The Beaver, a replica of one of ships that were the center of the Boston Tea Party in the run-up to the American Revolution, was relaunched in January after a major rebuild at the Gloucester Marine Railways. The Beaver and the replica Eleanor will be displayed at the new $27 million Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum on Fort Point Channel in Boston, which will open in June of this year. A third ship, the Dartmouth, will be built from scratch, and is expected to be completed in about two years.
Leon Poindexter, the master shipwright leading the project, has been broadcasting a series of Youtube Webisodes. Here is Ballast for the Beaver, episode 45, where concrete is being poured in the ship for ballast. I am not familiar with the use of concrete for ballast in wooden ships. If anyone is able to enlighten me, I would appreciate it. Thanks to Tom Russell at the Traditional Sail Professionals Linked-in Group for pointing it out the video.
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Concrete? Who knew? I wonder how they’ll handle future repairs to the wood frames and outer planking now that it’s all bonded together by concrete. Very interesting; thanks for the links!
I am not sure either how you address maintaining the bilge timbers or planking.
Somehow I don’t think this approach is wise. I can see using concrete, formed in smaller conforming pieces that could easily be removed, but this just seems stupid, especially in a ship you plan on restoring in another 20 to 50 years.
Concrete makes excellent ballast, and as long as you take measures to protect the wood there is no reason why it cannot be used.
Traditionally, stones were used in wooden ships and the hulls were tuned by shifting ballast. The China Clippers were known for putting on as much sail as possible to decrease the time of crossing the Pacific. When they loaded the enormous hulls with boxes of tea, they literally grouted the cargo in place using gravel and small stones. It kept the boxes from shifting and provided enough ballast to allow all that sail…
Bernard Moitessier talked in one of his books about using concrete for ballast in Marie-Thérèse II when he built her. He did it because it was cheap and available in Mauritius. He over filled her slightly and had to chip some out later.
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