Naturally, we’ve been prepping for the holidays around the shop. But mostly, we’re marching on towards our July launch date. The lower planking team has been steadily pushing onward and upward. Here’s a recent plank at the stern of the ship. You can see the kinds of curve and twist that these planks have to [...]
For the next few months, we’ll be working very hard to get the planking finished up. You’ll be seeing lots of planking in here. The zipper frames have been addressed, and now the crew is getting back into their planking rhythm. First, fairing the frames. We stretch string across the frames and sight down it [...]
Just a few more hurricane related images to start. We lost power for a few days after the hurricane, but that didn’t stop us from making coffee. Yes, that’s a generator powering the coffee pot. No, that’s not all we used it for… The wind did a number on one area of the plastic cover [...]
A few notes that I made during the recent hurricane. Unfortunately, our server was offline at the time, so these updates come after the fact… 10/29/12 While the real storm surge isn’t expected until tonight, the effects of Sandy are clear around the south end of the Seaport. High tides are at 9:15 am and [...]
There’s been a lot going on here. Lately we’ve been working on the deck seams. The apprentices have been stripping off the old tar that seals the top of the seams, and selectively reefing out seams.
Most of the posts so far have been aimed at catching up on some of the big projects. There are lots of smaller projects that are going on as well on a daily basis around the boat. Here’s a sample. Caulking prep Evie and Ginger have been prepping the deck for caulking. What they’re doing [...]
Today we’ll look at knees. Nope, not these. Ouch. These. Knees are like angle brackets for boats. They provide support and stiffen the structure. For a boat the size of the Morgan, we need really big knees.
I didn’t make it clear before, but the earlier photos of the transom timber being removed were from February. I’m doing a lot of catch up here to show the installation. By March, Walt had finished shaping the transom timber and it was time to install it. We don’t have anything big enough around the [...]
If you come by the shipyard, one of the first things you’ll notice is the giant shed enclosing the Morgan. Many people don’t even realize that there’s a boat inside there when they first see it. If you’d come by last December, it would have been a little more obvious. We wrapped everything up to [...]
As you approach the boat these days, you’ll probably hear a kind of rhythmic, chirping, tapping sound. Most likely, that’s the sound of caulkers driving caulking into the seams. Caulkers have a number of specialized tools for their work. The most obvious is the caulking mallet. The head is made of a very hard wood, [...]