16 minute read
Up to Speed
In the last 12 months, Capt. Tiffany Krihwan has broken ERNESTINA-MORRISSEY out of the yard, toured the Gulf Coast, set that giant mainsail for the first time in years, and brought the old girl back to Cape Ann
Marlinspike: We’ve all had busy summer seasons, but I don’t think anyone has been busier than you since you accepted this job as master of the ErnestinaMorrissey.
Tiffany Krihwan: I’ve definitely been busy! I wish it was busy sailing; a lot of it has been office work, sitting at the desk a lot, reviewing drawings and plans and making sure stuff’s submitted to the Coast Guard. You can have a lot of things on paper, but then once you start putting ‘em in actual use, finding out what works, what needs to change a little bit… it’s been a lot of that as well.
MS: Can you tell us a little bit about your decision to move east and take this job after so many years in the Midwest with the Denis Sullivan?
TK: When I got furloughed from the Denis Sullivan, they had told me that they were going to bring me back in the New Year, but during that time period, nobody really knew what was going to happen. So when they advertised for this position, I applied for it and was one of the finalists. When they offered the job to me in January, I sat on it for a little bit, which they were fine with, waiting for me to give them an answer, and I waited to see if I was going to be called back to the Sullivan. I wasn’t. So I decided to take the position.
It was bittersweet. Coming out here to this vessel was really wonderful and a whole new experience. But leaving the Sullivan… I put a lot of my heart and soul into that vessel, keeping it going over all those years. This was not the way I wanted to end my career with Sullivan.
MS: When you took the Ernestina-Morrissey job, the boat was still up in the shed up at Boothbay Harbor. Can you tell us a little bit about seeing her for the first time and the process of breaking her out of the yard?
TK: I had seen her in New Bedford many years ago, just alongside, but never had been down below, or even on deck. When I saw her in the shipyard, I was really impressed at how big the vessel was. A vessel always looks bigger out of the water, when you’re standing underneath it, but I was just in awe of how big this vessel is and slightly intimidated, too, by her size!
I was also impressed with her shape. When you see a boat out of water, at least for me, I can kind of tell how it’s going to sail and I could tell she was going to sail really well.
MS: How does she compare with the Denis Sullivan in that respect?
TK: [Laughs] They’re definitely apple and oranges. They’re not the same beast.
To give you an example, when I was captain of Roseway and we were sailing in Boston Harbor. I would say, ‘Please, could I just do six knots today?’ Because she was always wanting to go eight knots, 10 knots, short tacking in Boston Harbor. When I was on the Sullivan, I would always think, ‘Can I please just get up to six knots today?’
Getting back onto a Grand Banks fishing schooner, they’re just such good sailing vessels. They’re very different. The Sullivan’s a really steady boat in heavy winds and heavy seas, with those smaller sails, because of the three masts. But on this vessel, you have a giant mainsail, something to really always consider when you’re doing sail settings and how much you’re going to set.
MS: Speaking of the mainsail, we know that Dan Moreland did a lot of work on the new rig — we actually interviewed him about it in a previous issue. Did you have much interaction with Dan about the rig, or was most of that stuff done before you arrived?
TK: Most of the design that Dan did was done already. I think he was finishing up with David Short and Nat Wilson, the last little bit, when I started. So it was all really well established by the time I got here.
MS: Launching the boat after this long, long rebuild was a huge milestone for a lot of folks. What do you remember about the process of actually getting the boat into the water?
TK: It was all in Bristol’s hands. I was just standing by if they needed anything. The individuals in that organization that had more of the stressful side of the event, and when they started taking her down the rail, it was all going really well. And then I believe one of the blocks for the rail shifted, and so they had to stop. They worked throughout the night to get it done, and then the next day they finished bringing her down the rail. I just stood by and watched. There wasn’t much I could do.
MS: Did a lot of people turn up for the launch?
TK: There were probably three or four hundred people that showed up when they started the launch.
MS: And then not so many the next day?
TK: Yeah, it was about 30!
MS: Well, they say if a ship experiences difficulty launching, it’s good luck. Ever heard that one?
TK: Is what they say? Okay…
MS: USS Constitution had a terrible time getting launched, and she’s been a pretty lucky ship.
TK: I should say.
MS: And on a much smaller scale, our schooner Fame. She didn’t want to get wet. But so far, so good. Anyway… after the launch, you needed to work with the Coast Guard to get the boat certified. I know you did sea trials before you left Maine. How did that all go?
TK: Good. We had the technicians for the engines, the transmission, all on board and they certified everything. All of that equipment performed just as planned. That gave me confidence that the boat was mechanically ready to go.
MS: I had not thought even to ask you about the propulsion! How’s that Hundested system compared to what you’ve worked with in the past? How do you feel about it now that you’ve spent a season with it?
