] mercial project. But given the facilities that we have, I think it would be irresponsible of us to not utilize them to their MS: We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the Dunton, utmost. which is great, but to wrap up, tell us a little bit about your We currently have Sabino out of the water for repowercareer — how you came to be at Mystic and in this position, ing. We are keeping her taking over for Quentin, original steam engine, but who has been such a major we are augmenting that player in our little industry with a diesel-electric over the years. hybrid, which gives us some flexibility. We can run more CS: An icon! Yeah. trips down river and stuff I went to the University like that during the day. of North Carolina at Right behind her, we Chapel Hill, and I couldn’t have Gerda III. She’s a figure out what to do. I was Danish lighthouse tender trying everything. I was an that we take care of for the art history major for a Jewish Heritage. We’re while. Biology, pre-med, doing a thorough survey on pre-law, you name it. her with the hopes that we I lived in Chapel Hill can do a large restoration for a few years after school. on her, but they’re both up And I had this epiphany on the railway right now. where I pulled over in my We’ve also got the car and I was like, “Jesus, I Catherine Whitmore, an oysam so unhappy.” I was tering boat out of Norwalk. managing a microbrewery In the shop we’re workat the time and I just ing on two of our own couldn’t stand it. I had a boats. We’re rebuilding a long talk with my father, New Haven Sharpie that basically trying to convince was originally built in 1865 him that I needed to make right here in Mystic. And a pretty powerful career MAYFLOWER II has a new lease on life we’re also working on Star, change. after an extended stay at Mystic which is a little swordfishAnd then about six ing boat in our collection. weeks later, I began to Quentin’s concern was that we would start seeing dollar work with a master shipwright named Daniel Sutherland. signs if we kept doing the commercial work. I assured him, Daniel Sutherland was an amazing guy, a third-generation “I know what my job is here. We need to make sure that our boatbuilder from upstate New York, and he could build anyboats are well taken care of, and anything else is an ancillary thing. It was a real honor to work with him, Richard benefit.”

Scofield, and Marc Barto. I owe everything I have today to I think that took a lot of the weight off his shoulders, them and their endless patience with me. because he was concerned about passing the torch to someAnyway, we worked on a small tender for a yacht in the body like me, who had worked in the commercial world for Chesapeake called Elf, a little eight-and-a-half-foot Lawley.

15 years, where profit was the bottom line. He was scared, I I’d been obsessed with wooden boats since I was like five think, that we would start losing sight of why the shipyard years old. I didn’t grow up in a sailing family. But there was was built in the first place. something about them that I just couldn’t shake. And when I still use Quentin as a sounding board. He still works at I got to work on this tender, it was so much better than I Mystic, and I always make sure that he knows exactly what ever imagined it could be. we’re up to. And it’s funny, I think the fact that I don’t actuAfter working on that boat for a while, I got pulled aside ally see him very often is a good sign — he trusts what we’re by the director of the shipyard and he asked me if I would doing down here. I have never lost sight of the fact that we like to do an apprenticeship with another master shipwright are a museum and the boats in our collection are the reason down there. And funnily enough, the day that he asked me 24

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that, I was also accepted to the International Yacht Restoration School. I had to make a decision. I ended up calling Clark Poston over at IYRS and asking if I could defer for a couple years and do the apprenticeship. And so I worked on some bugeyes, some skipjacks.

And then I went to IYRS, did their two-year boat building and restoration course. After that, I worked in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, Northern California, Southern California. Just going where the boats were! I worked for Jeff Ruth for a long time out in the Bay Area.

But I was born and raised in Connecticut and I always wanted to get back to New England. And so my wife and I decided, to move back, and I started looking around for work here. One of my instructors from IYRS, Walter Ansel, was the lead shipwright on Mayflower II. I gave him a call and said, “Hey, are you looking for shipwrights?”

He replied, “When can you be here?”

I had to wait because my wife was very, very pregnant with our daughter at the time in San Diego. She was born January 25th and my first day at Mystic Seaport, I think, was March 5th. We packed up all the stuff and headed across the country.

After that, well… I think having worked in the commercial world, there’s a certain work ethic. There’s a certain pace

that you have to work at. And I think that sort of set me apart a little bit. The museum pace and the commercial pace are quite different.

I was made lead shipwright in 2020, when we were doing a lot of finish work on a boat from Kings Point: the Liberator, an old YP boat, basically a miniature minesweeper. That was my first project as lead shipwright. I was lead shipwright for about 18 months before I was made director.

Quentin’s heart and soul had always been in the academic side of the boatbuilding world. He’s a lifelong sailor, but his real love is research. So he retired as director and became the Clark Senior Curator for all watercraft. He is the end-all and be-all when it comes to any decision that affects a boat at Mystic Seaport. If I have any questions about a boat, he’s the first person I call. And he’s here all the time.

He’s a great sounding board. I really treasure his friendship. He’s a hell of a nice guy. And he’s just one of those people — it’s almost scary how smart he is. I love talking to him. He’s literally written the book on East Coast coasting schooners. He’s just an amazing individual.

I think the reason why he and I get along so well is that I’m a boatbuilder. I am not a researcher. That dovetails really well. If he doesn’t know something, he calls me; if I don’t know something, I call him. We’ve solved a hell of a lot of problems by coming at them from opposite ends! b

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Next Up: L.A. Dunton Marlinspike: As a guy who lived in Essex and the owner of an Essex-built schooner, I have to ask: before COVID, we were hearing that the Essex-built L.A. Dunton was going to be Mystic’s next big project. Can you tell us a little bit about the status of that boat ?

Chris Sanders: The model that we were working with to restore the L.A. Dunton just wasn’t working. You know, we were trying to get to six, seven, eight million in the bank so that we could start the restoration, but over the last 25 years, that has failed to come to any kind of resolution.

Walt Ansel, the senior shipwright here, had a revelation where he said, “I think if we can get the boat out of the water and we can allocate a certain amount of money per year, and we put two or three people on it, we can restore the boat.” I mean, it might take 10 years, but at the end of that 10-year period, we would have a seaworthy, ocean-going fishing schooner again!

I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know the last time that the L.A. Dunton actually went sailing. But one of the things I promised Quentin [Snediker] when I took over for 26

him was that we will get the Dunton sailing again!

I have this grand vision of her going up to Gloucester for the Schooner Festival and then going down to the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race. She would make a great roving ambassador for the Museum. That is the plan. I think we are going to see some progress starting this fall. It sounds like it’s starting to gain some traction.

MS: She would be an exciting boat to see underway.

How big is she? As big as Ernestina or Adventure?

CS: I think she’s 121’ on deck. Pretty big. Over the last year or so, I’ve been researching her story and her history, and there was a funny article where she actually went out and unofficially raced Bluenose when Bluenose was first launched! She got absolutely trounced.

But she’s had some real fans here. Guys like Roger Hagge, Walt Ansel — they never, never let people like me forget what the boat’s about and what our mission statement is. Roger poured thousands of hours into research on that vessel and he drew up the most beautiful lines plans. Walter

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Ansel, same thing. He took historic photographs of the Dunton and recreated what she looked like on her launch.

It’s kind of terrifying to admit, but if you look at the Dunton right now versus a photo from her launch day, she has lost 32 inches of sheer! There were a couple of decisions that were made in the 1970s and the ‘80s that didn’t really help. They did some replanking of her topsides in the water.

So essentially they took all the longitudinal strength out of the boat, and then built that shape back into it.

Luckily we have what we believe are very accurate lines plans of the boat. So our first priority is to put that shape back into her. We want her as accurate as we possibly can get her.

Our senior shipwright, our lead shipwright, myself — we all signed on to work here because we want to make that restoration happen.

We’ve got a lot of people rooting for that boat.

MS: Mystic has resources that aren’t available to everybody, so you can take the long-term view, you can undertake that kind of project.

Adventure got rebuilt, but in dribs and drabs, and she’s as flat as an aircraft carrier.

Many fine people worked their butts off to save that boat, but when the money and the work come in fits and starts, it’s very hard to truly restore a big schooner like that.

CS: Unless you have a million dollars in hand, you cannot change the sheer line of a fishing schooner — it takes years and it takes a lot of manpower. So we’re pretty lucky. We have a board of directors who are behind us all the way, Our president, Peter [Armstrong], loves the shipyard, loves what we’re doing.

