Ned L
Commander
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2008
- Messages
- 2,266
Not sure if this is where this belongs or not, but considering it was building and repair work I though I'd put it here (It can be moved if the mods think better).
I though there might be some interest in seeing some of the stuff that went on in a small southern New England shipyard where I worked in the early 1980's.
"First Light" was an Eastern rigged dragger we built for a fisherman out of Pt Judith R.I. I did a good bit of the wiring and piping as well as installing all the windows aboard here. She was about 85 feet. to ballast her we poured 11 yards of concrete in her fish hold. She was a well known boat for at least a couple of decades.
"Mystic Whaler" was (and still is) a 'tourist boat' that takes summer tourists for day sailing trips from Mystic CT out into Fisher's Island sound. She is of welded steel construction, and was in for her annual 'shave and a haircut' (bottom cleaning, new zincs, bottom paint and inspection).
"Whalesong" was a 45ft Dutch built mid-cockpit ketch that the wanted to have a 'wheelhouse - dodger' added to for dryer sailing in sloppy weather.
All the coachroof beams were glued up laminated mahogany.
We laid a layer of Formica on the beams before laying the plywood on top. We also varnished the beams before laying the Formica, so once the Formica was laid all the internal finish work was completed.
As a side business the yard built these little custom built 20 ft reproduction fan tail launches. They were available with gas (Easthope engine), electric or steam power. When an order was received, a hull would be laid up (somewhere in Maine), and sent to R.I. as a bare hull with the two bulkheads glassed in place. I was in charge of building them from that point on, and installed whatever power plant was requested.
This was an electric one. For these, I went to a golf cart dealer in Providence R.I. and selected the best looking 'junk' used electric golf carts and arranged to have them delivered to the ship yard. I would then strip the motors and controllers out and convert / install them in the launch. They actually turned out pretty nicely.
This one is having a vintage one cylinder Easthope engine installed.
It was interesting working there, and certainly a fair amount of 'grunt work'. Everything from mucking out fuel tanks to laying on your back, sandblasting the bottom of a fishing boat in the middle of 90 deg. July while dressed in what looks just about like a deep sea diving suite, . (The sandblast hopper held 600 pounds of blast media, and that would last only about 10 - 15 minutes.) The carpenter shop - where I mostly worked - had the only heat in the place. That was a couple of steel 55 gal oil drums we converted into a wood stove. - That made the carpenter shop a popular place for breaks and lunch in the middle of the winter.
Fitting diesel fuel piping in an engine room one day and varnishing mahogany the next. Some varied work.
I though there might be some interest in seeing some of the stuff that went on in a small southern New England shipyard where I worked in the early 1980's.
"First Light" was an Eastern rigged dragger we built for a fisherman out of Pt Judith R.I. I did a good bit of the wiring and piping as well as installing all the windows aboard here. She was about 85 feet. to ballast her we poured 11 yards of concrete in her fish hold. She was a well known boat for at least a couple of decades.
"Mystic Whaler" was (and still is) a 'tourist boat' that takes summer tourists for day sailing trips from Mystic CT out into Fisher's Island sound. She is of welded steel construction, and was in for her annual 'shave and a haircut' (bottom cleaning, new zincs, bottom paint and inspection).
"Whalesong" was a 45ft Dutch built mid-cockpit ketch that the wanted to have a 'wheelhouse - dodger' added to for dryer sailing in sloppy weather.
All the coachroof beams were glued up laminated mahogany.
We laid a layer of Formica on the beams before laying the plywood on top. We also varnished the beams before laying the Formica, so once the Formica was laid all the internal finish work was completed.
As a side business the yard built these little custom built 20 ft reproduction fan tail launches. They were available with gas (Easthope engine), electric or steam power. When an order was received, a hull would be laid up (somewhere in Maine), and sent to R.I. as a bare hull with the two bulkheads glassed in place. I was in charge of building them from that point on, and installed whatever power plant was requested.
This was an electric one. For these, I went to a golf cart dealer in Providence R.I. and selected the best looking 'junk' used electric golf carts and arranged to have them delivered to the ship yard. I would then strip the motors and controllers out and convert / install them in the launch. They actually turned out pretty nicely.
This one is having a vintage one cylinder Easthope engine installed.
It was interesting working there, and certainly a fair amount of 'grunt work'. Everything from mucking out fuel tanks to laying on your back, sandblasting the bottom of a fishing boat in the middle of 90 deg. July while dressed in what looks just about like a deep sea diving suite, . (The sandblast hopper held 600 pounds of blast media, and that would last only about 10 - 15 minutes.) The carpenter shop - where I mostly worked - had the only heat in the place. That was a couple of steel 55 gal oil drums we converted into a wood stove. - That made the carpenter shop a popular place for breaks and lunch in the middle of the winter.
Fitting diesel fuel piping in an engine room one day and varnishing mahogany the next. Some varied work.
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