Category: Charles W. Morgan News

Today the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $33 million in grants for 173 humanities projects nationwide. Mystic Seaport is thrilled to be included in this group and is the recipient of two substantial grants.

The Museum was awarded $450,000 to support public programming related to the 38th Voyage of the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. The funds will be used for dockside and onboard activities and programming during the ship’s ceremonial voyage in 2014. The grant will also help fund a new permanent exhibit on whaling at Mystic Seaport titled “In the Wake of the Whalers.”

“This grant will help us fully express the Morgan’s significance to maritime heritage and indeed American history,” said Mystic Seaport President Steve White.

The Morgan will go back to sea on her 38th Voyage in May 2014 to visit historic ports of New England in celebration of America’s maritime heritage. After a period of refitting and sea trials based in New London, the vessel will sail to Newport, Vineyard Haven, New Bedford, and Boston. She will also venture onto the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and participate in the centennial celebration of the Cape Cod Canal. The 38th Voyage will be a commemoration of the role of the sea in America’s history and an appreciation of our changing relationship with the natural world.

The NEH award is an America’s Historic & Cultural Organizations Implementation Grant, which is used to support museum exhibits, library-based projects, interpretation of historic places, websites, and other formats that excite and inform “thoughtful reflection upon culture, identity and history,” according to the NEH. Mystic Seaport was awarded a $40,000 planning grant in the same category for the Morgan in 2011.

The NEH also awarded $164,280 to support the 2014 NEH Summer Institute “The American Maritime People” at the Museum’s Frank C. Munson Institute. The grant will enable the Institute to bring 20 college and university faculty members to Mystic Seaport in the summer of 2014 to teach them about the cultural influence of the nation’s maritime past so they can share that knowledge with undergraduates across the country.

“It is very rewarding to receive our fourth NEH grant in the last nine years,” said Dr. Glenn Gordinier, Robert G. Albion Historian at Mystic Seaport and the Co-Director of the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies. “That kind of affirmation from such an esteemed body confirms the importance of our work and gives a great boost to everyone involved.”

Mystic Seaport is grateful to the NEH for its continued support.

The 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan was launched at Mystic Seaport on July 21, 2013. After a nearly five-year restoration, the ship returned to the water in front of thousands of spectators during a ceremony at the Museum’s Shipyard. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Ric Burns delivered the keynote address at the launch ceremony and described the ship as “an ambassador from a crucial moment in American history.” He continued, “This one ship has embodied, made possible, made real and brought alive the experience of whaling as no other single artifact on the planet.” Read Burns’ speech in its entirety below.

“The Re-Launching of the Charles W. Morgan”
Mystic Seaport, July 21, 2013

This is the first totally good thing I’ve been to in ten years!

Good afternoon. What a remarkable, moving, incredible day this is. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it is to be here with you all. And so first of all, I want to say from the bottom of my heart – to Steve White, the president of Mystic Seaport – to Mystic’s valiant and stalwart board of trustees – to the talented and committed and heroic staff of this extraordinary institution – to all the many friends and associates of Mystic, the Museum of America and the Sea – Governor Malloy, Senator Richard Blumenthal – ladies and gentleman – distinguished guests:

Thank you so very much for what you’ve done here today. All of us are so honored and humbled to be here – and awed to see this happening. And so profoundly grateful to Mystic Seaport for what you’ve accomplished. Having taken in and cared for and lovingly provided a home for the Charles W. Morgan since 1941 you have now done something even more extraordinary. You have given her back her wings, made it possible for her to sail again, and given her back to the sea. I can’t begin to express to you what an honor and a joy it is to be here with you on this glorious and joyful occasion – to mark and celebrate the restoring, the re-launching – the rebirth – of the Charles W. Morgan – the oldest American commercial vessel floating, and the last wooden whaleship in the world. The last of her kind…. now reborn.

There is nothing more magical than a ship. And just as there is something magical about ships in general, there is something especially magical and deeply moving about the extraordinary compounded human alchemy – the commitment, the ingenuity, the passion, the dedication, the skill, the imagination – the sheer stubborn seaborne love and wizardry – through which this unique American treasure has been so lovingly restored, and brought back to life – re-timbered, re-caulked, and soon to be re-canvased, re-roped, re-masted, re-sailed, re-borne – set back out onto the waters to float and sail and go forth again.