I think the pieces are starting to fall into place for the Dunton. And I honestly, that’s going to be my magnum opus, as the director, to restore her to the point where she can race in the Chesapeake Bay race, and go up to Gloucester and wrestle it up with the other boats. I think it’s been too long, but it’s going to be that much more rewarding.

MS: How badly do you think she’ll get trounced by the steel Columbia?

CS: I’m not optimistic about our odds against Columbia.

If we can get her up to Gloucester, that’s a win. We might have a hard time with Roseway. But, to be honest, if she leaves the Mystic River, that is a victory for me!

MS: To have her back sailing again with her original sheer would be an amazing thing.

Gloucester would go nuts for that. I mean, everybody went crazy for the steel Columbia replica, but the Dunton restored to her original glory would top that.

CS: I 100% agree. That poor boat gives me heartburn, because I have to walk past her every day. I feel shame that she has decayed to the point where we actually have to talk about a full-on restoration.

We have limited funding, but we have some really dedicated people and the board of directors, they’re all about this.

We wanna put her rig back in, we want to sail her. We want to show what we’re capable of. I think honestly in the next eight to 10 years, you’re going to see some real progress on the L.A. Dunton, and I could not be more excited about it.

MS: That’s great news, Chris. I wasn’t aware that that this passion existed!

Have you by any chance got an L.A. Dunton tattoo on you somewhere?

CS: Actually, I don’t have a tattoo. I probably should, though.

MS: Maybe the L.A. Dunton is the boat that breaks that ice for you!

CS: Yup, I was going to say — the Dunton might be a good place to start. b

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GLOUCESTER SCHOONER FES 2022

Clockwise from upper left: Adventur Lewis Story; American Eagle; Tree of L Brilliant; Alert; Adventure; Tree of Lif and Gaff Cutter

TIVAL

re; Life; fe

GLOUCESTER SCHOONER FESTIVAL * 2022 Clockwise from above: well-read deckhands on Fame; Columbia; Alert; Ten Pound Light; Tree of Life and Tyrone; Voyager; Roseway tied up at the Paint Factory on Rocky Neck

FREAS PHOTOGRAPHY

As the latest custodian of Hindu, Josh Rowan had been running the schooner out of Provincetown in the summer and Key West in the winter since doing some major work back in 2011.

However, the boat needed more. Rowan’s carefully-laid plans for a full rebuild were upended when Hindu struck a semi-submerged derelict in 2020 while returning to Provincetown, suffering major damage.

Marlinspike: First, tell us why Hindu is important.

Why are you rebuilding the 97-year-old Hindu, instead of building a new boat?

Josh Rowan: That is a great question. I’ll give you my answer and then Erin will give you hers. [Third voice, unintelligible] Uh, it’s not all me! That’s not true!

I mean… everybody has something in their lives that may not be logical, but is driven by desire. Hindu fulfills, like, three niches for me. One is, she’s a quiet beauty, a subtle, not like a slap-you-in-the-face kind of beauty. She’s perfect in every way. And she is so different and unique in her construction and in her build quality.

For example: she should not be as fast as she is, for how she’s built. She’s built like a tank! And yet she can keep up with boats like Brilliant. And Aldens that are built with half the weight. That goes to show that that the designer was on to something.

On the engineering side of things, there are her hockey32

stick futtocks, which are totally weird, but Bowdoin has them, Ladona has them. It was a method of construction that allowed for the sole to be a little bit lower, so you could have a smaller boat and still have headroom without big deck houses.

MS: When you say “hockey stick” you mean that the futtock flattens out at the bottom and becomes the floor?

JR: Yeah. The futtock looks almost identical to a hockey stick. There’s a foot coming from each side, the forward foot on starboard and the after foot on port. They come across and then they’re bolted together and then bolted down through the keel. That becomes in essence the floor. So you don’t have to have these 24” high floors, in order to get that structure in the bottom of the boat.

MS: Are you finding it difficult, as you replace frames, to find stock with that curvature?

JR: Yeah, that has been the trickiest part of our acquisitions of lumber so far: finding boards that have as little run out as possible in those areas, and are wide enough to land on the keel and then run out three feet across to the other side of the boat. You’re talking about a 30” wide board.

MS: Seems like a tall order.

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‘A Quiet Beauty’ Despite a wee-hours allision and a worldwide pandemic, Josh Rowan continues to plow ahead with a comprehensive rebuild of the 1925 William Hand schooner HINDU JR: Yeah! You could tell when we had pulled [the original frames] out, these are a hundred years old, they had seen a lot of service. There were some that had grain runout and some cracking in them, but very few. We have met the same quality thresholds as far as grain runout as they did originally, so I’m hoping to have just as good luck as they did. I feel like the materials that we’re using now are hundred-year materials instead of, you know, white oak. I feel like the black locust we’re using will outlast white oak.

MS: Before we get lost in the weeds of construction, let’s circle back to Erin and ask her why you’re rebuilding the Hindu.

Erin: The collective experience on the Hindu, and the investment of the communities that have spent almost a hundred years sailing and crewing the Hindu make it totally worthwhile! As well as the historic experiences of the Hindu, which make history come alive in a much more visceral kind of a way than textbooks.

MS: As far as the history of the schooner goes, I’ve read that Hindu was responsible for starting the whale-watching industry here in New England.

JR: Yeah! Al Avellar served in the Corsair Fleet on Ticonderoga, which was called Tioga then. He was the captain. At the end of the war, when they mothballed everything, he had the option to buy Tioga or any of the boats, and he chose Hindu.

When I asked Susan, his niece, why that was, she merely said that he wanted a schooner and that Provincetown had been built on the backs of schooners and he thought that it was a prettier rig than a ketch. He picked Hindu because of her lines and her seaworthiness. She’s just such a nice boat in all conditions. As you know, some boats thrive in certain conditions, but are miserable in others.

MS: What was he choosing her for? Did he already have an idea that he was going to take people out to look at whales, or was he just hoping to use her as an excursion boat?

JR: Well, this is the story I’ve heard. Before the war, he had run a catboat off of McMillan Pier and had a couple other rental boats, and he did sailing excursions. When he got back, he did it in a grander scale, with an obviously nowinspected boat. When they were taken into the Corsair Fleet, the boats were refitted with copper-lined engine rooms and fireproof bulkheads between the machinery space and the crew living space and so on. Lifelines were added.

He chartered this boat and was doing four sails a day off of McMillan Pier before there was a float.

And Nappy — I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Nappy’s in P-town — Nappy was his crew that first year. He used to regale us with stories about those days sailing with Al, and he said that when they were out there with passengers in August, when the bait fish and jellyfish came around to the inside of the Bay where they sailed, and people saw whales, they lost their minds. Al realized that he could run whale trips. When they would sell a whale-watching trip — because they knew the whales were there and they had seen them and they would put up a sign — people would sign up in droves.

Al would make a lot of money off of whale watching in August and September, but he couldn’t make any money the rest of the summer. So he bought the Dolphin to be a fishing boat and to do whale watches when they were close enough.

We’re in the end of the 1940s, into the 1950s. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that he really doubled down and did something that was just for whale watching, had a boat specifically built to be able to go out and the rough conditions that existed on Stellwagen Bank on the regular with passengers.

That was when he teamed up with Dr. Stormy Mayo, who was starting the Center for Coastal Studies and is credited with helping to save the right whale, among other

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“I'm a believer in woods like purpleheart and locust,” says Rowan, who has used both extensively, as well as some live oak.

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things. The two of them created this utopian scientific and entrepreneurial partnership. Basically, the scientists needed time out with the whales, to study them and document them. And the vessel taking people out to see the whales needed authenticity and to provide an educational experience. The Center for Coastal Studies has the most time on whales of any organization in the world because of that.

They have one or two naturalists on every boat.

There’s four boats and they’re doing four trips a day and they’re out there for, you know, three hours a piece. They have documented all of these whales. They know who’s calved who for the last 40 years. It’s amazing to have the Hindu be a part of that.

