Mayflower II Captain's Blog

Finally, a neighbor in the shipyard who gets us. This is the Shenandoah, a wooden schooner that sails out of Martha’s Vineyard. They do week long trips around the Cape and Islands as well as day charters and private functions. She was built in 1964 in Maine and like Mayflower II requires steady, reliable upkeep.

New rudder going together.

The crew is bolting together the large oak timbers that make up the rudder stock.

The white oak trees that these timbers came from were quite big as one can imaging.

There will be a third piece added to the aft edge of the rudder once the main stock is fastened.

Plank by Plank

The yard crew is working their way up the side of the ship carefully fitting one new plank at a time. They will start caulking from the bottom up soon so the port side can be buttoned up.

View from the stern

Here is an encouraging view from the stern as the planking comes together.

Behind the scenes the search for suitable white oak stock continues. The shipyard is investigating contacts in virginia athat have logs for planking material and some frame stock while we are talking with a sawyer in Georgia who has a large supply of Live Oak he says will be suitable for framing.

The next post may be written from the road.

Stay tuned.

Six new planks on, one more frame off

Work on the hull steadily continues as the weather warms up. With six new planks fastened to the hull the crew in the shipyard have removed another rotted frame.

Cutting the ends of the new beakhead deck beam.

Inside the ship we are fitting a new deck beam for the beakhead project. The beam is 5 1/2″ x 7 1/2″  and about 10′ long. The shipyard crew kindly lifted the beam up to the stern gun door with their mechanical lift and we lugged it up to the bow.

Beam in place.

We used mechanical advantage in the form of two block and tackles to lower the beam into place.

Fitting carlins on either side of the bowsprit opening.

The two fore and aft timbers define the space through which the bowsprit runs down to the lower deck. Bit  by bit the ship is taking shape again.

Shaped and primed breast hook timber, with new deck beam in background.

This shot was taken in the marine shop a few days ago. We have been shaping and preparing some of the timbers we need for the restoration work. The primed piece in the foreground  lays down flat along the inside face of the first few frames of the ship up in the bow. The hook shaped piece on one end of it will, (hopefully) fit into a corresponding hooked piece that is attached the other side of the bow.

In the photo below and on the right, we are drawing the new timber into the existing piece. There was no where to put a clamp so that we could draw the two pieces together. Danny had the clever idea of putting the claw of his hammer into the narrow open space as something the clamp could grip against. He is looking into patenting the “hammer clamp.” Look for it in your local hardware store soon.

Shipwrights need to be clever sometimes.

Two new frames on the port side.

On the outside of the ship two new frames have been fitted and are fastened in place.

New stern planking being fit and fastened.

While one crew is fitting frames another is re-planking the stern now that corner frames are in. The plank ends that are covering the gun door space will be cut off flush with the square opening when all the planks are in place.

Another long plank being fitted on the port side.

The shipwrights have lifted a very long and heavy plank into place on the side of the ship. Before fastening they have to test the fit to make sure it is neither too big for the opening, too small or the wrong shape all together.

I guess it goes without saying the fit is important here.

Snugging up the plank end.

Tony, the lead shipwright for Fairhaven shipyard is contemplating the fit of the new plank. While he is holding a sledge hammer in his hand the work is being done carefully. Really it’s a matter of scale. These planks are nearly 3″ thick and this particular one is over twenty feet long.

Another neighbor moves on.

We mark the passage of time in the shipyard by the boats that come and go on the railway next to us. No, really, I am happy another ship is ready for the season.

Mayflower’s day will come!

This video was produced last summer for a fund raising event to support Mayflower II. The short film features Dick Bean, a long time volunteer and friend of Mayflower II. I think I have posted about Dick’s association with the ship previously but suffice it to say here he has been connected with Mayflower to ever since it arrived from England in 1957. (Sometimes he says he greeted  the original Mayflower when it arrived in 1620 but I don’t think that is really true.)

