22nd annual WoodenBoat Festival at Mystic Seaport .3

Around the Seaport

The 28' sandbagger 'Annie' was built by D. O. Richmond about a half mile downriver from the Seaport in 1880 and came to Mystic in 1931 as the first boat in a collection that now numbers over 500 craft. Much more of her story here.

'Aida' is a 33' keel/centerboard yawl built in 1926 by the Herreschoff Mfg. Co., designed by N. G. Herreschoff.
 

Recently restored by Doug Hylan in Brooklin, ME. More about 'Aida' here.

'Aida' is the most recent addition to the Seaport's fleet. There's a beautiful book about 'Aida' written by Maynard Bray available in the Seaport's bookstore.

The 'CW Morgan' in the water, on her cradle, "taking up" ie swelling her planks to a tight fit before her launch this Sunday, July 21, 2013.

A view to give a taste of the immensity of this ship.

Continuing the theme of immensity, here are some of the spars waiting in the wings for rigging the ship. She'll be rigged after the launch.

By way of supreme contrast, here's the microcruiser Scamp, a joint project of The Small Craft Advisor and noted NZ boat designer John Welsford.

? Found art
 

Higher ups aboard the 'Joseph Conrad'

Jon Wilson, the creator of WoodenBoat Magazine. We had a short chat and Jon informed me that while he's still at WoodenBoat almost daily, he is also deeply involved as director of a non-profit called JUST Alternatives which mediates victim/offender dialogue. There is an in depth article about this man with a foot in two worlds from Yankee Magazine, well worth your time.

Ben Fuller, "Living National Treasure" ( he'll no doubt hate that). Ben's an avid small boat advocate and member of the TSCA. Ben is the Curator at Penobscot Marine Museum (look into their extensive photo archives) and a former Curator at Mystic. He's also the owner of 'Ran Tan', more of which later. Here he's chatting with John Harris of CLC.

Coasting Schoooner 'Austraila' was built in 1862 on Long Island. She served as a blockade runner based in the Bahamas during the Cival War, and consequentially spent over 60 years in the Chesapeake hauling goods.

Later she was acquired by the DuPont family as their yacht, and was donated to Mystic in 1951. In 1961 she was hauled for refit but the damage at that time was too great, she was retired to a shed on campus as an educational exhibit. Read more..,

'Breck Marshall' is a reproduction Cape Cod catboat c.1900, built at  Mystic in 1987 and  in use today as an excursion boat for museum visitors. More...

The John Gardner Small Craft Workshop is held most years at Mystic as part of the WoodenBoat Festival. It is situated on Australia beach, adjacent to the 'Australia's shed and directly in front of the John Gardner Small Craft workshop, still in use, building small craft in the Gardner tradition. John was a visionary historian and teacher. He is credited with saving many American small craft from obscurity and as a key figure in the wooden boat revival. He served as Associate Curator of Small Craft at Mystic Seaport from 1969 to 1995. The workshop is held as a collaboration between Mystic Seaport, WoodenBoat Magazine and The Traditional Small Craft Association.

Good night, Mystic Seaport
 

A quick sail aboard 'Ran Tan'

'Ran Tan' is a modified wherry, drawn by Antonio Dias. imagined and owned by Ben Fuller.
 

Ben brought 'Ran Tan' down for the John Gardner Small Craft Workshop, which operates a livery under the auspices of the TSCA. Here you can try any of the offered boats, no charge.

Ran Tan is Irish slang for a sort of walkabout, according to Tony.

Tony is a friend and invited myself and brother John for a sail.
 

John's duty was to watch for other craft, especially where the sail blocked Tony's view. I, being considerably heftier, was assigned to be moving ballast. The boat is very light (200lbs.), and lively, so I was moving around quite a bit trying to keep her on the flat.

Antoino at the helm.
 

Sailing past the 'Morgan'

Tony and John back at the dock after a fun sail. I do not have lot's of experience in small craft and it was enlightening. Antonio Dias is a truly multifaceted man, artist, talented designer and writer, take a look at his website. Thanks, Tony. You can read an earlier post on this blog about Tony and his boat designs here.


Text and photos copyright Thomas Armstrong, first posted on 70.8%

Sprouting Seeds...

Mike Wick

Mike Wick's Melonseed, aptly named Pepita, scandalising sail at the basin of the ISM, during the 2009 Wooden Boat Festival in Philly

Mike is building another Melonseed, this one with some design modifications he wanted to implement after his experieince with Pepita.

above photos thomas armstrong

Mike is introducing camber to the deck, visible here in the model, hoping to achieve a drier sail.

The new boat is a Cortez Melonseed, I think drawn by Roger Allen of the Florida Maritime Museum at Cortez, FL, with the hull built from a kit by the FMM by Ted Cook.

Mike is finishing the boat himself.

these photos courtesy John Guidera via Mike Wick

Barry Long

scribing the skeg

one of the completed hulls

both boats half stripped

Set up, keelson, stem and transom in place, twelve strips on each boat

Two at once.

Steam bent stems cooling.

And set up.

Two full sets of molds laid out.

Setting up the strongbacks for the work to proceed upon.