But when Al realized that he was taking this other path, he sold the Hindu to his cousin, Justin Avellar, who kept the tradition of sailing the boat, and in August and September doing whale watch trips like his cousin did. And then his daughter, Susan Avellar, became a captain, and the boat stayed in the family until 1980-something.

MS: Let’s skip ahead to the current day. The Hindu is an elderly lady at this point. She needs work. Talk about the work that she needs and your decision to do that work in Maine.

JR: Okay. So, when we did the rebuild back in 2011, it was obvious that she was going to need a legitimate, keel-up rebuild. I put together a 10-year plan of how I was going to do it, how I was going to fund it. Bloodhound was a huge part of that. Hindu and Bloodhound were supposed to operate for three summers together — the last was supposed to have been this summer of 2022. We planned to baby the Hindu along to make it to that goal, so that she wouldn’t be lost like so many boats have been.

My goal was to put away a kitty that was big enough to give her the rebuild of queens, and that stupid human that drilled holes in their boat and let it go in front of Tropical Storm Fay, basically took my very elaborate 10-year plan and destroyed it [Hindu struck this submerged derelict in Long Island Sound in July 2020, while returning to Provincetown, suffering major damage]. So, financially, we started off in the worst way. We had less than a tenth of the money that I had hoped to have — and that was with the small amount of help from our insurance that we ended up getting.

Originally the plan was to do all the stuff that hadn’t been done in her 2005 rebuild: the keel and those lower hockey-stick futtocks. Basically three feet of framing from the keel out on either side, all the way down the backbone.

All the framing and the backbone itself. And then we planned to replank the boat and put a new deck on it. That was the scope of our hundred-year rebuild.

But when we pulled off the ceiling, revealing all of the frames, we noticed that the framing had been lightened substantially. Many of the original 3” double-sawn frames had been replaced by frames that were just an inch and seven eighths. Her movement, and the reason the boat was hog-

ging worse and worse every year, was due to the fact that she was way too lightly framed now to be able to carry that design.

Her design, as we talked about earlier, was brilliant. It didn’t need a lot of bulkheads and it didn’t need to have the best planking in the world. But between the lightened framing, bad planking and no real structural bulkheads, she continued to hog and decay to the point where we had to do this massive rebuild.

We were sitting there in the boat — Simon Larson, Mike Rogers and myself — sitting on the frames after we had ripped the interior out and pulled all the ceiling off.

Mike said, “I think you’re gonna have to replace all the framing.” And I said, “Well, we can’t afford to do that.”

Like, we could replace every third one, but there was just no way… the scope of this project had just gone from huge to beyond enormous. Basically we were building the entire boat now. That was not the original intent.

I had to reevaluate my ten-year plan. We reached out to the community to try to get support. We did receive some support from our customer base, but we didn’t get any support from outside our customer base. And we had three really bad deliveries of wood from South America. We used to be able to get wood that was free of heart. Now everything was boxed. And so we ended up having to compromise on things that I didn’t want to have to compromise on. The biggest piece that we had ordered, the forefoot, had a rotten check running through the entire thing, all the way out to the edges!

At that point, we realized that we could no longer have a timeline. We decided that for the same cost of spending a year in any of the boatyards in Maine, we’d buy a piece of land for the project and put up a heavy timber building so that we had no cost except for $1400 a year in taxes to keep the Hindu where she was. And it meant that we could breathe, without having to worry about losing the boat.

MS: It was really the collision in Long Island Sound that caused your plan to disintegrate.

JR: It was that collision, or I should say, when we hauled the boat at the end of McMillan Pier with two cranes. That was when we saw the damage that had occurred, which was even worse than I thought. And that was when I realized there was no saving that summer. No matter how hard I worked, I wouldn’t be able to get the boat back together.

COVID had already changed the plan a couple times on us, and then that happened. We operate under the same premise that most Jones Act charter boats operate under, which is that everybody is a private contractor. As a result, we didn’t qualify for PPP loans or any of that. We were in dire straits. We had been insured for about a quarter of the value of Hindu, and you can only make a claim up to about half of the insured value of something before they just take the asset. So we were only eligible for about an eighth of the

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HINDU is back in Maine, where she was built — and where land and labor are less expensive. value of Hindu.

And we had been so excited about what was looking to be a very promising summer of 2020. It was all private charters and everyone had already put a 50% deposit down — during that first summer of the pandemic, everyone wanted the boat to themselves. We had a sold-out boat for every trip. And to go from that to nothing was devastating.

We began talking with various shipyards in Maine, and doing the math, and realizing that even if we were in a normal boatyard and got a really good deal, we would still have to build a structure over the boat. So Erin and I left the boat in P-town with bilge pumps running, zoomed up to Maine, and ran all over to these different properties that we had looked at on Zillow.

MS: Why Maine?

JR: She was originally built in Maine, and that history meant something to both of us. And Maine has the best economy for something like that. There’s enough shipwrights and enough land that the prices are still attainable and there’s a lower cost of living. The same shipwright working in Massachusetts would be 30% more, right? The same person in Florida would be 50% more!

Also, the idea was to find people with skills and not 36

have to train everyone. Having done the first rebuild in Key West and having to train everybody and import everything — I never wanted to repeat that, even though the winters are so much nicer.

MS: So what was the timeline of your buying the land, bringing the boat up there and building the structure?

JR: Well, July 10 was the collision. I think they had opened up Provincetown on July 7, and we left the day they opened for business, allowing people to run trips.

Provincetown was really strict during lockdown. We took off running up as fast as we could, and we were just ahead of Tropical Storm Fay, five hours ahead of it by the time we were running down Long Island Sound. And that was when the allision occurred at like 3:30 in the morning, right on the Port Jefferson ferry dotted line, in 150 feet of water.

MS: And being underinsured… even though the boat was insured, you weren’t made whole, or anything like it.

JR: I mean, we were beyond underinsured. Most people are, in this industry. Very few of us have our boats insured for their replacement cost or build cost. And my annual insurance premiums right now are over $60K!

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MS: On three boats.

JR: True, on three boats, but it’s still a lot of money, for a decade now, going out the door and having only gotten, you know, basically two years worth coming back through the door. It just makes you want to start an insurance company.

MS: Yes, it does.

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JR: I had already engaged Mike and Simon in talks about starting the project earlier than planned, and what their availability was, and they were both were available that summer and were very hungry to do the Hindu. I had to make up my mind. If at a certain date, if P-town didn’t open, we would just start the project early. That was Plan C, never thinking that we were going to do that. If we could, we were going to run the contracts that we already had that summer in Provincetown. We needed the money.

But then the allision, the damage, the loss of all those contracts… and now we were headed to Maine.

Erin and I left, just the two of us, on Hindu, with a big brand-new gas crash pump on the deck and two bilge pumps running continuously. We drove right up through the night, into Davis Cove. And by the following week we owned land, we got the masts out of the boat at Rockport, who did it at like five in the morning, before work, and in the fog. Then we transported the rig by land, from Rockport to Thomason, to the property.

Meanwhile, we took the boat to Ladona’s slip, took out all the internal ballast,and then brought her around from Rockland and up the river into Thomaston without any ballast, which was pretty funny. The bow was up like two feet and she was just like wobble, bobble. It was a very interesting ride. I mean, she had her 16,000 pounds of iron bolted to the bottom of her, but she didn’t have her 16,000 pounds of lead that was inside her or 8,000 pounds of rigging. It was a very different motion. Erin actually got seasick, although it was a nice calm day.

Dan Miller from Belmont Boatworks did us this awesome favor, trucked the Hindu to our property, hauled her up the hill around that corner, and it’s a very steep grade! And his truck starts spitting out and the whole thing slides backing around the corner.

Erin and I are up on top of the boat, because we’ve got to pick up all the phone lines to pass them over the top of the boat. My dog Finn is up there too. I remember, I was like, “Erin, we’ve gotta jump off the high side, not the low side!”

Dan took Hindu from Lyman Morris, where we hauled, about three quarters of a mile to our property, which at that time didn’t have the building I built. It was just a parking lot for the probation office for the old Thomaston prison. The Shawshank Redemption prison.

MS: So now you’ve got three boats in three widely separated places: Key West, P-town, and Thomaston. How does this work? Where do you find time to work on Hindu?

