A quick post to announce a new weblog I am hosting at the behest of John Brady, lead boatbuilder at the Workshop on the Water, the very active boatshop at the Independence Seaport Museum. Wow and Rocking the Boat in NYC have been commissioned to build a whaleboat each, with the goal of fitting out the restoration of the CW Morgan at Mystic Seaport in grand style. These boats will be built in a traditional manner, a combination of lapstrake and carvel planking, lap for the top few strakes and carvel lower down. Originally built all lapstrake, traditional builders and the whalermen themselves came to prefer the quieter carvel planked construction because it was less likely to alert a whale to it's impending demise. The boats will allow for 5 or 6 crew with rowing stations and gunter rigged sailplans. After their completion, they may be allowed to play a bit before joining the Morgan for her first voyage, to New Bedford, MA.
John will be leading the team in Philadelphia. The lofting is complete and we should have a post by Wendy Byar soon on that. The plan is next to build two sets of molds for the boat in Philadelphia with one set being sent to NY. That work is expected to commence in a week or two.
The build in NY will be led by Geoff McKonly, late of Philadelphia where he was the head of the Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory for many years. Other institutions may also get involved with builds of their own.
This should be a rewarding couple of builds to follow, and I hope to keep it up at least to the first voyage of the Morgan to New Bedford, we will see what happens after that. I hope you'll stay with us.
And please will some one of my loyal readers have the grace to christen the new weblog, not with champagne but a comment?
Here's the link, Whaleboats for the CW Morgan
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