With ships as with life there is always a ratio of the seen to the unseen – a ratio between what we clearly see above decks, and what we can’t see below the water line – between what is visible and invisible about the structure that sustains her, about the forces that propel her, about the meanings she holds within. We see the Morgan here and now and she is grand enough. But we have to remember or imagine or realize or be told that in the 172 years to the day since she slid down the launch in New Bedford on a bright July morning in 1841, she has been around the world on 37 voyages, carrying men and whale oil and whale bone and treasure in an eighty-year career. She has seen every corner of the globe. She has visited every port of call in every ocean, withstood innumerable storms, carried every kind of human being. What this single ship and this historic moment connects us to – looking back into the depths of our history – looking out into our bonds with the world – looking forward into the future – is nothing short of miraculous. That miracle is a gift. Those who made her, those who sailed her and those who have salvaged her from the depredations of time have collectively given us this gift, and we and those whom come after us are beneficiaries in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Of all the things we can’t see of a ship, the kelson and the keel are in many ways the most awesome: the keel timbers, the gigantically long, immensely strong timbers that runs from bow to stern all the way along the length of the ship far below what we can see; the things that hold it all together – where all the lines of force meet and converge – that sustain the ship’s buoyancy. They are the unseen center of the ship’s structure and creation – the physical equivalent of what binds human beings to either other – as Walt Whitman – a contemporary of the Morgan in every way – understood when he wrote in 1855, in “Song of Myself” – that “the kelson of the creation is love.”

Long before we Americans were a westering people, and learned to define ourselves by continuous westward expansion across the continent, we were a maritime nation, huddled along the eastern Atlantic seaboard. The sea was our life. Seafaring, and its many adjacent handmaiden industries were part of virtually everyone’s heritage.

And in all seafaring there was no harder core kind than whaling – America’s first global industry – the engine and rocket that first took us out across the globe – the industry that first fueled the industrial revolution – lighting the lamps and lubricating the gears of industry – the oil industry of 18th and 19th century.

Ships like people can be born under a good sign or a bad sign or star, and from the start the Charles W. Morgan has always enjoyed good fortune – however much she sometimes, like Blanche duBois, has been forced to rely on the kindness of strangers.

What does it take to be the last of your kind?

“The Morgan was a lucky ship from early on,” Quentin Snediker, master of the shipyard here at Mystic, once said – a thousand choices made with care over the years by those who designed and built her, and by those who sailed and navigated and commanded her, by those who thought to keep her painted and caulked, or to sew her sails.

At every turn along the way, people have cared for her, and she seems always to have had her own special spirit and power of survival, and inventiveness. She has been the magic seed in the pearl of the study of whaling in many ways. This one ship has embodied, made possible, made real and brought alive, the experience of whaling as no other single artifact. We have scrimshaw and paintings, harpoons and all the paraphernalia, manuscripts and letters and log books and journals, and each one of them is precious, each one of them discloses something indelible and profound and key. But the ship itself, the whale ship, is something else entirely – it is the basic unit of construction of the industry and of the experience of whalemen – it is a microcosm that shows us what the experience was like – the crucial link that not only conveyed individual whalemen to every part of the globe – but that conveys us back to that time and experience, in all its danger, wonder, excitement, fear and mystery – like nothing in the world.

Our good friend, Matthew Stackpole, is here in the audience today. He’s a historian and sailor and a lover of ships, and it’s true to say that of the people who made this day possible and without whom we wouldn’t be here, Matthew is second to none. His passion, his knowledge, his commitment have made this day possible as much as anyone. His love for ships, and whaleships and history is legendary, runs from Nantucket and Mystic, where he grew up, to Martha’s Vineyard, where he built ships and ran the historical society, and back again.

I know this ship means everything to Matthew. The Charles W. Morgan is an emissary and ambassador from a crucial moment in American history – and restoring her, Matthew recently wrote movingly, was like entering a time machine that magically transported the team back 1841.