TK: I’m still learning it. The idea of the variable pitch prop is a new one for me, but I am learning the inner workings of it, such as changing the pitch for different settings. We motorsailed up yesterday in a calm and we were able to do nine, nine and a half knots between getting the pitch just right and the sails trimmed. So that was pretty impressive.
And then when it comes to docking, pitching it way down, so you’re kind of just creeping into the dock. You do have to keep in the mindset that if you do need a lot of thrust, you have to change that pitch. So I’m still developing those mental muscles.
MS: That’s a separate control?
TK: Yeah. You have to pull it back into neutral and change the pitch and then put it back to whatever RPMs that you want.
MS: That’s way over my head.
TK: Yeah, it’s been a slow process for me. I’m not somebody who just hits buttons and sees what happens. I like to do it nice and controlled.
MS: So there was still a lot of work to do on the boat after you guys left Maine. Did you go directly to Mass Maritime, or did you go down to New Bedford when you left Maine?
TK: When we left Maine, we went to Mass Maritime and were there two-three weeks, and then we went to New Bedford.
MS: I know people are excited about the boat in New Bedford and wanted see you, but is that also an easier place to get work done?
TK: New Bedford? Yeah, for multitude of reasons. We’re closer to resources because of the rich maritime history in New Bedford. All the suppliers that I need are close to hand there. Our dock in New Bedford at the State Pier is well protected. Even in those big weather events, I’m not terribly concerned about the vessel.
Her dock at MMA, on the other hand, is pretty exposed to Buzzards Bay. In fact, sometimes big events, we get whitecaps over our dock, so…
MS: All that time, your departure date to participate in those spring tall ships events in the Gulf of Mexico was getting closer and closer. Did you feel pressure to get the boat ready?
TK: Well, pressure to get the boat ready in a safe manner. Pressure to meet our obligations to Tall Ships America. We had been in talks with them since August of last year, many months before the Gulf Coast tour, and signed contracts with them. I didn’t want to disappoint the port cities or Tall Ships America, and the Academy was really excited about this trip. So we did our best to do it as safely as possible and to get down there.
There was a lot to do. We were uprigging in February, that’s not ideal, but we took it easy, gave ourselves lots of time, and as it turned out we didn’t quite finish rigging her. We worked on it on the way down and throughout the whole tour.
MS: Tell us about the trip down south. How did that go?
TK: Really, really well. We got down to St. Pete’s in 10 days. We motored the whole way down, that time of year. I just didn’t want to chance it. Luckily, we mostly had the wind on our stern, so it made for an easy ride. We were motoring at nine, nine and a half knots, and we stopped in Charleston just overnight to fuel and reprovision. We got into St. Petersburg two days early. I had been concerned that we weren’t going to make the Parade of Sail, but we ended up getting in two days early.
MS: So what were the Gulf Coast events like?
TK: The turnout was amazing! I had never participated in anything in the Gulf Coast. The Great Lakes always has amazing turnouts of people wanting to see the vessels.
But my biggest takeaway from the Gulf Coast is everywhere we went, whether it was an official port visit or unofficial, how many people knew about this vessel and how many people had some kind of tie to it, family members that sailed on her.
I met some of the Morrissey family, the granddaughter of Clayton Morrissey, the second captain of the vessel. She came down to see us in Galveston, spent good quality time with us. She let us know that our governor, Maura Healey, has a family attachment as well. She’s part of the Morrissey family.
So just how rich the history of this vessel is. Every single day I was meeting new people from either Cape Verde, from Gloucester, from her time in Canada, always coming down to visit the vessel. They would bring pictures with them, sometimes. We’d let them go down below and then one individual said, ‘Oh, this is where my bunk was!’ And it was just really, really fascinating.
MS: It can’t hurt that our new governor has a tie to the vessel, seeing as the vessel is supported by the Commonwealth!
TK: Correct. I didn’t know that until I had met Penny Morrissey and she introduced me to her niece, who’s cousins with Maura Healey. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, or whatever.
MS: In the photos that you were posting of these events, I saw the schooner flying what looked like a trysail in place of the full main. What was going on there?
TK: I didn’t have enough crew to set this main; you need at least 15. We just did it yesterday with 14 people, and it’s a really big job. I only had a crew of 10 to 12 of us for that trip. So I opted not to try to even set the mainsail, because Nat Wilson asked me not to set it reefed the first few times, not to keep putting it in a reef. And I didn’t want to not have something back after. We did have the storm trysail, and I wanted to balance out the sail plan a little bit. She actually sailed really well with just the storm trysail, the fore, the jumbo, and then the jib.
MS: 14 people to get the main boom off of the table!
