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Spring Has Sprung
Spring is a busy time in the maritime world, as boats are scraped and painted, batteries are charged, hulls are caulked, and sails come out of winter storage to be inspected, repaired and readied for the season. Spring is also a busy time around the 19-acre grounds of Mystic Seaport, as our nine gardens and miles of landscaping need to be awakened from their winter slumber.
Of course the winter weather that has dominated this spring has been challenging for Garden Supervisor Julia Jankowski and Steve Sisk, gardener. They had to postpone pansy planting for three weeks because of the cold, the snow, and the rain. Of course, the Museum’s many snow drops, crocuses and daffodils ignored the weather and just came up regardless. Also now appearing are scilla, grape hyacinth, and hellebore.
Jankowski and Sisk have been busy in the greenhouse, where they grow many plants from seed, including vegetables for the Buckingham-Hall House. In addition to the wide variety of perennials on the grounds, there are more than 50 boxes and tubs with annuals (starting with pansies) that change with the seasons.
A dedicated corps of volunteers works with Jankowski and Sisk to maintain the grounds and gardens.
Three of the Museum’s gardens are 19th century historic gardens, one at the Burrows House and two at the Buckingham-Hall House (one kitchen garden with vegetables and herbs and a parlor garden with flowers). These gardens are designed to show gardening techniques from the 1830s to the 1870s, as well as plants themselves. They utilize both native plants and plants that were brought to New England by ship captains.
Other specialty gardens include:
- Children’s Zoo Garden (Located at the Children’s Museum, each of the plants has an animal or insect in its common name such as dogwood, elephant ears, butterfly bush, snail flower, and turtlehead.)
- Mallory Birds & Butterflies Garden (This garden is in front of the Mallory Building and is inviting to butterflies and hummingbirds.)
- Memorial Garden (Located behind the Treworgy Planetarium, the Memorial Garden was created to honor those who have given their time and resources to Mystic Seaport.)
Now that the weather appears to be evening out somewhat, Jankowski, Sisk and their volunteers are busy raking, removing winter leaf mulch, and filling boxes and tubs with pansies. As you stroll the Museum grounds on a lovely spring day, take a moment to admire the beautiful landscaping, and all the man and woman hours that have gone into it. For more information on all the special gardens at the Museum, please visit our website.
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A Viking Ship in the Shipyard
Please note: The Draken was launched on Wednesday, April 5, and is no longer in the Shipyard. Visitors may view the longship in the water at the Museum’s Bulazel Wharf near the Stillman Building.
The Viking longship Draken Harald Hårfagre was hauled out of the water Friday, March 31 for several days of routine maintenance in the museum’s shipyard. The vessel has been spending the winter at Mystic Seaport after her 2016 expedition to North America from Norway.
The crew will be “clinking” the planks (testing and tightening the fastening bolts), inspecting the hull, and painting the bottom among other tasks. Visitors to the Museum can observe the work in the Shipyard. The ship will be out for at least four days, perhaps longer if the weather does not cooperate.
The Draken is a reconstruction of what the Norse Sagas refer to as a “Great Ship.” On April 26, 2016, Draken left her home port Haugesund in Norway to begin her expedition to sail to America. The aim of this expedition was to explore and relive one of the most mythological sea voyages – the first transatlantic crossing and the Viking discovery of the New World, more than 1,000 years ago. So far the ship has crossed the Atlantic, sailed throughout the Great Lakes, down the Erie Canal to New York City.
Her crew is presently developing plans for 2017.
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Importance of History at Risk
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The Plywood Derby
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SABINO’s Boiler Ready to Go
The new custom-built boiler for steamboat Sabino has been completed and passed its initial pressure test. This is an important step in the restoration and continues the schedule to return the vessel to operation on the Mystic River in July.
The boiler was designed and fabricated by Potts Welding & Boiler Repair, Inc., a company in Delaware that specializes in the building of boilers and related parts for use all over the world.
“They are used to building boilers as big as our entire shop,” said Jason Cabral, Sabino‘s chief engineer.
The new boiler is fabricated out of steel and had to be reverse engineered from the previous unit as no blueprints were available. Sabino‘s old boiler dates from 1940 when the U.S. Navy operated the vessel on Maine’s Casco Bay, but the design goes back to the late 19th century.