As she sits here in Mystic, powerful cords of history link this glorious 107-foot-long, 351-ton wonder – built not for beauty and speed but for stamina, and staying power and perseverance – to whaling’s origins and to its great capitals – and of course from there all across the globe. All whaling in a sense went into making her what and who she is, and all America – and she is linked in time and space and by pedigree to the entire panorama of American whaling. Her builder and first owner, Charles Morgan himself started out in New Bedford in the counting house of the Rotch family – the greatest dynasty whaling ever saw – a family originally from Nantucket, who went on to pioneer and build New Bedford in the early years of the 19th century.

She was launched 75 miles east northeast of here at New Bedford, in the summer of 1841. On July 21st of that year, Charles W. Morgan made a fateful entry into his diary. Though he wasn’t quite sure that this brand new addition to his fleet of whaleships should be named after him, he was unambiguously ecstatic about the birth of the Morgan.

“A fine warm day,” he wrote, “– but very dry. This morning at 10 o’clock my elegant new ship was launched beautifully from Messrs. Hillman’s yard — and in the presence of both half the town and a great show of ladies. She looks beautifully on the water, she was copper-bottomed on the stocks. She is to be commanded by Captain Thomas Norton.”

She set sail on her first whaling voyage six weeks later on September 6, 1841 bound for the Pacific.

Her second mate, James Osborn, recorded in his journal: “May kind Neptune protect us with plesant gales and may we be successful in catching sperm whales.” Kind Neptune complied. She returned three years, three months and 27 days later with a cargo of 1,600 barrels of sperm oil, 800 barrels of whale oil, and 10,000 pounds of bone. She had cost $27,000 to build and $26,000 to outfit, and she almost always returned a handsome profit. Over the next eighty years, traveling to every ocean of the world, she would make 37 voyages in all – one of the 2,700 whaleships that made the worldwide whaling fleet over time, which embarked on a combined 14,864 voyages. Her longest voyage was almost five years; her average voyage was 2.

The whole world in all its diversity was part of her experience, and her timbers are imbued with that reality to this day. During that time, she traveled to every part of the globe – part of the whaling advance guard of American globalization, and a laboratory of the multi-cultural society we were on the verge of becoming. According to a New Bedford physician who vaccinated her crew in 1906 – as recounted by Matthew Stackpole’s father Edouard Stackpole, one of the grandfathers of American whaling history, the Morgan’s crew that year alone included – and I quote – “Americans, Chileans, Hawaiians, Germans, Australians, British, kanakas, Swedes, West Indians and two Chimoeans from the Island of Guam.”

During the eighty years the Charles W. Morgan sailed, from 1841 to 1921, America became America. She was launched on the very eve of our immense expansion West – an expansion that hadn’t even begun in earnest by 1841, but that would make the country what it is. During those eighty years as she went around the world, America fulfilled what the newspaper editor John O’Sullivan called her “manifest destiny” – which was he said in 1845 to spread with extraordinary speed across the magnificent continent providence had allotted her for her yearly multiplying millions.

In the next ten years alone, millions of square miles would be added to the American nation – an expansion that would trigger a lethal civil war over the meaning of freedom on the American continent.

In the decades following the Civil War scores of millions of new peoples would pour into the explosively growing country in one of the biggest demographic expansions and most spectacular movements of human beings in history – a huge combined geographical and demographic expansion.

By 1921, the year she retired, the adolescent nation of country people that was spreading its wings and flexing its muscles the year she was launched had become a world power and a main player on the world stage.

She was retired in 1921 – three years before the wreck of the Wanderer off Cuttyhunk left her an orphan and the last wooden whaleship in the world. Her career it turned out had been almost exactly co-terminous with the beginning of the peak years of American whaling – and the commencement of whaling’s decline.

But 172 years ago, all that was far in the future and beyond anyone’s ability to reckon. The Hillman Brothers Shipyard who built her completed seventeen ships in the years between 1826 and 1852 – and certainly no one on that warm July day 172 years ago could have imagined she would be the last of her kind, and eventually the only whaleship left in the world.

The Morgan alone it turns out has survived the apocalypse that was visited on the whaling industry and its fleet of ships, once 2,700 strong. She is – in that sense, as in many others – so movingly like Ishmael – the lone survivor of the whale ship Pequod when she went down apocalyptically in Moby-Dick. She alone has returned to tell the tale.