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JR: Winters. I’m the only idiot that goes to Maine for the winter.

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The new backbone and frames have restored HINDU’s springy sheer, bringing the stern up 16” MS: I thought you were running that catamaran, the Argo Navis, in Key West during the winter.

JR: I am, I’m doing the management side of it, and I run it for the month of January. But other than that, it’s run by my best friend and business partner.

MS: So what’s the timeline of the rebuild, now that you and Simon and Mike have had your come-to-Jesus moment where you pulled out the ceiling and saw those frames, and you’ve got the boat up in Maine and built a shed around her. What’s the new plan?

JR: The new plan is a June 2024 launch. I was thinking about pushing this year, and being in by June of 2023. I was going to beg, borrow, and steal and put together a massive yard crew to pull that off. And then I decided that I didn’t want to go that far into debt. I would rather get through this project with my sanity and without killing myself. I’m just not as young as I used to be. And I don’t have the patience to deal with that big of a crew and that many things going on and the many inefficiencies when you start to get into a big crew.

The cost of the project goes up by like 35% when you end up with a big crew, because you have people standing 38

around, time that isn’t being utilized. And there’s just waste that happens. I want to enjoy the project, and I want to be more hands on, rather than paying other people to do the stuff that I love to do.

MS: Tell us a little bit about Bloodhound. Here’s this sexy cutter that you found out on the West Coast, and you brought her East and got her certified. I know you had a lot of hoops to jump through. How is Bloodhound doing in Provincetown?

JR: Awesome! No one even knows that they’re not on Hindu [laughs]. It’s pretty funny.

No, it’s been awesome. It sails so amazingly well, with the delivery mainsail that William Fife designed for the boat in 1874. That sail was never made until I got the boat and Dave Barrack made it and then we raced the boat and couldn’t believe how well it sailed and how well balanced it was with just the delivery mainsail and staysail.

And then Dave and I, when we were sailing it, we were joking about how cool it would be if we didn’t even have to raise it, if we could brail it like Pride and Lynx. As soon as we built the new, real mainsail, Dave took the delivery main and installed the brail system in it. Now literally one person can set the sail. It’s so easy, it’s easier to set sail and drop sail

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drop sail on the Hound than on the Hindu!

MS: These frames are locust, that you’re putting in.

MS: I would love to sail with you and see that. What kind of COI did you end up getting for the Bloodhound?

JR: The COI is 37, three crew and 34 passengers.

MS: And how does that feel?

JR: It is amazing. 34 passengers is just the right amount of people on the boat. It’s far less crowded- feeling than the Hindu with the same number, which is weird, because the amount of deck space is far less. But I designed the benches to keep the deck clear, and keep people as far outboard as possible, and it’s amazing how well that works.

MS: So what’s it going to be like, when you bring Hindu back to Provincetown in a couple years?

JR: The Bloodhound will do sunset sails and private charters and Hindu will do all the day sails. The one difficulty with Bloodhound being a day sail boat is her lack of maneuverability. Every exit from the slip is an Austin Powers maneuver. When it’s windy, we have to use a push boat.

The Hindu is so nimble. She can turn it inside of her own radius. Bloodhound is definitely not that. I had this big, fancy bow-thruster system that I designed, purchased and installed. I started it in 2016 and finally got the system to work this summer.

MS: A five-year project!

JR: [Laughs] You know how those things are. And it was the most disappointing thing I’ve ever done in my life!

The 37-horsepower motor just cannot overcome the 12-foot keel of this boat. She’s eight feet deep, just four feet back from the stem. There’s no pushing that around! She wants to go in a straight line, basically.

MS: I’m sure P-town will be excited to see Hindu again after such a long hiatus. And hopefully she’ll have her springy sheer back.

JR: Oh, it’s back already! It’s incredible. We brought the stern up 13 inches, and the bow up 16. We badly wanted the boat to take its shape back. We have a sideline drawing of the boat, and we put the bow and the stern at the position that they should have been in the line drawing, which we got out of Rudder magazine.

Once we got to those places, the boat just looked and felt right. And then we went and copied every frame and made new frames. Now 85% of the frames I would say are done. The entire backbone is done now. And she’s bolted together from stem to stern.

JR: We went with locust because it’s far more rot resistant and easier on the metal fasteners. White oak is an incredible wood, but it’s not great in the tropics and it’s not great for fasteners because the closed cells and the acids in white oak make fasteners dissolve over time with the interaction with the salt water.

I’m a believer in woods like purpleheart and locust.

They’ve proven themselves as being incredibly rot resistant and incredibly strong. They’re also, from a metallurgy point of view, a much more stable medium to run bolts through.

I also got some live oak from Andy Tyska at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard. Andy’s been great. We got a whole bunch of live oak from him to use right at the turn of the main mast, at the chain plates. I really wanted that part of the boat to have no worry of grain runout and no worry of strength. I went to live oak because of the way that the grain runs in every direction and, and even curls around itself. I’ve tried to break the stuff. And I couldn’t! I wanted that part of the boat — which is where boats fail, right by the chain plates, right at that turn of the bilge — to be right.

That’s the only place I did live oak, and only on the piece that’s actually making the turn. On either side of it is black locust, but the actual turn turning piece is live oak, both port and starboard, at the really sharp turn of the bilges.

MS: I’m not sure I’ve seen futtocks in the same frame being made of different woods. Are the expansion rates similar? You don’t feel like there there’s going to be an issue there?

JR: No, they’re definitely different. But the wood that we put in was incredibly dry. It was, I think, five years seasoned wood and then it is bolted with half-inch bronze bolts, and all it’s going to do is swell and tighten. I don’t see any issue as far as the movement there. If anything, it might expand away from the locust.

MS: All bronze fastenings?

JR: All bronze. The most painful thing I’ve ever done.

[Laughs] I got all of my fasteners from Rob at Fair Winds.

You should write his number down, he really can get any fastener you need. (401) 314-344.

He buys fasteners from all the manufacturers and then does his own tests, putting them in an electrolyte and shearing them and seeing what the shear strengths really are and who’s using what metals. He takes it to the next level, and he doesn’t charge what he should charge for doing that! I just appreciate him. He’s worth looking into. b Find out more about Hindu’s 100-year restoration at sailschoonerhindu.com

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BACK

to the

BAYOU

Nearly one hundred years into a career which has included harvesting oysters and clams under sail and power, a wartime stint as a fireboat, two bankruptcies, and some time spent on the bottom, the AJ Meerwald travelled to Maine this year for a major rebuild by Clark & Eisele. Gerhardus van Wilgen volunteered as a deckhand for the return delivery.

These days, the Meerwald is used by the non-profit Bayshore Center at Bivalve (NJ) as a traveling classroom and vehicle to enjoy the area’s waterways.

As with many adventures, my short stint as volunteer deckhand helping to deliver the AJ Meerwald back to Bivalve began with a long and tedious drive.

Another deckhand, the cook and I drove 10 hours from Philadelphia to the Bangor, Maine airport, where a third deckhand, arriving by air, joined our band. The schooner’s bosun soon arrived in a borrowed truck to pick us up for the one-hour drive to Castine, where the Meerwald waited on a mooring.

Upon our arrival, the cook immediately disappeared into the galley. The bosun showed us deckhands our bunks in the focsle. Underneath a brand-new hatch door was a steep companionway that led to a small, unkempt, triangular room about 13 feet in length and about five and a half feet in height. The bunks were painted white, six feet long, about two feet wide and two feet high. For comfort, a thin mat was provided. We had brought our own bedding.

There was an opening in the floorboards to access the forward bilge. A small PVC pipe showed water levels, marked with a Sharpie. On our arrival, there was just one inch of water in the bilge.

The lighting in the focsle spanned different eras: there were small modern design reading lights with USB ports; big white plastic disk lights; and two archaic-looking submarinestyle caged lights. With only four residents, the upper bunks could be used as storage.

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When the sun set that day, most of the crew had arrived, except for the captain: she was occupied with another delivery. The deckhands underwent a brief orientation, followed by a dinner that the vanished cook had whipped up since our arrival.

