Category: Mayflower II Restoration

After nearly 3 years hidden under a large tent in the Shipyard, crews this week disassembled the structure that has sheltered Mayflower II during her restoration. The ship is now open for visitors to view in its cradle and it is a rare opportunity to see the entire hull out of the water.

The onshore portion of the restoration is in the home stretch as Mayflower II will be launched in a public ceremony Saturday, September 7.

The 62-year-old wooden ship has been hauled out in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum for major work to prepare her for participation in the 400th anniversary celebration of the Pilgrim’s historic voyage. Mayflower II is owned by Plimoth Plantion, which displays the vessel in Plymouth Harbor.

The original Mayflower sailed back to England in April of 1621, where it was later sold in ruins and most likely broken up. Mayflower II, was designed by MIT-trained naval architect William Avery Baker for Plimoth Plantation. The ship is a full-scale reproduction of the original Mayflower and was built in 1955-57 in Brixham, England. The details of the ship, from the solid oak timbers and tarred hemp rigging to the wood and horn lanterns and hand-colored maps, were carefully re-created to give visitors a sense of what the original 17th-century vessel was like.

The ship was a gift to the people of America from the people of England in honor of the friendships formed during World War II. Since its arrival in 1957, Mayflower II has been an educational exhibit of Plimoth Plantation.

The launch ceremony will be held in the shipyard at 2 p.m. and will be open to Museum visitors. Historian and author Nathaniel Philbrick will deliver a keynote address and the British Consul General in Boston, Harriet Cross, will christen the ship will christen the ship using a bottle containing water from all 50 states as well as Plymouth, UK. Music will be provided by the US Coast Guard Band. The process will be very similar to the launch of the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan in 2013, Mayflower II will be rolled out onto a platform on the shipyard’s shiplift. At a designated signal, the platform will slowly lower the ship into the water until she floats in the Mystic River.

On July 8, Mayflower Sails 2020 announced the ship would come to Boston for a free maritime festival next spring, May 14 through 19, 2020, in the Charlestown Navy Yard. The ship will return to its berth in historic Plymouth Harbor after the event. Current plans call for the ship to remain at Mystic Seaport Museum until early spring 2020 for completion of the restoration and rigging.

If one wants to see a lot of huge logs being sawn, shaped, and converted into futtocks, floors and other structural parts of a ship, then a stop at Mystic Seaport this summer is a must.

The restoration of Mayflower II is in full swing in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. The ship belongs to Plimoth Plantation, of Plymouth, MA, and is being restored in preparation for celebrations commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in 1620. The project is a collaboration between the two museums with Plimoth staff members working alongside Mystic Seaport staff.

Over the course of the winter, a steel frame was installed to help support the hull as parts are removed and replaced, and a temporary fabric structure, nicknamed “the Mailbox,” was erected over the ship to protect her from the elements and enable the shipwrights to work in all weather.

“The focus of the work for the next nine months or so will be on the ship’s frames, floor timbers, and the keelson,” said Quentin Snediker, the Shipyard director and Clark Senior Curator for Watercraft. “We also have a crew at work replacing the stem assembly, which is five very large pieces that, despite their size, need to be precisely shaped and fitted together.”

One can observe the basic process upon entering the Shipyard. There are two sawmills slicing the large logs down to a manageable size with flat surfaces. Once a shipwright selects a piece of wood for a particular part, it moves onto the yard’s large shipsaw to be cut to a rough outline of the final shape. (A shipsaw is basically a very large bandsaw, except that instead of the saw table moving to adjust the angle of the cut on a bandsaw, the entire saw moves around the table on a shipsaw.) A thin wood template of the old part typically assists in both the selection of wood and outlining the cuts.

Once the rough cut is complete, hand tools take over. A shipwright may use a chainsaw, power planer, adze, broad ax, and a slick (an oversized chisel) to bring the timber into shape. Live oak is predominately what is being used at this time. The qualities that make live oak prized for shipbuilding — strength and density, curved grain, and rot-resistance — also make it somewhat hard to work with compared to other woods.

The final step is to move the part onto the ship for a final fitting and fastening into place. As was the case with the whaleship Charles W. Morgan during her restoration, black locus trunnels (treenails) and galvanized metal spikes are being used as fasteners.

This activity will be taking place all summer and into the fall. While visitors are not able to board Mayflower II, they can watch the activity in the Shipyard and view both the bow and stern from viewing areas at each end of the shelter.

For two of the families donating wood to the Mayflower II restoration project, the trees are more than just wood. They are part of their family story.

Shipwrights from Mystic Seaport and Plimoth Plantation were at two sites on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi and Louisiana this week to harvest live oak trees to be used in the ship’s restoration, which is being carried out in the Museum’s Shipyard.

Mayflower II is a reproduction of the ship that transported the Pilgrims to America in 1620. She is owned by Plimoth Plantation, which is restoring the vessel in preparation to take her back to sea in connection with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts.

Wood from the trees will be used to replace frames and other structural pieces on the ship.

“Live oak is highly sought after in wooden shipbuilding because it is very dense, hard, and resists rot better than almost all other species in North America,” said Quentin Snediker, the Shipyard Director at Mystic Seaport. “The crooks and curves typical of the trees are ideal for the fabrication of many of the structural parts as there are few straight lines and right angles on a wooden ship.”

Sam Bordelon is the owner of the property in Belle Chase, Louisiana, where 12 live oak trees were harvested. The property where these trees are located has been in his family for more than 100 years, and many of the trees are considerably older than that. He loves them — he’s a software engineer by profession, but he is a hobbyist woodworker.