At yet, whales and whaling and whaleships keep speaking to us, it turns out, across great gulfs of time and space – long after whaling itself and all but one of the world’s whaleships have passed from the scene – or almost passed from the scene.

What a wondrous mystery.

Perhaps it’s because whales – after all, the first creature God thought to create in Genesis, after making the world – have always seemed to stand for something larger than ourselves – something deeper, something vaster, something beyond.

Perhaps, it’s because ships, too, have always been powerful metaphors for us humans – metaphors for experience, for existence, for the human community – a metaphor for passage – for crossing over – for transport – for movement from one place to another, from one time to another, from life to death and beyond.

So if whales and ships are metaphors – perhaps whaleships – both as facts and as symbols – are metaphors on steroids – as the great novelist Herman Melville knew so well.

Human beings having always celebrated resurrection, restoration, renewal, and return. The only thing greater than the miracle of life itself can sometimes seem to be the miracle of something being brought back to life – after being buffeted by the tempests and storms and high seas of life, after have been battered, or sunk or stranded or given up for lost, perhaps simply after having weakened, retreated and retired. In “The Tempest,” Shakespeare’s late great sea-washed play, possibly his last, of loss and redemption, the spirit Ariel – chief agent and magical engineer of Prospero’s campaign to conjure a fantastic transmutation of loss into renewal – says to Ferdinand who mistakenly believes his father Gonzalo to have been lost in the shipwreck that stranded them all on Prospero’s island: “Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made, Those are pearls that were his eyes, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange.”

We’re here today to celebrate the wondrous fact that the whaleship Charles W. Morgan has this day finished undergoing its own kind of sea-change – has been restored like Prospero to her proper estate and proper regency…. and herewith takes another step forward to restoration to her full glory – not as it turns out for the first time.

It’s not just a restoration, of course. It’s an incredible transformation of purpose – sensibility – outlook – philosophy – world view – a transformation from instrument of death to vehicle of knowledge and wonder and understanding.

The occasion – the emblem – the instrument of an extraordinary alchemy: like magicians and sorcerers, Prosperos on our own island, we have transformed an instrument of commerce, of killing and rendering, into a source of wonder and imagination and knowledge and understanding.

Once it went out across the world and brought back profit. Now it sails here, both really and in our imagination, and brings back another kind of treasure far more valuable – information about worlds past present and to come….

“When the restoration is complete,” the literature for the restored Charles W. Morgan proclaims, “we plan to take the Morgan to sea once again on a ceremonial 38th Voyage. This time her cargo will not be oil and whalebone but knowledge and experience.”

Nature has given us brains for instrumental purposes – to compete, survive, prevail, to extend ourselves in space and time, to reproduce and to pass along our genes. But as socio-biologists and evolutionary theorists have noted for a very long time, our brains are far bigger than they need to be for mere survival – and are – accidentally, it seems – capable of so much more than simply getting by. We have many times more matter up there than we need for mere reproduction and survival. We alone, apparently, look forward and backward, and construct our lives into narratives with a meaning, think and dream of times before us and times when we are long gone. It’s never been clear how this helped anyone compete better or adapt more happily or pass on their genes with greater success. We are the creatures with a strong sense of before and after; and that imaginative power – not just now, but before and after, here but also there – is the gateway to wonder. We are the beings who are not just trapped in the here and the now, but have been blessed and cursed with an understanding of the far away, the before and the after – in the beginning and after I am gone – being able to understanding what we are now, where we are not now and times before and after our own existence – that is what we humans are capable of doing, as perhaps only a few other species can, and more completely.

The brain that fashioned the Morgan and its many sister ships – ingeniously, brilliantly, successfully – as instruments of commerce, sometimes instruments of war – never imagined the wonder of what it feels like to stand on her decks at the masthead, sensing and experiencing the infinite largeness and grandeur of the world, and the connection we all have to all creation.

“There you stand,” Herman Melville wrote as Ishmael, remembering what it was to stand at the top of the masthead looking out to sea – “– a hundred feet above the silent decks – striding along the deep, as if the masts were giant stilts – while beneath you, and, as it were, between your legs, swim the hugest monsters of the sea …. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, [until] at last … thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came – becomes diffused through time and space …. forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.”

Thank you all, and God bless the Charles W. Morgan.