Please enjoy the video and pass it along to anyone else you think might like to see it. It would be fun to have a viral video on the internet about our ship, just don’t use “Call me Maybe”  as the soundtrack.

Here is a nice shot. The ship is getting re-planked. You can see the two new planks that were installed last week. Neither of them needed steaming even though they are nearly three inches thick. the hull shape here is generally constant so the planks didn’t need to be twisted.  Note the batten, (the thin piece of wood above the two new planks.) that is being used to define the upper  edge of the next new plank. When the yard crew took off the old planks they revealed the original plank lines scored into the frames by the workers in England. to make sure this line is fair, that is, it runs smoothly from frame to frame a thin batten is tacked up on the old marks. Everything looks sweet.

Two two planks and a third on the way.

View from the stern.

In this shot we can see, not only the two new planks on the port side but also the new plank on the stern. These planks are all straight edged and flat so they go only relatively easily. At least it seems so from the ground.

Welding on a wooden boat.

This shot is somewhat disconcerting to look at at first. It shows  Danny using a welder to work on the stem.

What he is actually doing is welding a bolt head onto an old steel drift pin that would couldn’t get out of the stem.

Like the shipyard workers when removing hull fastenings, we next took a big pry bar to the head of the welded on bolt to draw out the old drift. It worked slick.

Our current neighbor.

Speaking of welding and metal and such, this vessel is our newest neighbor on the railway next to Mayflower at the shipyard. It is kind of sobering to think this is the third such neighbor we have had while we have been in the yard this year.

To be fair they have all been steel hulled vessels and as far as I know they don’t need any crooked timbers to replace frames or special planking stock for their repairs. Sigh…

fastening a new plank

Here is a brief post that shows  significant progress forward with the repairs to the ship. First I apologize for the shot that looks like it was taken in the lair of one of Batman’s enemies. (Who remembers those crooked camera angles the director used in the Batman show to indicate we were in a crooks hideout?) Not to worry I only had  to angle the camera to get everything into the shot. Not an enemy in sight.

Anyway, the first  of many new planks is being fastened in this shot. This particular plank was not steamed into place as the curves that it must make are not that severe. Some future planks will have to be steamed.

The fastenings are the 5/8″ galvanized nails that were custom made for the ship.

Also note the new frame, red leaded and fastened into place on the port corner of the stern. Mayflower is starting to get her figure back!

Frame stock planed and ready for shaping

Here is the first sign that we are headed in the right direction with the repair work. This is the first frame stock, in the carpentry shop at Fairhaven Shipyard.

The stock as been sent through the big thickness planer and now awaits cutting to the pattern that is resting on top.  Hurrah!

Fitting the first frame into place on the ship.

Here three shipyard workers are fitting the newly cut frame into place on the ship. Two things to note here: The use of the two boom lifts to raise the crew and the stock up to the right height, ( Our marine staff is so jealous); and notice how nicely the piece fits and restores the lovely shape of the ships stern.

Old fastening holes filled. 

Here we see the one of the reasons this kind of work is so labor intensive. The old fastenings have been removed, which is a process in itself, then each hole in the frames has to be filled with a wooden dowel shaped just right and glued in place. Two men, about a days work.

bad knees.

Bad knee

You know how when you get a little older your joints start to ache? Same thing with Mayflower II. Here are two knees that need to be replaced. i know this because the Coast Guard inspector kindly wrote “replace” on one of them.

wasted fastening.

Here’s one reason why the knees, and other parts of the ship , are in such tough shape. This iron fastening, in this case up in the bow, has deteriorated. Fresh water dripping on the fastening causes rust. The rust expands the fastening and puts pressure on the wood it is holding in place. In the case of the knees, the fastenings are in line with each other, and therefore eventually split the timber.

Keith cutting away the rot on the stem

I am sure you will recognize Keith from the marine shop crew. We were working on the stem repair, mandated by the C.G. Bad news we had to cut away about three inches of wood off the back side of the stem. The good news we only had to cut away three inches of wood off the back of the stem. Tomorrow the Coat Guard inspectors will take a look at the work to date and we will head onward and upward.