The trees are coming down as part of the construction of a right-of-way by a power company. Sam struggled with the thought of losing these trees and having the pass cutting through his property. But then he spoke with a friend about what was happening, he was reminded of the USS Constitution restoration and the use of live oak in that project. (The Constitution was originally built with live oak in the 1790s, and saw action against the British during the war of 1812, receiving the nickname “Old Ironsides” due to the strength of its construction.)

Sam did some research online to see if there were any ship restoration projects happening anywhere that might want live oak, and he found the restoration of Mayflower II at Mystic Seaport. He reached out to Snediker, and after talking with him and Whit Perry, Plimoth Plantation’s Director of Maritime Preservation and Operations, arrangements were made for a crew from the two museums to come down to Louisiana to oversee the harvesting of the trees.

Sam said that being able to offer the wood for a ship as important as Mayflower II made “the best of the situation.”

In Pass Christian, Miss., two live oaks saved Diane Brugger’s life during Hurricane Katrina. Diane and her husband Tony owned the Harbour Oaks Bed and Breakfast Inn, and they did not evacuate when the storm neared because they thought the hurricane was headed straight for New Orleans. The inn was 33 feet above sea level, so they thought they were safe, even with the predicted 25-foot storm surge. As the water rose, the Bruggers sheltered on the second floor, and then suddenly, a tornado hit.

“We were sitting in the bed and the dogs were just going crazy, and the house, you would feel it sort of lift up like a boat and then settle back,” Diane Brugger said in an interview with ABC News. “Then when the house went up and it didn’t quite go right back down the way it was supposed to and we got up and then that’s when the walls fell away,” Brugger said. “When the part of the ceiling came down, it caught [Tony’s] head and just took him right under.”

Diane grabbed onto two live oaks in her yard, and clung for six hours as the water swept by.

At one time her property had 12 live oaks, Diane said, ranging in age from 250 to 500 years old. Two remained in the wake of the storm (the ones she clung to had to be removed after the storm because of damage). Of the two, one was recently struck by lightning and had to be taken down. This is the tree she is donating to Mayflower II.

“It will make me so happy, and my family, to know that this tree will not wind up in a landfill somewhere but instead with something as historic as where it came from,” she said.

Plimoth’s Perry appreciates the generous contribution that the landowners have made to the restoration of the historic ship. “These trees will live on in perpetuity, and make it possible for the ship to sail on for generations to come.”

The Shipyard has been busy working on the Mayflower II since the moment of her arrival last November. Unlike the last two years, the ship will remain at Mystic Seaport until 2019 and not return to her homeport of Plymouth for the summer tourist season. This will enable the restoration project to be completed in time for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ voyage to Massachusetts in 2020.

Mayflower II is a reproduction of the original Mayflower. It was a gift to the American people to commemorate the historic ties between England and America, which were strengthened during World War II. The new ship was built in 1955-57 at Upham Shipyard in the town of Brixham in Devon, England. She sailed to the United States in 1957. The ship is owned and maintained by Plimoth Plantation, which has engaged Mystic Seaport to collaborate on the restoration.

“After hauling her for survey and evaluation in the winter of 2014-15 we have been actively engaged in project planning, material acquisition, and other tasks in anticipation of this 30 month continuous regime of restoration,” said Shipyard Director Quentin Snediker. “Work included site planning and preparation, preliminary engineering, and milling framing stock, knees and other specialized timber.”

The first task for this latest phase was to downrig and lighten the ship so she could be hauled out of the water in the Museum’s shiplift. Once hauled, she was moved back into the yard and then slid sideways to permit other vessels to be hauled while work progresses on Mayflower II. A temporary shelter will be erected over the vessel in March to protect her from the elements and permit the shipwrights and other staff members to work on her year round.

According to Captain and Plimoth Plantation Maritime Preservation Director Whit Perry, the primary task for at least the next nine months will be replacing frames and planking. The futtocks that make up the frames will be fabricated out of live oak and white oak. Planking will be primarily white oak.

Sourcing of wood suitable for ship building is difficult in this day and age. The wood being used on Mayflower II is a combination of wood that Mystic Seaport has acquired over the years and wood secured by Plimoth Plantation.

“We are still using wood salvaged from storm-damaged trees from Hurricane Katrina and Charleston, S.C., and we are acquiring new timber from Pass Christian, Miss. and New Orleans,” said Snediker.

Throughout the restoration of any vessel, it is critical to maintain the hull’s shape while portions of it are being disassembled and reconstructed. During the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan, the ship was supported by an elaborate and precise cradle. The Mayflower II has a cradle, but she is also supported by five steel girders that pass across the width of the ship through its gunports and two access holes.

“This is a step forward on the technical side,” said Perry. “It enables us to work on larger portions of the hull at the same time without having to worry about maintaining the integrity of its shape.”

The erection of the steel frame was carried out with the assistance of Arnold M. Graton Associates. The New Hampshire-based firm specializes in covered bridge restoration and timber-frame construction.

One of the more laborious tasks that is now complete was the removal of ballast in the bottom of the hold. (Ballast is weight carried low in a ship to prevent the vessel from being top heavy and tipping over.) In addition to 130 tons of lead and iron, concrete had been poured onto the bottom of the hold encasing some of the metal. This concretion had to literally be chiseled or jackhammered out – a hard, noisy job that the Shipyard staff is happy to have behind them.

Progress on the ship can be watched on a live camera for the next few weeks, until the shelter is constructed and the view is obstructed. Visitors to Mystic Seaport may view the ship in the Shipyard. Unfortunately, boarding is not possible due to the work presently taking place on the hull.