— Ric Burns

After a nearly five-year restoration in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport, the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan was launched into the waters of the Mystic River today. The ship, a National Historic Landmark and America’s oldest commercial vessel, was carefully lowered into the water in a public ceremony to float on her own bottom for the first time since 2008.

The ship was christened by Sarah Bullard, the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Waln Morgan, one of the original owners of the ship and the man after which she was named. The bottle Bullard broke across the bow was filled with waters from the oceans over which the vessel sailed during her 80-year whaling career. Samples were gathered from the North and South Atlantic, the Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Water from the Acushnet River in New Bedford and the Mystic River were added to represent her original and homeports.

“This launch is a milestone in the life of this great ship,” said Mystic Seaport President Steve White. “Today she turns 172-years-old and we hope this restoration will help preserve her for another 172, so that future generations will be able to walk her decks and hear her tell the important story of our nation’s shared maritime heritage.”

He added, “This moment is a testament to the skill and knowledge of the shipwrights without whose hard work and dedication this day would not be possible.”

Present at the celebration were numerous dignitaries. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (D-Conn.) took the occasion to announce a $500,000 contribution by the State of Connecticut to the ship’s restoration. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) read the text of a U.S. Senate Resolution passed last week commemorating the Morgan’s launch and bestowing upon her the “Ambassador to the Whales.” The resolution supports the plan of Mystic Seaport to “reinterpret the Charles W. Morgan as a vessel of scientific and educational exploration whose cargo is knowledge and whose mission is to promote awareness of the maritime heritage of the United States and the conservation of the species the Morgan hunted.”

Award-winning filmmaker Ric Burns delivered the keynote address, stressing for the crowd the importance of America’s maritime history and the role the Morgan plays for the nation as an authentic link to an important chapter in the country’s past.

The restoration of the ship began when she was hauled out of the water in November 2008. The focus of the project was to address the hull below the waterline, the majority of which dated to the ship’s original construction. The final phase that begins now will involve rigging, restoring her interior, and installing temporary systems necessary to take her back to sea for a ceremonial 38th Voyage in late May 2014 (the ship completed 37 voyages during her whaling career).

The 38th Voyage will take the Morgan to historic ports of New England. After a period of fitting out and sea trials in New London, the ship will sail to Newport, Vineyard Haven, New Bedford, and Boston. She will also venture onto the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and she will participate in the centennial celebration of the opening of the Cape Cod Canal. The Voyage will be a commemoration of the role of the sea in the history of America and an appreciation of our changing relationship with the natural world.

The Morgan will continue to be open for Museum visitors to board while the restoration continues.

Watch the Launch

Editor’s Note: The launching of the Charles W. Morgan on July 21, 2013 was streamed live on the Mystic Seaport website. Featured below is a video of the event which was recorded by the Museum’s Film & Video Department.

After a multi-million dollar restoration lasting almost five years, the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, a National Historic Landmark and America’s oldest surviving commercial vessel, will return to the water Sunday, July 21, at 2 p.m. on the 172nd anniversary of her initial launch. Award-winning documentary filmmaker Ric Burns will deliver the keynote address at the public ceremony, at which point the ship will be lowered into the Mystic River. Once launched, Museum shipwrights will complete the restoration with the vessel in the water in preparation for her ceremonial 38th Voyage to historic ports of New England in 2014.

Editor’s Note: The launching of the Charles W. Morgan on July 21, 2013 was streamed live on the Mystic Seaport website. Featured below is a video of the event which was recorded by the Museum’s Film & Video Department.

 

As the July 21 launch of the Charles W. Morgan nears, the Shipyard is hard at work completing the various tasks that need to be done before she can be lowered into the water to float on her own keel. One of the special jobs was the installation of the ship’s billet head, which was completed this afternoon.

The billet head is a decorative piece of woodwork that adorns the bow of a ship. In many cases it is a figurehead or a bust, but as the Morgan was a Quaker vessel her billet head was deliberately less ostentatious. The billet head and the eagle on the transom are actually the only decorative pieces on the entire ship.

