Late May, early June progress
One of the benefits of working at a museum like Mystic Seaport is that we have a phenomenal amount of information at our fingertips. Case in point, when looking at one of the collections of historical photos of the Morgan to get more information on the shape of the fashion piece, Roger suggested we take a look at the Morgan’s sister ship, CALIFORNIA.
This is her in her later years, looking tired. Not long after this photo, she was dismantled in Oakland.
This could easily have been the Morgan’s fate had not Col. Green rescued her in 1924 and preserved her at his mansion in South Dartmouth MA. She came to Mystic Seaport in 1941 following the Colonel’s death and has been preserved here ever since.
By the way, if you look carefully at the dismantling photo, you can see the starboard fashion piece barely hanging on!
Lots has gone on in the past few weeks, so let’s get right to it.
The long side shores were moved down the hull to allow the caulkers access to seams that had been formerly covered by the shore fasteners.
New, smaller, shores were added down low to add a bit more stability as well.
Geno finished up his work last week and has headed back home to Maine.
He’s been great to work with, a true professional.
Geno wasn’t the only one swinging a mallet, as you probably know by now. Evie, Rob, Frank, and Kevin have all put in their time. Kevin has been doing the bulk of tying up loose ends on the caulking front these past few weeks.
That’s him working above Geno.
Bob has been leading the charge on removing the cover (and soon the entire scaffolding structure). You can see the cover just coming off around the crane here.
Last week I ventured up on deck and was shocked to see just how much he and his crew had accomplished.
There hasn’t been direct sunlight on the deck for at least 3 years.
Ali and Tim did ground support in this effort.
They sorted, de-nailed, recycled, saved, and trashed the rain of wood and plastic that came down from above.
Bob, also known affectionately as Hurricane Bob, is a wrecking machine up in the manlift.
(yes, he’s tethered to the basket, by the way)
Paul has been part of this effort as well, moving like a monkey high up on the rafters.
Scott and Ryan have been dismantling the scaffolding and I-beams down in the hold. This is a major project. No photos of their work yet, just this one of them using the crane to lower some material to the ground.
Jamie has finished fairing the hull.
I don’t think he misses this at all.
Chris and Jeff have been finishing up riveting the plank butts.
All of the planks that have a butt seam below the waterline get a single rivet through them near the butt. This rivet goes from the plank all the way through the frame and ceiling planking, where it is headed over. Thus, each butt is fully locked into the structure of the boat. The plank itself would fail before this fastener gave way. Here’s a view of 2 rivets countersunk into the plank butts.
Most of the seam puttying has been wrapped up over the past week.
Once that was done, it was right on to painting. Here’s Sean putting a coat of primer on the hull.
And Maggie…
And Carl & Bill (aka Jake)…
And slowly the paint helps to transform the hull from a structure of discrete parts to a whole.
With the cover off, the shape of the boat begins to reemerge.
Up at the bow, Jon has been making real progress on the pipes. I can now say that the proper term for the pipe he’s working on here is the Fluke Chain Hawse Hole. So named because the chain that would be fastened to the whale’s fluke passed through this particular hole. Simple, yes?
Just finished shaping the hole.
Blue chalk is used around the upper hole (a mooring line hawse hole) for fitting a round wooden rim that goes around the hole.
The rim is pressed up to the hull and any chalk that transfers onto the rim shows a high spot. Shave that spot off of the rim, and press it to the hull again. With each iteration, the fit gets better and better. Eventually, most of the back of the rim will show chalk transfer. At that point, you know that you have an excellent fit between the rim and the hull. Dentists use this same method to check where your teeth touch, only they use a type of carbon paper instead of chalk.
Roger has been working on the anchor chain hawsepipe by the gammon knee. He’s sealed everything with a stunning red paint. This isn’t red lead paint, it’s just very very red.
Jon has worked out a way to slide the mooring hawsepipe in and out of the hole easily by using a post that goes through the hole. Very nice.
I seem to recall that this was not his idea, by the way, but I could be wrong.
Here, he’s buttering up a section of the rim that was formerly chalk-fit.
Not really butter, it’s a bedding compound called Dolfinite. The bedding compound acts as a barrier to water infiltration between the rim and the hull.
Fitting the lower rim,
It curves around the beaded strake at its lower edge.
This part is held in place with galvanized spikes.
The finished pipe and rim, all painted now.
The fluke chain hawse hole gets lined with lead for added protection and waterproofing.
Jon uses a ball peen hammer to shape the lead tightly to the hole. This pipe gets this special protection because of its location. This pipe passes between the inner bulwarks planking and the outer waist planking. In between these layers of planking are the frames and an open space along the frames all the way to the bottom of the boat. Any water that gets into this space has the potential to rot the boat from the inaccessible space inside the planking. So, the lead acts as a gasket to keep water out of this space.
The upper mooring pipe only passes through bulwarks planking, so there’s no passage down between the frames under this pipe. Thus, no lead.
Here’s another sheet of lead being formed around the anchor chain hawsepipe.
More progress updates coming soon.