TK: [Laughs] Yeah, it was a struggle yesterday. I’m very grateful for jiggers. These vessels have very big mainsails.
MS: So how many times have you flown the full main at this point?
TK: Two times.
MS: You said she sailed well without it. What do you notice with it?
TK: She definitely wants to be close hauled. You really do have to work on your trim. If you let her, she wants to round up on you, and you have weather helm, so you do have to really know how to trim the sails, balance her out.
MS: Tell us about the trip back from the Gulf. How’d that go? Were you doing more sailing, rather than motoring the whole way?
TK: It went well, and we sailed for quite a bit of it. Actually, a lot of the Gulf Coast trip, once we left Pensacola, we sailed all the way down to Key West and then motored through and then sailed again, sailed off the coast, stopped in Charleston again. So it was a combination of sail and motorsail coming home.
MS: And what have you been doing since the Gulf Coast events?
TK: We’ve been going back and forth from the Academy for special events, going back to New Bedford. We’re still finishing rigging her. It’s still a process of finding out where things… I mean, you can look at [books by Howard] Chappelle and get a good idea of how things should be, but when you see how it works out practically on board, often some tweaking is involved. So we’re at that stage: shifting where some leads are, shifting blocks. We’re still working on that. And surprisingly, even though she just came out of yard a year ago, we’ve already had to start painting her! It’s amazing how hard the sun is on things, especially down south.
MS: Will this be your first time participating in the Gloucester Schooner Festival?
TK: It is. Yep. I’ve only been a spectator once.
MS: And I’m sure it will be with mixed feelings that you’re crossing tacks with your old command.
TK: Yeah. I’m glad she’s sailing. That’s what matters. She’s doing her mission of teaching.
MS: So you’ve been on the Ernestina-Morrissey now for..?
TK: I’ve been on the project two and a half years now. And the boat went in the water a year ago this month.
MS: A year ago this month! My gosh, that’s right. What are your takeaways from this new position? Being in command of a new vessel… coming to the East Coast… working with the Maritime Academy? There’s a lot of changes there for you.
TK: I’m surprised on how much I enjoy working at the Academy. I wasn’t sure how that was going to be. I feel very supported at the Academy by all the executivelevel people and then just all the other people as well. If I need something, they’re all willing to pitch in and help me figure out how to get it done, build something really quickly for me.
We needed some stairs at the dock and a ramp and all the different support people were able to come and get it done in a couple of hours. That’s just a new place for me!
And then just being on the East Coast, the rich maritime history… I have so many friends here, so getting back in touch with them on a more regular basis besides just Tall Ships years, I’ve really enjoyed that. And it’s always fun to learn a new area. And I really love the diversity of New Bedford. It’s really nice to see so many people of different backgrounds.
MS: Has your daughter Carson had a chance to sail on Ernestina-Morrissey yet?
TK: She was out here in June. She was on board the first time we set the mainsail, back in June. It was nice to have her on board. She’s been around boats her whole life, so to her it wasn’t any big deal, but it was nice to have her here for it.
MS: Is she interested in sailing? Are we going to make a sailor out of her?
TK: No... she loves being on the boat, but like any teenager, she doesn’t want to really interact with anybody, so she kind of hides out and just either sticks next to me or hides out in my bunk. She’s a very, very good horse rider, that’s where her thing is.
MS: You can’t force kids to be interested. I have two kids who like being on the water, they like being on boats, but they’ve got no interest in taking over the business or running the boat.
TK: I imagine. Although my daughter loves being on my boat… I own a Tahiti ketch, and she helped me restore it during the pandemic, so that was really fun. And she really enjoyed doing that and being on that boat with me.
It’s not like I’m working, when I’m on my own boat. I get to actually relax and not have everybody asking me questions every two minutes.
MS: I’m with you on that one. But it sounds like you’ve landed a pretty good gig with Ernestina-Morrissey.
TK: I really have, and I’m just so thankful… thankful for all the amazing people, the folks at SEMA [Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association] for never losing focus on getting this boat restored. If it hadn’t been for the people at SEMA, honestly, I think everybody would’ve forgotten about this vessel.
For them, people like Mary Anne McQuillan and Fred Steiner and Julius Bruno, all those people, just constantly keeping that torch going to get this boat redone.
And those incredibly skilled people like Nat Wilson, the late David Short, Bristol Marine and all of their people, Dan Moreland, and Hannah Gray.
Hannah Gray is an amazing person. It’s easy to overlook those people that are in the background, that you don’t really hear about too much. I remember reading the interview you did with Hannah Gray, when I was deciding to take this position.
And of course, Harold Burnham, and the people from the Massachusetts DCR — so many people involved to make this happen!
I feel really privileged and honored to be the captain of Ernestina-Morrissey.