The Morgan‘s billet head may not be flashy, but it is certainly beautiful as the pictures show. The current piece was carved in 1991 for the 150th anniversary of the ship’s launch in 1841. Shipwright Roger Hambidge was given the assignment to copy exactly the original which is presently stored in the Collections Research Center. He had to carefully determine the actual dimensions through many layers of paint, and then trace the outline of the decorations onto a wooden blank. After bandsawing it to a rough shape, it was all hand carving from there. The wood he used is one solid piece of white pine salvaged from a tornado-damaged church in western Connecticut.

The end result was so nice he was asked to carve another one that was presented to the Chubb Insurance Group in recognition of their longtime support of the Museum.

The billet head re-installed on the Morgan was sent out to have its gilding redone. Now freshly golden, it was fitted and fastened into place by shipwright Matt Barnes.

The Morgan will return to water in a public ceremony on Sunday, July 21.

 

 

After an open water voyage of some 300 miles, the crew of the Apprenticeshop delivered their whaleboat for the Charles W. Morgan in style with a brisk row up the Mystic River. They were greeted at the Mystic drawbridge by a Museum crew rowing one of the demonstration whaleboats and the two proceeded in tandem to arrive at Middle Wharf at Mystic Seaport to the enthusiastic cheers of a welcoming crowd.

The crew set sail in the 29-foot open boat on June 16 in Rockland, ME and proceeded to row and sail through the Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts Bay, the Cape Cod Canal, Buzzards Bay and along the Rhode Island coastline. They made it as far as Point Judith where uncooperative weather and a looming arrival deadline forced a brief portage via trailer to a marina downriver of Mystic Seaport.

The voyage began at 5:45 a.m. on June 16, departing The Apprenticeshop pier in Rockland on the outgoing tide. The first port of call, Portland, ME, was reached on June 18. Next it was Rockport, MA where they staged for the trip through the Cape Cod Canal. Accompanying the whaleboat on the trip was a chase boat, the 35-foot Bud McIntosh schooner, Advent, owned and captained by Anna Rich and her father Ken Rich, both of Rockland. Advent was essential in journeying the Canal, as only boats under power are allowed passage.

The Apprenticeshop is a school for traditional boat building and seamanship. Five students (called apprentices) were assigned the whaleboat project in August 2012. Their task was to build a replica of a 29-foot 10 1/2-inch New Bedford whaleboat, designed by Ebenezer Leonard, from plans dated 1935. The whaleboat was one of ten ordered from different boat building organizations by Mystic Seaport to compliment the restoration of the Morgan. The whaleboats will become part of the equipment of the ship on her 38th Voyage in 2014. The Apprenticeshop boat is the only one being built to the Leonard design. The others are all Beetle designs, including the boat being built by the Beetle Boat Shop for the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

The student construction team consisted of second year apprentice Simon Jack with first year students Chris Konecky, Daniel Creisher, and Kirk Folk. Assigned to lead the build was second year apprentice Tim Jacobus.

In January 2013, during the course of the build, Jacobus and lead instructor Kevin Carney were invited to a whaleboat builders’ meeting at Mystic Seaport.  Along with construction details were questions on how the various outfits were planning to transport their boats to Mystic. The accepted plan was to transport them on trailers; the apprentices had a bolder idea in mind, travel by water. Thus, the Leonard Whaleboat Expedition was born.

The Apprenticeshop’s boat was completed in early May, 2013 including a full set of oars, and the students actively trained in the craft by rowing early mornings before classes and on weekends. Besides having the responsibility of completing their own daily projects, the apprentices all had active roles in the planning and provisioning for the trip.

The expedition crew included:

Apprenticeshop Staff

Bryan McCarthy, Shop Director, Skipper, Course and Navigation
Kevin Carney, Lead Instructor, 1st Mate, Course and Navigation

Apprentices

Simon Jack, Graduating Apprentice, Personal Gear
Timothy Jacobus, Graduating Apprentice, Waypoint Coordination
Christopher Konecky, Tides & Weather
Daniel Creisher, Safety and Boat Gear
Bridget Jividen, Fundraising and Accounting
Rachel Davis, Crew Provisioning
Garrett Farchione, Contingency Planning

Chase Boat

Anna and Ken Rich, Expedition Support

The other whaleboats at The WoodenBoat Show are from from the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia; New York City’s Rocking the Boat; Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway of Vineyard Haven, MA; the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, MI; and the Beetle Boat Shop of Wareham, MA.

