Patrick Curry (left) and Richard "Likeke" Goings set up to turn in the fo re topmast stay seizings, some ofover 200 done on the foremast. (Photo: Chris Jannini) Christopher "Tar Brush "J annini serves with one of the fine traditional tools he made. (Photo: Sue Schmidt)
From left to right: Jen H uggins turns in a wire seizing. Chris Jannini passes wire fo r Jen H uggins. Gary H oganson marls down parceling on an eye splice. (Photos: Tim Campbell) Opposite page: The Balclutha returns to her pier, 12 Ju ne 1998. (Photo: Steve Danfo rs)
Rigger's pie: The 17.5-tonforemast is ready to be stepped with 3 0 of the heaviest wires in place. (Photo: Chris Jannini) out of Baltim ore, M aryland, and Adventuress out of Sea ttle, Washingto n; m any of them are together again to re-rig the Pride ofBaltimore II. No one knows how long it had been since the Balclutha's lower sh ro ud bottle screws had been loosened, and the gang tackled the di fficult task of freeing them up with to rches, hammers and m assive chain
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wrenches (th at may have been old when Ba!clutha was launched). The fittin gs were sand blas ted and coated, and the mas ts and yards were repaired. W e hauled all the wire back to San Francisco, and stripped it of service and underparceling for inspection . If it was deem ed usable we carefully w ire brushed it to remove the coatings and any surface rust. T he wires were then tho roughly coated with tannic acid (a rust co nverter) followed by wire preservatives . Each w ire was carefull y wo rmed, then parceled with canvas, tarred , then served over with m arline ordered fr om England, and tarred twice more. T he wires deemed unsuitable for reuse were carefully measured and all hardware was rem oved for salvage. New wire was lofted out, spliced up, then wormed,
parceled and served (sometimes double served). All the rigging eyes were leathered, and wherever possible seizings were turned in while in the rigging loft. After the tar had a chance to set, over-parceling was put on to keep dirt and sandblas t grit out of the tar and to keep the tar off the freshly painted spars as much as possible. As w ith most projects of this nature (es pecially during o ne of the wettest winters o n reco rd), most of the prerequisites to re-stepping the m as t were delayed. The m as t stepping had initially been scheduled fo r D ecember but was put off until mid April, and even then the new main weather deck was not completely laid dow n. The o nly date that did not change was 12 June, the date of her scheduled re turn with all
SEA HISTORY 90, AUTUMN 1999