Tag Archives: halyard

Winter Progress

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!

20160105_145129

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!

20160109_162707

Did we mention that the average age of these guys exceeds 80?!

New Feats and Footies

Leave a reply

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…

Back on Track

Leave a reply

We’ve missed a couple of blog posts because we’ve been deep into detail work, which doesn’t seem to lend itself to blog creativity!

We’ve made a miniature exhibit of our winter lecture series presentation: “Wonderfully Modern Herreshoff Manufacturing Company”, which you can see in our shop if you come by for a visit.

Steve has been finishing the metal angle iron cheeks on the mast; these hold four upper main shrouds, forestay, two preventer stays (main running back stays), and the throat halyard strap.

Meanwhile. Keith has been working on the spreader, and you can see the start of Bill’s jig to make the deck-edge toe rails in the background; Sandy has also been filing, grinding, and polishing more than 150 shackles. You see these in rough form (dark bronze), polished state (bright brass), and finished nickel-plated product in the bins. Hooks are next, and then the dreaded 140 ash blocks from scratch.

Steve is also starting to work on the final tap and die work for all the turnbuckles.

Laura has been making grommets which turn into balloon jib straps, jib tack straps, jib pennants, spinnaker straps, and a throat halyard strap.

Lastly, Herb has become Bosun Splicer. Here’s his stock hanging on the rack awaiting finishing.

Another Busy Day

Leave a reply

Mike and Sandy have been working on the angle iron “cheeks” on our mast. The forestay, preventer stays, throat halyard, and upper main shrouds will hang from these mechanisms. We’ve also got angle irons for mounting the spreader to the mast. Mike will make wax molds of these complex, compound curve angles.

In the meantime, our worm, parcel, and serve crew has been focusing on the bowsprit area and standing rigging. Our splicing and rigging crew have yet to catch up.

Burr delivered the bowsprit retaining bar and took a drawing with him to make chain links that fasten the topmast forestay to the bar; he did some final fitting in our shop. What a joy to watch him work, even gently bending the brass between his fingers, over a mandrel or with mallet! A true master craftsman…