Sunday morning, it was all-hands-on-deck to practice raising and lowering the main, foresail and jib on the mooring. The Meerwald is a good-sized schooner and the main in particular is a heavy lift. It requires four or five people on each halyard. The engineer to port, and the bosun, to starboard, not only supervised us but broke into a chantey.

The “Jersey Bayou” crew has created a ritual where commands are called out and answered.

The most critical part of raising the sail is to safely secure the halyards to the cleats. In order to do that, the haulers “dig in” while the leader attaches a strap to the line to stop it from slipping. Then the leaders scream to the crew on the line, “Two steps forward!”

When there’s enough slack in the line. the number two belays the line on the cleat. The deckhands, all yachtsmen, were more accustomed to locking hitches, but these are not required to hold the Meerwald’s thick halyards.

After the halyards were secured, there was another command: coil and ballantine. The deckhands laid out working coils on the deck that ended with the bitter end of the lines, and then took the end of the lines to create the ballantine. The object is to create halyard coils that won’t foul when the sails are dropped, but will instead flow freely up through their blocks. The process begins with laying down three circles on top of each other in a two-foot radius, followed by three smaller overlapping circles inside, then another full circle — the “victory lap” — and then the three inner circles, and so on.

Even though the sails are outfitted with lazyjacks, at

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least five people, armed with long sail ties, had to get on the roof of the main cabin to flake the mainsail when it came down. The foresail is smaller and can be handled by a smaller crew. The jib was attached to the sprit and required the furlers to step off the bow onto the chains that run out alongside the whisker stays. For safety, a chest harness and tether was provided. The furlers went out on the chains to untie the sail ties before raising the jib, and then again after lowering it to reattach them.

Still no word from the captain. It was becoming clear that we wouldn’t leave before Tuesday. The Coast Guard had scheduled a pre-departure inspection of the crew’s proficiency. We had to show that the crew on board was able Lubing the to actually operate the vessel. The masts Coast Guard wanted to see us to take prior to her out, raise and lower the sails, and sea trials do a few tacks.

On Monday, maintenance crew went aloft to lube the masts so that the wooden mast hoops would slide up and down more smoothly. Monday was also the last opportunity to take a shower on shore.

News came: the captain was on her way!

Tuesday at dawn, there was a muster with the captain. She went over safety procedures, the watches and watch schedules, and the itinerary for the day. As soon as the Coast Guard arrived, the crew dropped the mooring and set sail for Penobscot Bay. We had no problems setting, striking, tacking or gybing. There was a light southerly wind, and on a beam reach the Meerwald cut through the water smoothly at three knots.

Arriving in Rockland at the end of the day, the gas docks were not accessible. But because the crew needed groceries, the captain decided to anchor there for the night.

The anchor was the one item the crew had little experience with. The Meerwald has two 150-pound anchors, but only one was bent. There was a shot and a half (135’) of chain and an unknown length of anchor rode. The anchor had to be untied and catted. For this, a giant steel fishhook was attached to the gantline to lift up the anchor and take it overboard without marring the new paint. With a release line, the anchor dropped, and the chain, flaked out on the deck, slipped quickly through the hawsehole.

Raising the anchor on Wednesday morning before sunrise was a different matter. The Meerwald folks take pride

in the fact that theirs is a historical working vessel. This history of hard work is exemplified by the manual windlass.

When the anchor was at long last off the bottom, the captain set sail towards the harbor exit. Somewhere below us in the dark water, the anchor trailed along, sluicing off the silt and mud of the harbor bottom, inching upwards as we plied the windlass.

Since the Meerwald hadn’t been able to fuel up in Rockland, the captain decided to stop again in Portland. On the way south, one crew member was always on duty, pointing out lobster pots. Though the hull rubbed a pot here and there, no line fouled our prop or rudder.

At Vessel Services in Portland, the wind was blowing off the dock.

Friendly fishermen yelled unsolicited advice to the captain, who clearly had drawn her own plan. This was the most challenging maneuver of the entire trip. The crew had to throw heaving lines attached to sandbags in order to get the mooring lines ashore. The captain maneuvered until one of the heaving lines was able to reach the dock and get set up as a spring. Shortly after, all four lines were secured and diesel and fresh water came aboard.

By now it was Wednesday evening. Casting off was easy, as the breeze pushed Meerwald off the dock.

It was a joy to see Bagheera and Wendameen, the Portland Schooner Company’s Alden-designed schooners, underway in the harbor.

Now truly southbound, the captain decided to make a short detour via the Stellwagen Bank to see if there were any whales. There were! The 4-8 Coiling watch spotted them on Thursday down shortly after sunrise.

The Meerwald transited the Cape Cod Canal that morning, carried on through Buzzards Bay towards Block Island, and then straight until the skyline of Atlantic City was visible, early Saturday morning, and then on to round Cape May. Since there was somewhat of a breeze at the moment, the captain decided to set sail for our arrival at the mouth of the Maurice River, but alas! it was summer, and the wind died as fast as it appeared.

By the end of the day, the Meerwald had finally arrived at Bivalve, where after a hiatus of nearly a year, she can continue her educational mission. The “Jersey Bayou” crew was welcomed with champagne, and the volunteer deckhands said their farewells and drove off, through the wetlands, back to their normal lives. b

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ERNESTINA-MORRISSEY From Boothbay Harbor, Ernestina-Morrissey’s Chief Mate Susannah Winder writes: “The schooner launched August 30 and floated on her own at 12:56 pm. She was christened with the waters of the ports and harbors she has visited through her career. On September 1 the crew, along with the yard staff, moved the ship to the dock at Hodgdon Marina just around the corner, for her final outfitting.

“The crew is now working hard alongside Master Rigger Tom Ward to uprig the vessel including ratlines and head stays. We have another month of hard work ahead, hand in hand with the shipyard to get her ready for sea trials and COI sails with the USCG. “We highly encourage everyone to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for daily updates on our progress @ssv.ernestina.morrissey.

“We also still have active job postings on the Tallships America Billet Bank!

“Any questions? Send us a private message on social media or email us at ernestina.morrissey@gmail.com.”

H At the Jungle Shipyard in Costa Rica, Ceiba is continuing to come together. The ceiling planking in the lower bilge section has been installed and faired, and the team has now started work on the turn-of-bilge planking.

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Meanwhile, SailCargo’s new vessel Vega hit a bump in the road as she was being delivered to the Americas.

As SailCargo CEO Dani Doggett wrote in her blog: “Sailing from Sweden, we delivered Vega safe & sound to one of my favourite towns, Harlingen, the Netherlands.

The plan was to stay there for four or five days, to load supplies and to do scheduled maintenance.

“We began working on some of the planned maintenance jobs, one of which was installing white oak bolsters under the lower shrouds. Part of this task required lifting up all of the lower shrouds about 10cm to be able to slip the bolsters under the shrouds at the cross-trees — no small feat. All was going really well, until we reached the mizzen mast.

“There we found rot beneath the shrouds… not something anyone had expected to find after several independent surveys had been conducted on the ship. We made the decision to do an extremely deep survey of the spars. This survey yielded some undesirable findings.

“The call was made to bring down the rig for inspection. So we took the entire rig down in two working days.

This would not have been possible without the guidance and support of Richard Tefsen. With the support of Richard and Hendrick (and also Max!), our crew safely brought every single spar down with cherry-pickers and a

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50m tall crane.

“The decision was made to replace the bowsprit and mizzen. I am thankful that we have several of our Ceiba shipwrights here with us!

“The timber yard, which is full of massive Douglas fir and larch, is about a five-minute bike ride from where Vega is moored. Really unbelievably lucky. The photo at right shows Benji and Julian (foreground) measuring the timber.

This is a larch, which is being used to make a new bowsprit. We are grateful to Nic of Hout Compagnie for getting our timbers milled on such short notice.

“Then, after bringing the entire rig down in two days, our team moved it all — and the two new timbers — into a hall where all of the inspections and maintenance will be conducted. This hall is even closer to Vega than the timber yard!

“All things considered, I am feeling overwhelmingly relieved, supported, and thankful to have caught this issue, and to be in a position with the company to be able to do the right thing for Vega and her crew. Safety first.”

H Spirit of Dana Point returned home in August, only a few weeks behind schedule, after an extended stay in San Diego having her deck replaced.

