Tag Archives: engineer

Steve, the SCOUT, and the Steam Engine

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Steve continues to work to the upper section of the mast; the angle iron cheeks and, as you can see, the fourteen ladder rungs which Burr had made for us earlier in the year are involved.

7 Ladder rungs

We also had a visit from the Okerholms. Bob brought his beautiful model of HMCo’s SCOUT which was one of the first boats through the Cape Cod Canal when it opened.

8 Scout

SCOUT’s external condenser coil must have made running aground a real nightmare, even in mud!

9 Scout external condenser coil

These photos lead us to Don working to restore our triple expansion steam launch engine, another of our projects in Building 28 (Don’t you love candid photos!)

10 Don works on engine

Configuration Management

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There is a lot of effort going on behind the scenes to make sure our RELIANCE is accurate. Boats, especially race boats, change during the season. We chose late August as our configuration date, when RELIANCE was measured and raced for the Cup, since this timeframe is when we had the best pictures. Ours has been a constant battle for configuration management. 

For example, NGH’s approved drawing 86-126 (from MIT Hart Collection) shows the original placement of three topmast backstay staples and a trysail staple as shown in picture #1 and as placed on our model as in picture #2.  Our visit to the NYYC in NYC last Spring to see their model showed a discrepancy which was confirmed in picture #3 as blown up in #4. 

Our metal casting expert, Mike Mirman, then used this picture to created a new fitting, shown in #5.

1. 86-126 Stern Details 2. As designed configuration 3. afterguard on fantail 4. As raced configuration 5. As raced configuration

A Question for the Metallurgists and Engineers…

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Let me pose a discussion question for the metallurgists and engineers in our audience.

It has been often recounted that these big America’s Cup boats were subject to galvanic action. Indeed, DEFENDER, 1895 America’s Cup defender had aluminum deck frames and it was said that she was quickly corroding away under her paint!

Our RELIANCE had 102.5 tons of lead attached to steel frames, tobin bronze plates, iron boiler tubes for cross-bracing, and various nickel steel, cast iron, cast steel, Al Bz, and bronze fittings. She was unpainted below the waterline – just polished tobin bronze and lead.

So, how susceptible to galvanic action was RELIANCE?