The old boiler was manufactured by the Almy Water-Tube Boiler Company of Providence, R.I. It was the vessel’s third boiler since she was launched in 1908. It powered the steamboat for nearly three-quarters of her life on the water, including passenger service in Maine, as a private attraction in Massachusetts, and finally for more than 40 years on the Mystic River for Mystic Seaport. It is now on display in the lobby of the Thompson Exhibition Building.
“The design process sought to create a modern boiler as close to the geometry and architecture of the one we took out of the vessel, but one that would meet all of the necessary safety and regulatory requirements,” said Dana Hewson, vice president for watercraft preservation and programs. “We also anticipate this boiler will be more efficient.”
At first glance the Almy boiler appears to be a small simple design. However there were many years of trial and error refinement incorporated into the design when it was built,” said David Sollish, an engineer who consulted of the project. “Since there were no design drawings or calculations to work with the boiler had to be reverse engineered. This is considerably more difficult than just designing a boiler from scratch. The design calculations had to all be done by hand.”
Sollish said the major challenge centered around the fuel. Coal used to be the backbone of the boiler industry and there were many boiler companies to choose from 40 years ago. Today, that coal boiler capability has all but disappeared in the United States and they could find only one manufacturer, Potts, with the capability and interest in tackling a custom marine boiler design such as this.
“The problem is coal burns differently from oil or gas or even wood. A boiler designed to fire coal is vastly different from a boiler designed to burn other fuels,” said Sollish.
Sabino will continue to be powered by her original two-cylinder expansion engine that was manufactured by J. H. Payne & Son in nearby Noank, CT, in 1908.
A new base, or fire box, is being built that the boiler will sit in and the outer casing will be reused. The casing has been cleaned and internally modified to hold a new ceramic refractory material (insulation) that will be far more efficient than the old fire bricks. It will bolted back on and then the whole unit will be dropped into the boat in one piece. With only 3 inches of clearance in the mechanical space, there is not sufficient room to assemble the boiler in place.
The Shipyard is presently reinstalling all of the systems using a combination of brass and black steel pipe. Everything had to be disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled. Only those items needing replacement are being replaced, consistent with the Museum’s preservation practice. In addition, the engineers have been carefully logging and documenting all work for U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) review and inspection.
Cabral said the project is something of a learning opportunity for all involved. There are not many boilers and engines like this in operation in the country, so the USCG has created a special team for Sabino to spread the experience and knowledge generated from this project.
About Potts Welding
Finding a company that could manufacture a boiler as specialized as the one needed for Sabino was not a simple task. Mystic Seaport was fortunate to team up with Potts Welding & Boiler Repair, Inc. Founded by Walter Potts in 1929 as a boiler repair business, today the company employs approximately 200 full-time employees; constituting a team of professionals including welders, boiler-makers, engineers, draftsmen, machinists, mechanics, and technical and non-technical specialists. Potts specializes in the fabrication and repair of boilers and related component parts, heating and cooling equipment, heat exchangers, condensers, and the sale of related tubing. The manufacturing of pressure parts for the boiler industry is accomplished at their main production facility located in Newark, DE. The facility is situated on 16.5 acres and houses 180,000 square feet of manufacturing and ancillary space. Potts keeps an extensive parts and tubing inventory meet customer requirements and ships boiler parts to virtually every continent.
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.”
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Mystic Seaport Hosts ICMM
Mystic Seaport recently hosted an executive council meeting of the International Congress of Maritime Museums, an international network of maritime museums, associations, and individuals devoted to maritime preservation.
Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport, is president of the ICMM. The group held meetings and toured the museum.
Pictured, from left: Sally Archer, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK; Cristian del Real, Chilean National Maritime Museum, Valparaiso, Chile; Alan Edenborough, Sydney Heritage Fleet, Australia; Richard Wesley, Hong Kong Maritime Museum, Hong Kong; Kristen Greenaway, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, USA; Steve White, Mystic Seaport, USA; Frits Loomeijer, Maritime Museum Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Marika Hedin, Uppsala University, Sweden; David Wright, National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy, NZ; Hanna Hagmark-Cooper, Åland Maritime Museum Trust, Åland Islands; Matthew Tanner, SS Great Britain Trust, UK; Ursula Warnke, National Maritime Museum of Germany, Bremerhaven, Germany; and Zefeng You, Ninghai Maritime Museum, Shanghai, PR China.
Crews from New England to Harvest Live Oak for Historic Ship
Mystic, Conn. and Plymouth, Mass. (March 20, 2017) – Shipwrights from Mystic Seaport and Plimoth Plantation will be on the Gulf Coast this week to harvest live oak trees to be used in the restoration of the Mayflower II, a reproduction of the ship that transported the Pilgrims to America in 1620.