The Coast Guard had requested deck and rigging work be done, but the timetable for the work was moved forward unexpectedly when the vessels’ insurer refused coverage unless the work was done within 30 days [See interview with Ocean Institute’s Dan Goldbacher, Marlinspike #31].

Over the past year, while that work was ongoing, her rig had stayed behind in Dana Point to be completely overhauled, and two new 70’ masts were shaped by Bruce Tipton of Port Townsend, Washington.

A celebration was held to welcome Spirit of Dana Point home on August 28. Although Spirit was listed as an attendee at the Ocean Institute’s Maritime Festival Sept. 911, it wasn’t clear at press time if the public would actually have access to the boat.

H Harold Burnham writes from Essex: “With all the impending work we have to do to the Sylvina Beal, it was a stretch for Mary Kay and I to take on Isabella last fall, but there were some sound reasons we did it.

“1) We did not want to see her fall into the hands of anyone whom would neglect her; 2) the price was right; and 3) we figured we could learn a lot through the process of getting her inspected and attempting to operate more than one vessel at a time.

“Our first and most important goal for her, however, was not to allow her to interfere with the good things we were doing with Ardelle.

“Of course, as is almost always the case, it all turned out to be a lot more work than we anticipated. I do believe the lessons will prove extremely valuable to both the long-

VEGA

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VEGA

VEGA

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VIRGINIA

BETSY JAN

term success of the Beal and of our business. Sadly, the first lesson we learned about trying to simultaneously operate more than one vessel at a time in New England is never downrig and haul a serviceable vessel for routine maintenance in June. As it turned out, it was a beautiful summer for sailing, and while we we managed to achieve our first and most important goal for Isabella, that first lesson was all we learned about operating more than one vessel at a time this summer.

“On a good note, Isabella did receive some well-deserved maintenance including seven new frame futtocks, about five planks on her starboard side, a new station and three planks on her port side, a through going over of her blocks, spars and running rigging, 2400 pounds of additional outside ballast added to her keel, and a lot of lovely new paint on her entire structure.

“This fall we are hoping to get her stability test done and go through the rest of the process of getting her Certificate of Inspection. There is always next year.

“As for our other projects, Chad Gadbois did a wonderful job rehabilitating his Osmond Beal lobster boat Betsy Jan and got her launched in time for Labor Day. “Meanwhile, we are all looking forward to fresh fish and getting ready for the Beal’s Necropsy on November 5 at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. It should be an interesting day!”

H After six years of building the rig in the rigging loft aka Visitors’ Center aka Freight Shed, Maine’s First Ship riggers are finally putting some of it on board Virginia.

“Since the launch on June 4, the focus has been on getting chainplates and deadeyes installed, standing rigging on the main mast set up, and battens lashed in place in preparation for rattling down,” writes Allison Hepler of MFS. “The ship will probably not put to sea this year, but the hope is to get the yards crossed and running gear rove off, then set the sails dockside and see how it all works.

“Construction: Given that it’s always been slow in the summer, progress nevertheless continues. Hatch covers and watertight bulkheads are being finished, the systems are being finalized, and we’ve placed 7000 pounds of lead in the ship for interior ballast.

“We actually pulled a Tom Sawyer, telling visitors if they carried a 40-pound lead bar down the gangway onto the ship, they’d be deemed an official volunteer and could go on deck.” b Got an update for Boatyards? E-mail us!

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A select list of sailing opportunities open to the public.

WEST COAST Call of the Sea, Sausalito, CA (415) 331-3214 * CalloftheSea.org Ed programs aboard Seaward and Matthew Turner.

Grays Harbor Historic Seaport, Aberdeen, WA (800) 200-5239 * HistoricalSeaport.org Sailing aboard the brig Lady Washington.

Los Angeles Maritime Institute, Los Angeles, CA (310) 883-6055 * LAMITopSail.org Sail-training for school and youth groups.

Maritime Museum of San Diego, San Diego, CA (619) 234-9153 * SDMaritime.org Day sails on Californian; coastal cruises on galleon San Salvador.

Ocean Institute, Dana Point, CA (949) 496-2274 * OceanInstitute.org Marine science and ed programs; operators of Spirit of Dana Point.

SALTS, Victoria, BC (888) 383-6811 * Salts.ca Sail training for youth, day sails for all, on two large schooners Schooner Adventuress, Port Townsend, WA (360) 379-0438 * SoundExp.org Overnight programs for teens, adults, seniors, and families.

Schooner Zodiac, Bellingham, WA (206) 719-7622 * SchoonerZodiac.com Windjammer cruises in the San Juan Islands, April-October.

Schooners North, Friday Harbor, WA (360) 378-2224 * SanJuanSailCharter.com Cruises from the San Juans to Alaska on the schooner Spike Africa.

GREAT LAKES Appledore Tall Ships, Bay City, MI (989) 895-5193 * BaySailBayCity.org Day-sails, charters, ed programs, and overnight opportunities.

Brigantine St. Lawrence II, Kingston, ON (613) 544-5175 * Brigantine.ca Sail-training programs on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario.

Traverse Tall Ship Co., Traverse Bay, MI (231) 941-2000 * TallShipSailing.com Education, day-sails, charters, and multi-day windjammer cruises.

US Brig Niagara, Erie, PA (814) 452-2744 ext. 214 * FlagshipNiagara.org A wide variety of programs aboard Niagara and Lettie Howard.

EAST COAST Barque Picton Castle, Lunenburg, NS (902) 634-9984 * Picton-Castle.com World Voyage 8 now scheduled for October, 2022 Brilliant, Mystic, CT (860) 572-0711 * MysticSeaport.org Brilliant is an offshore classroom for Mystic Seaport’s ed programs.

Discovering Amistad, New Haven, CT (203) 498-8222 * DiscoveringAmistad.org

Dockside tours and ed opportunities aboard replica slaver.

Liberty Fleet of Tall Ships, Boston, MA (617) 742-0333 * LibertyFleet.com Windjammer-style Caribbean cruises; day sails from Boston.

Maine Windjammer Association, Midcoast Maine (800) 807-WIND * SailMaineCoast.com Nine, count ‘em, traditional sailing vessels on the Maine coast.

Maine Windjammer Cruises, Midcoast Maine (207) 236-2938 * MaineWindjammerCruises.com Four traditional sailing vessels offering multi-day cruises in midcoast Maine from mid-May into October.

Ocean Passages, Portland, ME (855) 212-0123 * Ocean-Passages.org Long-form sail-training aboard the schooner Harvey Gamage.

Oliver Hazard Perry, Newport, RI (401) 841-0080 * OHPRI.org Workforce development and other sailing and dockside programs.

Pride of Baltimore II, Baltimore, MD (410) 539-1151 * Pride2.org Paid crew opportunities, educational programs and dockside events.

Schooner A. J. Meerwald, Bivalve, NJ (856) 785-2060 * BayShoreCenter.org Day and overnight Maritime Camp programs for children 13-17.

Schooner Adventure, Gloucester, MA (978) 281-8079 * Schooner-Adventure.org Public sails, private charters, and educational programs.

Schooner Alliance, Yorktown, VA (757) 639-1233 * SailYorktown.com Public sails, private charters, and educational programs.

Schooner Ardelle, Gloucester, MA (978) 281-0470 * SchoonerArdelle.com Public sails, private charters, and educational programs.

Schooner Fame, Salem, MA (978) 729-7600 * SchoonerFame.com Public sails, private charters, ed programs, and sail training.

Sloop Clearwater, Kingston, NY (410) 539-1151 * Clearwater.org Day sails, youth & adult programs, environmental activism.

Schooner Sultana, Chesterton, MD (410) 778-5954 * SultanaProjects.org Week-long “Chesapeake Adventures” programs for ages 11-14.

World Ocean School, Boston, MA (340) 626-7877 * WorldOceanSchool.org Education programs in Boston Harbor on board Roseway.

Sea I mester, Sarasota, FL (941) 924-2900 * Seamester.com Semester-at-sea and gap-year programs for college students.

SEA Semester, Woods Hole, MA (508) 540-3954* Sea.edu Accredited semester-at-sea programs for college students.

