If you are in the neighborhood tomorrow, Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 12:30PM, you may wish to stop by the “bon-voyage” party on Pier 17 in New York’s South Street Seaport for the Wavertree, as she slips her lines and is towed across the harbor to Caddell Dry Dock in Staten Island. The Wavertree, built in Southampton, England in 1885, was one of the last large ships to be built in wrought iron and is one of the few survivors. She will be undergoing a $10.5 million, almost year long, drydocking and refurbishment.

Captain Jonathan Boulware, Executive Director of the South Street Seaport Museum outlined the scope of the refurbishment at the New York Shiplore Meeting last Monday. He said that approximately 20 plates would be replaced below the waterline. The existing concrete ballast will be removed and replaced with a pumpable fixed ballast system. The tween deck will be replated. The main deck will be replaced with a steel deck which will then be clad in wood. Boulware acknowledged that this was a compromise. The original ship’s main deck was wood over iron frames, which is difficult to maintain and to keep watertight. The new metal deck will make preserving the ship easier and ultimately less expensive.

Captain Boulware also noted that while there are no current plans to return the Wavertree to sailing condition, there is nothing in the current plans that would preclude that from being possible. (Those of us who would like to see the Wavertree sail again will have a very clear goal to aim for.)

When the ship returns to a new berth on Pier 16 in South Street around May of next year, she will only have the lower masts in place. Restoration of the top hamper will come later. A new cathodic protection system will also be installed on the deck and river bottom to protect the ship from electrolytic corrosion.