The Bluenose II is now several weeks into her summer sailing season. Setting sail from Lunenburg, NS, she carries a professional crew of six and 12 young people, recruited from around the province and across Canada. This summer, the replica fishing/racing schooner will sail to Iona, on the Bras d’Or Lake in Cape Breton and is expected to be there from July 17 to July 19.

Bluenose II is operated by the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society on behalf of the Province of Nova Scotia. The project to build the schooner has been challenging. Years behind schedule and with a budget that has ballooned from $14 million to a projected $25 million, the project is not without its critics. Most recently, concerns have been raised by the appearance of the new schooner.  Gaps between the bulwark planking caused marine consultant and longtime schooner captain, Lou Boudreau, to say, “The only way to describe this is that it’s coming apart at the seam.” He went on to say, “The split planks aren’t really the issue. … It opens the door to many other questions.”

As reported by the Chronicle Herald,  Andreas Josenhans, president of the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society, said cracks are normal for a wooden ship, to allow the wood to swell and also to let water that comes onto the deck escape. Those gaps are only allowed in the sides of the ship that are above the deck level, he said.

Jan Miles, senior captain with the schooner Pride of Baltimore, said the issue isn’t uncommon in ships built with planks set edge to edge instead of “ship-lapped” where the boards overlap.

“The cracks are not cracks but opened-up seams between edge-to-edge bulwark planking that has dried out and made it possible to see light between the plank edges,” he said in an email.

Miles said the concern is a “cosmetic” one likely caused by the use of green wood that wasn’t properly dried, thus allowing shrinking to occur. That could be offset by “robust caulking” in the seams followed by putty in the normal process of stiffening and making watertight the seams between the hull planking.

“Some focused cosmetic care of both putty and paint will eliminate the seeing-through. This is what goes with heavy wood-built vessels in the modern world, where there is not enough patience to give green wood time to fully dry out (and) cure completely.”

Cosmetic or not, Boudreau said, it shouldn’t happen in a $25-million vessel that is just a few years old.