Schooner Ernestina hauled at 1:30 this
afternoon. The chart image shows the end of the
passage back to New Bedford yesterday and the
location of the ship today on the ways at DN
Kelley and Sons Shipyard in Fairhaven. You can see in the photos to the right
the crew from the yard running cables over to the
Ernestina that are used to position the ship over
the cradle. Once positioned, the huge electric
windlass on shore at the head of the slip cranked
away slowly pulling the cradle up the rails and
out of the water. You can see the series of
images below and to the right as the ship came up
the ways. Notice the large chain running down
into the water between the rails.
From the platforms on either
side of the cradle, yard crew can pull on lines
that draw the wedge-shaped blocking in along the
hull to keep the ship upright. The keel is
blocked along its length.
In the photos (lower right) you
can see the rubber sheathing held on by nailed
wooden lathe placed over the garboard seam by the
divers. The final photo shows the crew
immediately to work pulling off the sheathing so
we can get at the hull.
As we knew for certain before,
the caulking was gone from the garboard seam on
both sides of the keel from the mainmast forward.
What we also noticed was that the zincs were
totally gone. Zincs help protect all the steel
fastenings in the hull from corrosion since the
zinc will go first, will be sacrified for
protection of the steel.
It is also clear that, although
the keelson and other structural members of the
hull did not move as observed from the inside of
the ship, it is apparent the keel delaminated
from below, it moved down a half inch or so, and
was the root cause of the cotton being spit. This
means the fastenings of the keel to keelson must
be checked and will be replaced. These fastenings
are of two types on Ernestina including keel
bolts that run through and are tightened with a
large nut and drifts which are steel rods that
are driven into snug fitting drilled holes with a
clinch ring at the end that secures the peened
over rod.
Knowing that keel bolts could
be a problem, we had the yard block up the
Ernestina extra high on the cradle. This extra
height will be useful when we go to drive in new
keel bolts from the bottom up. On the inside a
steel washer or plate will go over the threaded
bolt ends and the nuts will pull all members
together as we crank down on them.
How many new bolts will go in?
We are opening up the interior of Ernestina to
get at the top of the keelson to find existing
bolts. This involves pulling out foam floatation
in the fo'c's'le and jack hammering out concrete
poured over lead ballast in the main hold. We're
mapping existing bolts and drawing up a schedule
for proposal to Coast Guard for placement of
additional/new bolts.
The rest of the hull planking
is looking great, largely replaced over the past
eight years.
The Ernestina crew worked
though the weekend and we'll have an updates
through the coming week.
Captain: Sophie Morse
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Yard crew run cables over to position
Ernestina over the cradle (above and below).
Ernestina still coming up the ways pulled by
the large chain to the right.
Sheathing held by battens installed by divers
in from Douglass Marine in Greenport to keep
water from traveling into the hull through the
seam. This enabled Ernestina to transit back to
her home port.
The Ernestina crew hard at it. You can see an
open joint at the very forward end of the keel on
the right side of the image.
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