Please come and join the Herreshoff Museum and RELIANCE crew at the Frostbite Bash on February 6th!! There will be dancing, food, and the RELIANCE model set up in the museum in anticipation of opening day. It will be a wonderfully fun, two-for-one opportunity you can’t miss!
Work has been progressing over this early winter on all the details of the rigging; the blocks, splicing, and making up the shackles are all getting done. We recently dry-fitted the main sheet system. You can see Herb in the background making a micro-splice. Poor guy!
The Saturday crew has been working with extra gusto!
Laura completed all splices for the two topmast backstay runners and started the wire-manila peak halyard tail splice. Joe has been repainting the deck which, over the past two years in the shed, has become shop worn; Bern has been helping with making blocks.
Meanwhile, Burr delivered his latest masterpiece: the topmast cone assembly. You may remember that last fall, Bill fashioned the lignum vitae truck, and several years ago, Mike cast a topmast cone. Well, Burr took those pieces, machined the cone, then made the topsail halyard sheave and metal housing, and assembled everything together. We couldn’t even find the housing solder joint. So awesome!
Did we mention that the average age of these guys exceeds 80?!
Well, we can finally say that sanding, fairing, and priming the hull are finished!
We laid out the waterline with a laser transit. All reference marks are within 1/32nd-inch true! Thank you to Buck of Itchiban and Vinnie of Goetz Composites who brought a laser and great knowledge of getting RELIANCE on her fore and aft to lay out the laser lines.
Tracer lamp black solution has been applied to the hull. Sandy and Herb then sanded away the “orange peel” and tracer.
Keith took down the tent and deck covering to clean up the boat using air, water, and sponge; for a finishing touch, a wash of denatured alcohol.
So far, there was an initial priming of four coats and then sanding fair with 150 grit. This effort brought patches of bare hull and Bondo to light, so another five coats of primer were applied and another round of 150-grit “blocking”/ long boarding. Then, seven coats of white primer and 400-grit sanding to bring to near perfection.
RELIANCE is now ready for masking the waterline and painting the topsides. Only three more coats of paint on each of the topsides, bottom, and lead keel and an application of clear!
While all this effort was going on, Bill has been working on the truck, Tim on the boom, and Yoda (Steve), shown here, on the shackle pins.
Early last week, Keith, Herb, Steve, and Sandy erected a tent frame to put the RELIANCE model under. Buck from the world-renowned Itchiban Yacht Painters stopped by to form the actual tent.
On Thursday, Buck returned and put the first five coats of primer on the boat. Buck says he’ll come back on Monday with another person to block down the shear and keel, though he thinks it is “good enough.” I sense he’s really bought into our boat and it is now his boat! On Monday, the plan is that he’ll “block” long board the hull with 150 grit and then put another 3 coats of primer on. We will then sand to 400 grit and he’ll return for finishing coats.
We’ve started assembling the jib halyard. Burr made all the links, while Bruce threaded he shackle pins. Bern tapped said shackles to receive the pins.
Meanwhile, the endless toil of filling and fairing both the rudder and the boat continues. Bruce, Bern , Zach spend plenty of their time working on this; just look how much dust we can make!
Chris Broman visited the museum this past weekend, flush from victory with his “footie” yacht at the World Marine Trade Conference in Providence. He’d also attended a breakfast presentation Sandy gave there on the wonderfully modern Herreshoff Manufacturing Company.
We have our own “footie” champion, Mike, so the challenge has been issued!! Note, Chris has a split mainsail and boom; an airfoil shape but also goes wing and wing downwind! Just a little G2…
Buck Frost from Itchiban Yacht Painters came by the shop to discuss painting Reliance; we now have a plan!
Keith, Bill, and the crew installed our portside toe rail; now all the toe rails are complete. Burr also helped fabricate the metal fantail piece. (We’ll show this installation in a later blog. The fantail will still take a little effort and metal persuasion to join to the toe rails.)
In the meantime, Bill couldn’t wait to try out the Awlgrip 545 Primer and 3M Marine Filler.
When the team left for the day, Sandy decided to have some fun and complete the task of filling and fairing the starboard side. The next day, Ken came by on his evening constitutional to check out Sandy’s work. Next thing Sandy knew, he was watching a tutorial. Better yet, Ken did more in one hour than Sandy had done all day!
Now, Reliance has a new look! The hull shape really stands out now that the toe rails have been blended into the hull. Simply beautiful and powerful…
Burr is a true artisan. At 87 years old, he is as spry as someone half his age; he’s as sharp as a tack and has a great sense of humor!
In an earlier blog we had mentioned making 12′ sections of the toe rails. To make the full length seamless rails of 24′, Burr is shown making a “hard solder” joint. When he was done, no one could even find the joints!
We made trays so we can carry these rails to the boat without stressing joints or thin materials.
By the way, the shell plating in our scale is ~ 1/32nd of an inch thick! Just try that on your J-24. (Our RELIANCE hull is also 24′ long on deck)
Also included is a picture of the ship’s bell and clapper, made by Burr. One of our volunteers will make the bell rope and monkey’s fist.
Burr’s artistry reminds us of a very inspiring visit we had from kids at Rocking the Boat School in the Bronx; some the best mannered, most inquisitive, and most appreciative school groups we’ve ever had! If they are reading our blog, we thank you. We talked about lost wax casting, metal work, wood working, and boat building. it was mentioned that we had some 3-D printed cast patterns made by high school students, but that if we had a metal printer we could make the parts directly; in fact, if they created a boat in CAD, they could hit the print button and come back a week later with a completed boat. One of these youngsters replied (with concurrence of several): “What is the beauty in that?” Deep and perceptive stuff…
Burr just delivered the RELIANCE bell, complete with a clapper, with engraving done by a South Carolina engraver. You can see its size compared to a U.S. Quarter! We can’t wait to see the reaction of our riggers when we tell them one of them will need to braid the cotton lanyard…
Joe brought back our wood hatches, companionway, and monitor with final finishing. They look great and bring the deck to life.
We’ve also finally received the uniforms for our 52 crew members! They look exquisite; thank you very much, Denise.
Laura rigged the topmast shrouds and backstay eyes, and even brought her sister and parents to see her handiwork. Great to see pride for all involved!
We continue to make progress. As you can see we put our first coat of color onto the waterway and have been sanding the deck smooth to take canvas. The work will progress slowly since we want to make it right.
In the meantime Burr has delivered another metal work assembly – mast truss chainplate
I also thought you’d enjoy the 1903 pictures showing the manpower required to raise RELIANCE’s mainsail and topsail. No wonder she needed a crew of 64! Also a picture of RELIANCE and CONSTITUTION at the start of a trials race.
We always look at pictures for clues to what was really on RELIANCE. We’ve often wondered about RELIANCE’s lifeboat which in our drawings is shown as a 14′ lifeboat of very particular design. About a dozen years ago the museum commissioned a 12′ version. The picture showing the mainsail being raised clearly shows the 14′ version. So, we now have a 12′ version for sale!
The RELIANCE Project 