Sylvina Beal, Essex, MA (978) 491-7666 * BurnhamBoatbuilding.com 1911 sardine carrier currently being restored by National Heritage Fellow Harold Burnham to offer a variety of sailing programs. ❂

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❂

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❂

After a series of disheartening COVID postponements, PICTON CASTLE and her crew are at long last preparing the barque for World Voyage 8

In Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Captain Dan Moreland is readying the barque Picton Castle for another circumnavigation.

“We are going to sea!” Moreland wrote in September.

“After three years of being tied up hard and quiet alongside the wharf in Lunenburg during this worldwide pandemic, the stately square-rigger we love is now swarming with activity once again, gearing up for setting sail and getting back to sea.

“The ship sailed into port in June of 2019 with a new gang of hardy of newly-minted circumnavigators. Then, after a short turnaround, she set off for a huge summer series of tall ship port festivals in the Great Lakes as the ‘premium vessel’, this time under the command of the able Captain Dirk Lorenzen.

“She sailed back into Lunenburg, tying up that September for a short respite from the sea with various modest projects on the docket, looking to sail the following spring.

“Well, as we all know, that did not happen. Could not happen. COVID-19 had become our world. This was a long time without water flowing under the keel, a long time without enthusiastic young crew tarring, painting and sailing under a tropical sun.

“As time rolled on it became clear that we would need

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help. And it came. Support to keep the lights on took many forms: some windfall film location work, Bosun School, GoFundMe, private contributions, a few benefactors, TV work, making sails and blocks for a pirate movie, help here and there. And with much belt-tightening and projects deferred. Postponement followed postponement. Until now.

“Naturally, after three years of lay-up, we have our work cut out for us getting the ship into fine sailing shape again.

And it’s exciting! It’s good for the ship and it’s good for us too.

“First of all, the main component parts of the ship are strong and solid and presenting no problems. The hull is in amazing shape, always has been. The stout rig needs but little. Yet, everything has to be gone over, soup to nuts.

Everything in the engine room must be taken apart and put in perfect working order. Main engine, generators, fire pumps, bilge pumps, water makers, tanks, compressors and more, quite a bit more. This is well underway under the amazing talent of Deyan.

“A few deck planks that fell victim to too many snows need to be replaced and caulked, and this too is well underway, making for a big mess. Morgan the shipwright is all over this. We are ripping up some old damp waterways too.

“We have welding going by Ocean Gear, our next door neighbours, who are doing a great job. Freeing ports that got ripped off in storms, thin spots revealed in the bulwarks (built this way to start with, for weight savings, in 1928) getting some inserts, new steel. Steel is real.

The new MARYLAND DOVE underway during

sea trials

“All the safety gear needs to be brought up to date: life rafts, life jackets, exposure suits, flares, fire fighting gear, radio and comms gear.

“The amazing Doctor Jen has been going through our medical supplies for weeks already.

“New mattresses, pillows, pillow cases, sheets, galley supplies and maybe a new stove for said galley. And all living compartments scrubbed down and maybe painted. Foc’sle, forepeak, salon, batcave, cabins and most of all, Donald the Cook’s cabin.

“Then comes rigging. Starting with a fine-toothed rig survey from keel to truck. This will be led by Bosun Dustin who also has been ashore too long. The steel yards are

Sometimes it’s not about the rum, but about the bottle.

You certainly can tell a lot from reading labels — although as I’ve written here many times, rum-makers generally do a terrible job of describing their rums, falling back on the same cliches about oak-barrel aging and smoothness, without telling you anything concrete. When it comes to label art, some designs speak to us, while others send us running for ibuprofen.

This label was hand-painted (and stuck on a Plantation Rum bottle) by Salem, MA maritime artist Racket Shreve.

This design was also etched on pint glasses, which make the perfect vehicle for your own private Rum Squall. — MR

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crossed, t’gallants need to make their way aloft. Rig needs tarring down, no doubt some ratlines will require renewal.

Topmasts greased and oiled, jibboom too. Blocks should be in good shape as Bosun School overhauled them as part of their program – they are sitting in crates in the warehouse, all greased up and in great shape.

“The anchor windlass will get a good looking-at, but it too was recently overhauled. Then running rigging, and finally we bend sail and train the new gang in setting and handling sail.

“Small boats: we will be taking four with us: the longboat, the rescue skiff, a spare skiff and a dory just for fun.

The boat davits will need to be exercised after being stuck a long time.

“And drydocking is coming. Need to clean that bottom of the biosphere that has been growing there. With the Lunenburg slipways shut down, this adds a wrinkle or two to the job.

“Great crew have been arriving and turning to with a cheerful will. And that is how a world circumnavigation begins!” ★ After three years of construction and a festive summer send-off, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has officially bid a fond farewell to the completed Maryland Dove.

“I could not be prouder of the work that CBMM has achieved on the project,” said Kristen RV HERACLITUS Greenaway, President & CEO of the Museum. “We were absolutely honored to be awarded the build contract, and it has been an organizationwide effort, and an absolute delight, to fulfill it.”

In 2018, it was announced that CBMM had been selected to build a brand-new Maryland Dove. for Historic St. Mary’s City. The ship, a representation of the late 17th-century trading ship that accompanied the first European settlers to what is now Maryland, is owned by the state of Maryland, and operated and maintained by the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission (HSMCC).

An earlier version of the ship, built in the 1970s by Cambridge’s Jim Richardson, was nearing the end of its useful life and decades of new research meant that a new ship could be designed to be a more historically accurate representation of the original Maryland Dove.

Since that announcement, construction of the iconic

state ship has been the central focus of CBMM’s working Shipyard. Work over the past few years, all done in public view, saw the new ship move from concept to reality, and Maryland Dove arrived at its homeport in Historic St. Mary’s City at the end of summer.

Maryland Dove serves as the organization’s floating ambassador, flagship exhibition, and a key tool in its educational programming. And thanks to key design elements and a summer of testing and certification, the new ship is authorized to carry passengers by the U.S. Coast Guard, allowing HSMCC to take passengers for an on-the-water experience.

“We are so looking forward to having this exhibit,” said Regina Faden, Executive Director of HSMCC. “We have educated about 500,000 students about early Maryland history and are looking forward to the ship helping us educate the next 500,000. We are very grateful.”

To keep up with the ship as it moves into the next stage of its life, visit marylanddove.org ★ Natalie Marshall, who served as steward aboard both the Corwith Cramer and Robert C. Seamans between 2018 and 2022, was won a fellowship which will allow her to make a documentary about the research vessel Heraclitus.

The R/V Heraclitus is an 85-foot ferrocement Chinese

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junk built in 1975 that spent four decades doing worldwide expeditions of scientific and cultural discovery. Voyages took the ship from the Amazon River to Antarctica, and beyond.

It is now in drydock in Spain being restored by volunteers, including Natalie; the crew announced on Labor Day that the hull was complete.

Natalie writes: “The ship was built by a group of friends and colleagues who dreamed of creating projects in of the major biomes around the world to demonstrate their ideas about how humans, nature, science, technology, art, and culture could all coexist and inform each other.

“The film I want to make would explore what it is about this ship… that seems to attract so many unique individuals of diverse backgrounds like a magnet.”

The crew has pgoressed to painting and outfitting the

hull, and writes on their website (rvheraclitus.org): “Once the new R/V Heraclitus is launched, we will continue our mission to sail the seas. Engaging with coastal communities and the natural world we are going to see for ourselves what is going on in both remote and busy parts of the ocean and share these learnings with the global community.

“We will be looking for keys to both new or very old ways in which humans can act as sustainable participants of the biosphere, and hopefully help to implement some of the innovative findings along the way. So in the ‘rebuild’ of our oceangoing world, the Heraclitus is the key to our real-time, hands-on approach.” ★ Fall is transit time, which means opportunities to go on

for Schooner VICTORY CHIMES 1900 Three-masted Chesapeake Ram schooner, 127’ LOA, wood hull. Located Rockland, ME. Listed with Artisan Boatworks without a price, which has been reported elsewhere as $650,000 and likely negotiable.

Schooner ALLIANCE Three-masted schooner, 1995, steel hull built by Treworgy.