Barry first saw a Melonseed in an historic photo, and the boat grabbed his imagination, but it wasn't until years later that he saw this boat in MD and began his research in earnest. A year later he'd finally identified the Melonseed.

all photos in this segment courtesy Barry Long

Melonseeds evolved in the Mid Atlantic region and there's been a revival of interest in these boats in recent years. Howard Chapelle wrote about and surveyed these boats and they are included in American Small Sailing Craft, the bible for those interested in traditional American small craft. Although this revival is mainly centered in the home waters of this boat type, the popularity of the Melonseed has spread to other areas, the Midwest, the Deep South and the Northeast, at least.
Two friends of mine are currently building or finishing Melonseeds and I wanted to write about these elegant small sailboats. There's a Melonseed Yahoo group and I wrote to them inviting members to submit their build photos and text, more of that later.
Mike Wick is a fellow member of the Delaware River TSCA group and is a Melonseed devotee. Mike is a prolific boatbuilder and collecter, and has a livery of around 13 boats. He recently sold his lovely Oughtred McGregor sailing canoe to a friend up in the Thousand Island area, in an attempt to lighten his load. He's currently finishing out his second Melonseed. This one is to a design by Roger Allen, head of the Florida Maritime Museum in Cortez, Florida. Dubbed the Cortez Melonseed, an original strip planked hull was built by Mike Lucas, which he gave to Mike, who used it as a male mold for a cold molded hull, seen in the photos.That done, Mike pooped off his hull and passed it on to Roland Anderson who took over the original hull to build another melonseed. The model Mike is using to work out his deck modifications is a lazer-cut kit made by Ted Cook and are available from the Florida Maritime Museum. As seen in the photos of the model, above, Mike is making some modifications, mainly building in a camber to the deck to make his boat a drier sail. Mike's other seed Pepita was designed by John Brady and built by Carl Weissenger, and is a gem of a small boat.

Barry Long set himself an ambitious project. The Virginia based graphic designer and photographer decided, after falling in love with the Melonseed, to build a brace of seeds, one for himself and one for his better half. He's basically done that, but is still adding the finishing touches. He's also chronicled his build on a weblog, which has to be the most detailed, erudite, well written and photographed build blog I have ever encountered. Build blogs can get a little dry, but not so with Barry's, which is interspersed with amusing and enlightening asides, a host of informative comments from his followers and witty, introspective, informative and insightful commentary on the building process. Not to be missed! Barry seems to be completing the dual project and I've pushed him to get the pair done for the October MASCF in St, Michaels this year, owing to my completely selfish desire to sail one, or both of his sprouts this Autumn. I anyone reading this can make this annual celebration, I highly recommend you do so! Also, Barry's photos here will be best read from he bottom up. There are tons more photos at Barry's website.

Mystic Miscellany

Harpoon points in the window at the Ironmongers Shop, Mystic Seaport.

The centerpiece of Mystic's restoration projects, the Charles W Morgan. Billed as the last (traditional) whaling ship in the world, the Morgan is projected to be on the water by 2012. Ambitious.

Seeing the boat from the ground up, she appears enormous, immense.

In fact, she is large, though once you've climbed the stairs to her deck, she's not quite so overwhelming. LOA 133', LOD 105'. Her beam is 27.7' and her draft (depth) is 12.6 feet, although fully loaded she could draw as much as 17.6', her registered depth. Her displacement (weight) is 313.75 tons.

The F0c'sle

Stores at Mystic

At the show John and I met vendor Met Chandler, well really his wife Mo, Met does some interesting maritime blacksmithing. Located in West Chester PA, about 20 minutes from my home, I'm sorry to say they are in the process of moving to NH, though that probably makes sense for them. Met offer's hand forged sail hanks, caulking irons, marlinspikes and rigging knives, among other items. Nice work. Web presence here.

Rigging knives,sail hanks and marlinspikes, all hand forged.

Someone from Beaton's Boatyard, Tom or Suzanne, took this wonderful photo of Silent Maid.

Kingston Lobster Boat built by David McCullouh. David
allows he's built 13 or 14 boats. You can view several of them here.

Apparently there are plans available both from Mystic and the Smithsonian under the name Annie B Fuller
I think this photo is of the fish well, probably filled with lobster in the working boat.

This rather compelling canoe yawl was there on Saturday, gone on
Sunday.

Named Kit, there was no info and I never found the owner. Here brother John inspects the rudder.

Working our way through the IBIM display ( I built it myself ), John and I chanced upon Brooke Hayward and his Delaware Ducker Wooduck.

John and I had met Brooke at last autumn's MASCF, held in
St Michaels Md, at the Chesapeake Bay Mariime Museum.

At that time, Brooke was planking the boat in the museum's boatyard. See that here. You'll need to scroll down a bit. As opposed to many of the boats we saw at the WBS,Brooke, very sensibly decided to finish his traditionally planked lapstrake Ducker with ply decks covered withe painted canvas which give a non skid surface at lower cost. This is the approach I would take for any boat I might build.

And finally, here's Steven Bauer's little IO designed HumbleBee, lauchned at the boat show and undergoing her sea trials in the Connecticut River. She'll serve as tender to Steve and his lovely wife Michelle's Al Mason designed Ostkust, sailing out of Portland, ME. Steve and Mary, friends of Russ and Julia Mannheimer, were at my table for the Iain Oughtred Tribute and it was a pleasure meeting and talking with them.

photo courtesy Steven Bauer

That's all folks, pretty much a wrap on my weekend at the WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport for this year, stay tuned for next. I was enthralled by my weekend in Mystic. This is a great boat show, and some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Kudos to WoodenBoat for sponsering and Mystic Seaport for hosting this event. I got my money's worth and a lot more. Please, if it's relevant to you, support WB with a subscription and Mystic Seaport with a membership. I plan to be there next year and I hope to meet you there.

An aside here. My fellow blogger and good e-friend Michael Bogogger has been elected or appointed president of the National TSCA, the Traditional Small Craft Association. This is a rewarding group to be a member of. I'm not a joiner or club type, but the TSCA is unlike any 'club' I've ever run across. For the small boat enthusiast in the US, there is no parallel. If you are resident in the US, and you like small boats, please join.