Fish Out of Water (Part 2) — My FIRST EVER!!! Video included

Well folks, the Mercantile crew is getting ready to go back out on the water.  Tonight we load 12 passengers and we sail from Camden Harbor around 10am tomorrow morning.  Mid week, 2 passengers will disembark and we’ll add 16 new passengers (or thereabouts).  I’m excited to be going back out and to re-kindle the fire in the morning.

But, for now, I am posting this video — really my first ever attempt at video — of the Grace Bailey’s trip to the ship yard a few weeks ago.  It’s not that exciting, but it’s a little taste of what it’s like to be on the deck of the boat.  We are not under sail in the video, but instead are being pushed by the yawl boat from Camden to Rockland.

Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZRkV1Qno_M

After getting the Bailey up on blocks and hauled out of the water, the Captain made an assessment of the hull, which was then scraped by hand and repainted over the course of our 3 days in the yard.  The scraping was dirty work, mostly done by Jerika, Becky and Jonathan.  I spent most of the time in the ship yard touching up paint on the deck and painting the water line (enjoying the privileges of being the ship’s cook) — cutting in with a hand held paint brush the transition from green to red that is visible just above the water line when the boat is in the water.

Prior to going to the yard, Jerika, Becky and I spent a rainy afternoon “spinning oakum”.  Oakum is a pine-pitch-soaked hemp fiber that is used, along with cotton, to fill the gaps between the hull boards while the boat is out of the water.  It comes in tightly rolled bales that have to be cleaned and then lightly pulled so that the fibers are a consistent width, thickness and in the longest strands possible.  These strands get looped like thick skeins of yarn to present to Geno, who seems to be the go-to guy in New England for doing this traditional style seam repair on wooden boats, once the boat is out of the water.

He arrived on the last day we were at the yard.  The questionable seams were reamed out with a chisel and then cotton was packed into them using a hammer and chisel.  On top of the cotton, the oakum was then pounded into the seams.  Once that was finished, I think the seam was brushed over with a sort of sealer and then finally painted.  Since I just learned how to spin raw wool using a drop spindle, it was really interesting to work with a new fiber.  The personality of each fiber is so different and besides that, the intended use for each fiber also creates a whole different experience of working  the raw material.

My hand “spinning oakum”

I spun this oakum sitting on the deck of the Grace Bailey as she traveled to the ship yard

I keep getting kicked off the internet at the library so sorry for the abrupt end.  I will be back in a week.  Thanks for reading!!!

A Fish Out of Water (Part 1)

A view from the helm of the boat showing the entrance to the ship yard and the tracks we rode up and out of the water

This past week, most of the Maine Windjammer Cruises crew were back in port.  We arrived back to Camden on Sunday,  May 26 after another rainy weekend trip.  The sun came out on Monday, which was also Memorial Day, and it seemed like the whole town of Camden had changed over the weekend.  The harbor was starting to fill with boats, the Public Landing (which is like the front yard for those of us living on the boats) was filled with people, the small schooners (the Olad and the Surprise) that run short trips out of the Harbor every few hours were moving passengers through at a brisk rate.  There was even a Memorial Day band playing on the Landing at 9:00am in memory of all the fallen sailors and a short parade through downtown.  Despite the previous week of cold and rain, Memorial Day seemed like the true beginning of the summer season.

Since I arrived a month ago I’ve been hearing that at some point we would take the Grace Bailey to the ship yard.  She is the oldest ship in the fleet and is considered the flagship of the company.  She’s been restored using more traditional methods than the other two boats including pitching on the deck and “hackmatack knees”.  There’s a great write up of her history on the Maine Windjammer Cruises website so I won’t go into too much detail here.  Needless to say, she is an impressive vessel, the largest in the fleet, whose aft cabin is still original and even contains a small piano!!

Every time I heard the ship yard mentioned, all I could think about was the opening fight scene of one of the recent Sherlock Holmes movies — the one with the giant — where they end up fighting in a ship yard and accidentally cutting this huge boat loose, creating a cascading effect of violence upon violence.  Like so much having to do with boats, there always seems to be an element of danger hovering around the scene and going to the ship yard with the Sherlock Holmes movie in my mind wasn’t any different.

At high tide on Wednesday, five of us set out from Camden for the two hour ride to Rockland.  We had to carefully slide the Grace Bailey out from between the Mercantile and the dock, which was a tricky undertaking in and of itself.  But once she was loose, we headed out of the harbor with Captain Ray at the helm, turned on the reggae and enjoyed the sun while the yawl boat pushed us to Rockland.  We pulled in to the ship yard and Captain Ray told us what to expect.  Mostly, we just had to listen to the guys on the “cradle” or car that was going to hold this 60 ton vessel in place as she was pulled up and out of the water on these sort of railroad-track looking things.  There were 2 guys on either side of the cradle, which had about a third of its height (about 10 feet) sticking out of the water when we pulled up and a diver under the boat checking the alignment on the blocks while she was still in the water.  One person was on shore operating the winch that pulled the boat out of the water.

Basically, you have to sort of shimmy the boat into the proper position using lines (ropes) that connect the boat to the cradle at various angles.  The boat ends up resting on sets of blocking (2 or 3 on either side and a line of blocking running the length of the bottom of the boat) that are attached to

These are the blocks supporting the hull of the 60 ton Grace Bailey

the cradle.  The diver directed those of us on deck and on the cradle to pull our lines in the right directions and with the right tension so that eventually the Bailey was in position and we started getting pulled slowly out of the water.

While still in the water, the boat is fluid, able to be moved in slight (or large) increments by the turning of the wheel/rudder or the easing or hauling on various lines or the movement of the diesel powered yawl boat.  She is highly responsive to the movements, actions and decisions of the captain and his crew.  Once out of the water, the boat is a brittle mass of wood — still impressive, still beautiful, but no longer responsive.  She is truly like a fish out of water, unable to function outside her native landscape of current, waves and wind.

Stay tuned for Part 2

This is the Grace Bailey (and Captain Ray) at the shipyard in Rockland