We had to remove the bowsprit from the ship. The problem is the ship is a complicated puzzle. Each piece is interconnected and relies on another piece for the strength of the whole. It is a little like Jenga, that wooden tower game where you try to remove pieces without having the whole thing fall apart. Well, anyway, the bowsprit was sitting on a a timber that at first we thought we could fix in place but it turns out it is so far gone we have to replace the whole timber, which as I said the bowsprit was sitting on. so, the bowsprit was removed.

To do that we had to unlace the forestay lanyard. Lucky for us the shipyard has a basket lift that holds three people. That is Edgar from the shipyard, and Danny in the picture. I was helping until I had to stop and take a picture.

Another nice thing about the shipyard is the access to the crane. We have used this crane and crane operator before. Sharp eyed readers of this blog may notice both from when we pulled the main mast out a few years ago.

The crane operator has such a delicate touch that he was able to set the bowsprit down next to one of the shipyard buildings. With all that done, this week we can get at that rotted timber and replace it. Then we can replace the rotted deck beam that sat on the timber, then we can replace the rotted carlins that fit into the deck beam. You get the idea.

I just like this shot of the bow of the ship.

When we got back from the ship yard I ran into the Guess Service staff who normally work on the waterfront. They said they were up in the tower at the Plantation trying to find the ship. Good one…

Frame stock

This is the first of many new pieces of white oak for frames. Note the curve in the stock. The trick is first finding trees with the right amount of curve, and each frame has a slightly different curve and then finding a sawyer who will saw the logs this way. It is a bit dangerous way to saw wood.

The first of many pieces of oak for planking

There has been a few weeks lapse since the last post. Anyone reading this blog must be aware of the surge in press for Mayflower II recently. While there is a saying that goes, “Any press is good press,” it is not entirely true in this case.

During the course of the work on the ship, which has mostly involved removing hull planking marked as unsafe by the Coast Guard, further frame deterioration has been discovered.

Old Transom frame sitting on the old rudder in the shipyard carpentery shop.

This picture shows a piece of the aft most frame on the port side of the ship. It has been removed for obvious reasons. There are at least seven frame pieces on both sides of the ship that show this much if not more deterioration.

At this stage we (the museum) had  a decision to make: Patch up the frames, and put new planks over the not so good wood to get the ship back to Plymouth for Opening Day (March 16th) and revisit this work again this coming winter. In the mean time the ship will not be considered safe to sail. Also, next winter we would have to remove all the new planks we just put on, in order to get at those patched up frames for a proper, Coast Guard approved repair.

The second option was to take the plunge now and address the issues realizing the ship would not be back in time for opening and incur the  unexpected and substantial cost of this lengthy project.

The decision was made to go with the second option. It is not a happy choice but a prudent one and one that makes the most sense for a ship that is fifty five years old.

Two obvious points: 1)The cost of doing this work is not going to be less in the future. 2) The ship is only getting older.

It is a challenge for this or any museum to be responsible for a iconic wooden vessel. We take comfort that we are not alone. A ship like Mayflower II has many stake holders: Plimoth Plantation, the town of Plymouth, the state of Massachusetts, schools and school children from our own town and all over the country, tourist from here and abroad, maritime enthusiasts,  square rigged sailors, immigrants, Mayflower passenger descendants,  and anyone who is searching for a change, willing to take a chance, and dreaming of a new life.

Mayflower is the ship that can transport you there.

The view through the fo'c'sle

These two photos were taken today. They show a support timber out on beakhead. That is the bowsprit on the left side of the shot. This morning the plan was to clean up the timber in preparation to put the new deck beam and other pieces back in. This support piece has proven very rotten. Another consult with the Coast Guard is scheduled for tomorrow.

Close up

Our friend and volunteer, Joe Jordon

So as not to end on a sad note I will add this picture, taken today of one of our volunteers. I know we learn more from out volunteers than we ever teach them. Thanks, Joe.