The Charles W. Morgan was rolled out onto the Museum’s shiplift Wednesday, June 25. With a single forklift and a lot of supervision, the ship’s cradle was carefully nudged about 200 feet onto the center of the lift. The ship now stands in position ready to be launched on July 21.

On Monday, the Shipyard staff shifted the vessel sideways about 40 feet to align her with the tracks leading out onto the lift. That was the first time since late 2008 that the Morgan had moved.

Late Wednesday, she was be partially lowered into the water to allow her planks to soak and expand to close up her seams. At no time will she be allowed to float: that will not happen until the big day in July.

Visitors will be able to board the vessel sometime on Friday once a new gangway has been installed.

After nearly five years out of the water, the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan took the first step on her journey back to the Mystic River on Monday, June 24. Beginning early in the morning, shipyard staff cleaned the area around the rails and rigged a long chain and four chain falls to the side of the ship’s cradle. These were attached to four eyebolts bolted to the concrete on the far side of the tracks. When the start signal was given, staff members systematically cranked link-by-link to draw the ship onto the new track. Now that she is in alignment with the lift track, each of the wheels supporting the cradle will be rotated 90 degrees do she can roll lengthwise.

The next major step occurs Wednesday, June 26, when the 300-ton ship is rolled approximately 200 feet out onto the shiplift. This will be the vessel’s final move before her July 21 launch.

Watch the sidetracking process in this timelapse video:

The Charles W. Morgan took an important step towards her launch today as she began her move to the Museum’s ship lift. Shipyard staff members pulled her about 40 feet sideways so her cradle was in line with the rails that will guide her out to the lift. The vessel had been moved to the side in late 2008 so that other vessels could be hauled while she was out of the water.

Beginning early this morning, shipyard staff cleaned the area around the rails and rigged a long chain and four chain falls to the side of the ship’s cradle. These were attached to four eyebolts bolted to the concrete on the far side of the tracks. When the start signal was given, staff members systematically cranked link-by-link to draw the ship onto the new track. The process took about two hours in very hot and humid conditions.

Now that she is in alignment with the lift track, each of the wheels supporting the cradle will be rotated 90 degrees do she can roll lengthwise.

The next major step will occur on Wednesday, June 26, when the ship is rolled approximately 200 feet out onto the ship lift. She will then be partially lowered into the water so her bottom planks will have the opportunity to soak up water and swell.

Unfortunately, visitors will not be able to board the ship for the next few days, but she will be open sometime on Thursday in her new location.

Moving Day Photo Gallery

The Apprenticeshop, a school for traditional boatbuilding and seamanship in Rockland, Maine, has finished building one of the 10 replica whaleboats that the Charles W. Morgan will carry onboard during her 38th Voyage in 2014. Students at The Apprenticeshop celebrated their graduation from the two-year boatbuilding program on June 14 with the launching of the 29’ Leonard whaleboat.

On June 16, seven students and staff members embarked on a 350-mile rowing and sailing journey to deliver the boat to Mystic Seaport and to also honor the seafaring traditions of Maine. After stowing their full two-week’s gear in both the whaleboat and the accompanying chase boat Advent (a 36’ Bud McIntosh schooner), the open boat left the dock at Rockland with Captain Bryan McCarthy, Apprenticeshop director, at the helm. Apprentices Rachel Davis, Daniel Creisher, Simon Jack, Garrett Farchione, and Tim Jacobus were in the rowing stations. Apprenticeshop board member Pat Lydon joined the flotilla when they reached Port Clyde later that day.

The crew is posting photos, videos and daily updates of their journey on The Apprenticeshop’s Facebook page and blog and, as of the most recent post on June 20, they have already reached Kennebunkport, Maine. The whaleboat will arrive at Mystic Seaport in time for the 22nd Annual WoodenBoat Show (June 28-30) and will be displayed for Museum visitors. Five Beetle whaleboats also built for the Morgan project will join the Leonard on display. These boats are from the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia; New York City’s Rocking the Boat; Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway of Vineyard Haven, MA; Beetle Boat Shop of Wareham, MA; the New Bedford Whaling Museum; and the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville, MI.