I hope everyone who celebrates the American holiday is having a wonderful Thanksgiving. The holiday is associated with a group of English settlers now known as the Pilgrims who arrived on the Massachusetts coast around 1620 on the ship Mayflower. Now, the Mayflower II, a replica built in Devon, England and sailed to United States in 1957, is undergoing an extensive renovation and rebuild. She was hauled last Friday at the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport.
Hauling the MAYFLOWER II at Mystic Seaport – November 2016
From the Mystic Seaport website:
This is the third phase of a multi-year preservation initiative for the nearly 60-year-old ship. Mystic Seaport shipwrights and Plimoth Plantation maritime artisans are collaborating on the restoration, which is being carried out to prepare the ship for the commemoration of the Pilgrims’ arrival 400 years ago in 2020. Unlike past years, Mayflower II will remain at Mystic Seaport for a period of 30 months and not return to Plymouth in the spring as she has in past years.
The preservation work and building done at the DuPont Shipyard, Mystic Seaport Museum is world class if not the finest! I’ve had the privilege as a long time member to visit the museum many times during the year. I’ve seen the many phases of the rebuilding of the “Charles W Morgan” and the daggers “Roann” and “Florence”. I also watched the construction of the Schooner “Amistad”. Having begun my visits in the 1950s I remember the time before the Shipyard. What an amazing gift it has been.
Yup, I worked there from 1973 to 1985 and it is an amazing place. How about the spar lathe? The lift dock is new since my time there (a replacement for the original) and it is a fascinating place to visit.
Our local NPR radio station was discussing the next part of the project this morning and mentioned the search for long lengths of white oak to finish out at 10/4 planking (if I remember correctly). It also mentioned the projected cost of finishing up. I hope that Plimoth Plantation is now working on “best practices” for how to keep the MAYFLOWER from deteriorating once the project is completed. Woodenboats will always need maintenance but they are infinitely renewable and common sense and attention to small problems before they grow into major ones sure helps.
Adrian Small Passat 1946 who was mate in Mayflower II when she sailed from England along with David Thorpe is still alive an kicking at 87 I was with him at the Cape Horner reunion last weekend. We remember Godfrey Wicksteed also a mate in the replica voyage who I came to meet when he was the rigging adviser to the clipper ship Cutty Sark for 30 plus years, he served his time in Bellands and Transocean in the 1920`s. I had the pleasure to sail in Soren Larsen in 1991 to Cape Horn with Scottie Anderson Bell who had also been in that Mayflower crew, he became architect to Haile Selassie Emperor of Ethiopia. These guys and the rest of the Mayflower crew formed the 50 -50 when half way across the Atlantic so sceptical were the boys of the international press regards their likely or unlikely success. Good luck with the refit now ongoing.
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