Crews from the New England museums will be working at two locations in the area beginning today, one in Pass Christian, MS, and the second in Belle Chasse, LA.
Pass Christian resident Diane Brugger will be donating a tree as a legacy to her late husband, Tony, who died during Hurricane Katrina. Diane rode out the storm by clinging to the branches of two live oaks on their property. Recently, a live oak on her property – but not the one that saved her during Katrina – was struck by lightning and needs to be taken down.
The trees in Belle Chasse are being removed to make way for a new power line project. Sam Bordelon, whose family has owned the property over which the lines will pass for nearly 100 years, said he was at first sad at the loss of trees, but that seeing them go to such a special use “was a redeeming outcome.”
Wood from the trees will be used to replace frames and structural pieces on the ship, which is being worked on at the Mystic Seaport Shipyard in Mystic, CT, to prepare it for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival.
“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.”
Whit Perry, Plimoth Plantation’s Director of Maritime Preservation and Operations, expressed appreciation for the generous contribution that the landowners have made to the restoration of the historic Mayflower II. “These trees will live on in perpetuity, and make it possible for the ship to sail on for generations to come.”
Mayflower II was built from 1955-57 at Upham Shipyard in the town of Brixham in Devon, England. She sailed to the United States in 1957 and was presented to Plimoth Plantation as a gift to commemorate the historic ties between England and America in the wake of World War II.
The celebrated ship is a major exhibit of Plimoth Plantation and a leading tourism attraction in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, drawing millions of people from around the world to Plymouth’s historic waterfront to learn about the 17th-century Atlantic world and our Nation’s earliest beginnings.
About Plimoth Plantation
Plimoth Plantation is a 501(c)3 charitable organization and a living museum dedicated to telling the history of Plymouth Colony from the perspective of both the Pilgrims and the Native Wampanoag people. Located less than an hour’s drive south of Boston in Plymouth, Massachusetts, (Exit 4, Route 3 south) and 15 minutes north of Cape Cod, the Museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 7 days a week, from the third Saturday in March through the end of November 2015. Plimoth Plantation is a private, not-for-profit educational institution supported by admission fees, contributions, memberships, function sales and revenue from a variety of dining programs/services/special events and Museum Shops. Plimoth Plantation is a Smithsonian Institution Affiliate and receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, private foundations, corporations, and local businesses. For more information, visit www.plimoth.org.
About Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport is the nation’s leading maritime museum. Founded in 1929, the Museum is home to four National Historic Landmark vessels, including the Charles W. Morgan, America’s oldest commercial ship and the last wooden whaleship in the world. The Museum’s collection of more than two million artifacts includes more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography in the country. The newly opened Thompson Exhibition Building provides a state-of-the-art gallery to host compelling, world-class exhibitions, beginning with the current show SeaChange. The Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport provides scholars and researchers from around the world access to the Museum’s renowned archives. Mystic Seaport is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. Admission is $28.95 for adults ages 15 and older and $18.95 for children ages 4-14. Museum members and children three and younger are admitted free. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/ and follow Mystic Seaport on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Mystic Seaport joins the American Association for State and Local History and more than 100 organizations across the country in support of the importance of teaching and learning history.
As part of the initiative, we invite our visitors to post selfies at their favorite spot at Mystic Seaport with the hashtag #HistoryRelevance.
The AASLH and the 100 organizations endorse the History Relevance Value Statement, which promotes the value of
history in American society.
“Mystic Seaport’s role as a maritime museum is to not just tell the stories of the past, but to provide context and perspective so those same stories are relevant to our future,” said Museum President Steve White. “In this particular moment in our nation’s cultural conversation, understanding the past is critical to knowing ourselves and to envisioning the path for a successful future.”
The Value Statement is comprised of seven distinct tenets delineating critical ways the study of history is essential to individuals, communities, and our shared future. The full Value Statement can be found at https://www.historyrelevance.com/value-statement.
History studies create a sense of awareness and identity, cultivate critical thinking and analytical skills, and lay the groundwork for empowered communities. They preserve the past and spark inspiration for the future, said the AASLH in a statement. The Value Statement is endorsed by organizations that promote and encourage a sense of awareness, identity, and interconnectivity in a multicultural world through history-driven courses of study.