COI for 49 daysails, 12 overnight. Located Yorktown, VA. Boat and business for sale. info@sailyorktown.com

Schooner CAPT. KIDD 55’ steel schooner, 2000. COI for 28. Located Seabrook, TX. Asking $190,000.

Schooner RED WITCH Cypress hull built by Nathaniel Zirlott, 1986. 77’ LOA. COI for 49. Located Kenosha, WI. Asking $149,000.

VICTORY CHIMES

Schooner HALIE & MATTHEW 2006, fiberglass hull. Located Maine. COI for 100 on deck, 50 overnight. Asking $1,250,000.

Schooner GRACE BAILEY 1882 wooden-hulled schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. LOD 81’, COI for 54 passengers, 34 overnight.

Brand new sails. Located Camden, ME. Asking $640,000.

Schooner MERCANTILE 1916 wooden-hulled schooner in the Maine Windjammer trade. LOD 79', COI for 49, 29 overnight. Brand new sails. Located Camden, ME. Asking $480,000.

Schooner AMAZING GRACE 58’ LOD ferrocement schooner, built 1991. New engine, rigging, electronics. COI for Lakes Bays & Sounds, 33 + 2. Located San Juan, PR. Asking $450,000.

Schooner GRAND NELLIE 1988 steel hull, COI for 48 on deck, 20 overnight.

Located Key West, FL. Asking $400,000.

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longer point-to-point voyages on those boats that reposition for the winter seasons.

For example, the Liberty Clipper, based in Boston during the summers, leaves for New York on September 24, with both shared and private cabins available. The schooner then transits from New York to Baltimore, to compete in the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race (Baltimore to Portsmouth, VA). And of course you can book space for the Race itself.

On a grander scale, the sailing cruise ships from the Star Clipper Line reposition in October from Europe to the Caribbean. The westbound crossing of the Royal Clipper leaves Cannes on Oct. 8 and arrives in Barbados on November 5 with stops in the Balaeric Islands, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco and Madeira — 28 glorious days for about $6K. Go to StarClippers.com and click on “ocean crossings”.

And from my own personal bucket list, there are “guest crew” opportunities aboard the Pride of Baltimore II as that vessel returns to the Chesapeake from her summer on the Great Lakes: Lunenburg to Boston, Boston to Baltimore, Norfolk to Annapolis, and of course the GCBSR and Downrigging Weekend in Chestertown, MD. This is just a sampling of the transit opportunities that are out there every fall and spring. Get online and look around! It’s a chance to make a longer trip, get to know the vessels and their crews, and on the Star Clippers, at least, the cost per day is usually much lower than for a regular cruise. ★ Speaking of transit opportunities, the Swedish East Indiaman replica Götheborg is heading for China, and had progressed as far as Lisbon at press time. There is space this fall on upcoming legs from Lisbon to Malaga, Malaga to Nice, Nice to Valletta, and Valletta to Barcelona.

Eventually the ship will transit the Suez Canal and stop at Djibouti, Muscat, Chennai, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hong Kong en route to Shanghai.

This very authentic-looking replica vessel does contain modern propulsion machinery, power generators, pumps, watermakers, high-pressure fire extinguishers, a modern kitchen with fridges and freezers, ventilation, air conditioning, and a complete laundry room. ★ Riverfest is back at the Mystic Seaport Museum this October 8-10.

Attendees can venture onto the Mystic River in a rowboat, sailboat, pedalboat, or captained boat; kick back with some tasty brews and delicious food at the Riverfest Beer Garden at Spouter Tavern; and enjoy live music all three days.

Several fishing boats and their crews will be docking at the Seaport over the course of the weekend to meet visitors and talk about oyster farming and sustainable fishing.

This event is free to Museum members, and GOTHEBORG included in Museum admission for non-members.

Single-day tickets and threeday tickets are available. For more info, visit mysticseaport.org/riverfest ★ Last winter’s Tall Ships America Annual Conference, scheduled for February at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, fell victim to COVID and was reworked as an online event. However, an in-person gathering is very much in the cards for the 50th Annual Conference, scheduled for February 7-9, 2023, in Newport, RI. Since 1973, the Annual Conference has grown to be the largest gathering of tall ship captains, crew, program administrators, organization leaders, educators, port representatives, festival managers and supporters. ★ Teach with small boats? Learn from and share with some of the best in North America. The 7th Teaching with Small Boats Alliance International Conference will be held at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend, WA November 3-5.

For more info, visit teachingwithsmallboats.org.

TWSBA is a collaboration of people, programs, organizations, and businesses that believe that small boats have limitless potential as teaching tools and vehicles for individual and social development.

TWSBA strengthens the sustainability and effectiveness of member organizations through alternate-year international conferences and regional gatherings, virtual collaboration, mentoring, and a web-based learning portal. TWSBA is committed to sharing knowledge, ideas, and best practices about leadership and program development, hands-on building projects, boat use, and integration of maritimebased lessons into school curricula. b Do you have a newsworthy item for Boats, Bars & Beaches?

Contact us at Marlinspike1812@gmail.com.

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A popular feature on the Marlinspike facebook page is NAME THAT BOAT, where readers are asked to identify tall ships and sail-training vessels of the past & present.

A

How many of these vessels can you name?

8/9 — Admiral of the Ocean Sea 7/9 — Commodore 6/9 — Captain 5/9 — Master & Commander 4/9 — First Mate 3/9 — Seaman, Able 2/9 — Seaman, Ordinary 1/9 — Swabbie 0/9 — Tourist ANSWERS: A) Morgenster, B) Alabama, C) Picton Castle, D) Duen, E) Zodiac, F) San Salvador G) Lettie G. Howard, H) Isaac Evans, I) Mystic Whaler.

B

C

D

JERRY SOTO

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G

E

H

DANA RAUGI

I F

O

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I am from Basel, Switzerland. I started sailing tall ships in 2017 when I joined Picton Castle as Chief Engineer for World Voyage 7.

Before joining, I watched the Tall Ship Chronicles series from WV2, and upon seeing that they all carried a rig knife, I decided to make one myself out of a flat bar of Damascus steel I got from Damasteel in Sweden (most expensive metal I ever machined).

The handle is made from ironwood, the quillon is a solid piece of titanium with Damasteel cheeks. I shaped the back of the blade to a partial tang that is epoxied into the handle; the overall length of the knife is 270mm.

The steel’s pattern is called Hakkapella by Damasteel. The sheath is a horizontal carry that I made on board Picton Castle. The embossing is a planetary gear drive I took from a broken Makita cordless drill.

All that work, and I never actually used it in the rig (note the lack of a lanyard) but it serves well for opening coconuts, gutting fish, shaving, etc. Hey — life’s too short to carry a ugly knife, and too ugly to carry a short one.

— Deyan Blöchliger

In the summer of 1957, I started volunteering on Balclutha. The next summer when I turned 16, the rigger sent me aloft to retrieve a glove he had “left” at the very end of the fore course yard. After that, they could not keep me out of the rigging. That summer, the rigger gave me an old spike from the ship.

Fast forward to May of 2014, I start my “Two Weeks Before the Mast” on the Lady Washington. I continued to volunteer as often as I could until the pandemic shut everything down.

PS — I added the round handle many years later, for reasons I have long forgotten.

— William Grummel 54

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I was foremast captain on ‘HMS’ Surprise (nee ‘HMS’ Rose) around 10 years ago. Unfortunately she's lost her USCG certification and is going downhill fast — probably won't sail again. Had this tattoo done about three years ago (my first) by a guy named Josh Hernandez up in Long Beach. Great guy — absolutely love it :) — Brian Richardson

This tattoo was done just a couple of weeks back

by Emma at the Cali Life Tattoo Studio on Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa, CA. Emma wasn’t too keen on the pirate — “I don’t know why he wanted that” — but otherwise it’s a great example of traditional marine tattooing with clear sharp lines and effective color. You can book time with Emma by calling (949) 287-6126. — MR

Almost a year old...

Done between trips at Port Lincoln working as mate on a fishing boat, South Australia by Rise and Shine Tattoo.

Always wanted it and finally got it done.

— Luke Piper

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Visit the historic seaport of Salem, Mass for a cruise on our replica of the 1812 privateer schooner FAME! Sailing daily all summer from our downtown dock!

978.729.7600 * SchoonerFame.com