Tag Archives: shrouds

Deck Edge Update, Shipments, and Spreader Progress

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Work continues on the deck edge toe rails. One is complete and the second one is going into the jig for some final-finish work.

We received a large shipment of nickel plating from R.E. Sturdy, our third such shipment from them. Again, we give them our most sincere thanks and praise for donating to our team’s success.

Also received in that shipment were plated topmast shroud turnbuckles and mast hoops; thank you Tom and Dorothy!

Keith continues to make amazing progress on the spreader and now it is on to the truss!

Finally, we moved our benches to align the mast, topmast, and topsail yard so initial work on rigging can be done. This will also enable us to complete our topmast with sheaves and cone parts.

Busy Opening Weekend

It’s been a very busy weekend…

Saturday was a whirlwind. Laura was splicing halyard pennants; these are wires spliced into a circle in an endless loop. She unravels a piece of wire 7x the length of the loop, then re-braids the wire as you would a grommet. Unfortunately, her day ended before I could take a picture.

Mike brought alot of hardware from Harrison Casting; you can see seven half-round angle irons on the gaff.

We’ve started to file and shape these to take eye-spliced ends of the peak halyard span wires. Another picture shows the angle irons to hold eye-spliced loops of the forestay, upper main shrouds, preventers, and throat halyard. We’ve started to grind, file, and persuade these into shape. You can also see that work continues the spreader.

Burr dropped off three new turnbuckles with incredible eyes. These and three other turnbuckles he delivered earlier have been shipped off to a local machining center to drill out slots typical of Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. turnbuckles. We can’t wait for this to be done so we can nickel plate them. They’re a critical path for rigging the bowsprit and mast!!!

Bill also stopped by and brought another 12′ of sail track for the boom. This has been provided by our friends: the Wrights at AMA Engineering.

Our Roger Williams University intern Zach created our new “Wonderfully Modern Herreshoff Manufacturing Co.” exhibit from lecture material given earlier this year by the team.

And of course Zach and Sandy spent a lot of time sprucing up Building 28 for opening day on Sunday. RELIANCE is really looking great and we’re hoping our new exhibits will excite you as well.

Manila and Wiring

Martin Combs from North Carolina sent us the last half of our “manila” cordage, so now we have our full allotment of scale 7/32″ and 1-1/2″ through 4″ manila. Except for the extra small stuff, manila was measured in circumference, unlike wire rope, which is measured in diameter. The big spool on the end is overwhelming, so we went back and checked. Research concluded: RELIANCE carried 3,000′ of 4″ manila line!

Thanks Martin!

We’ve also been worming, parceling, and serving wire rope; in this case, the bowsprit shrouds.

“Worm and parcel with the lay; serve the other way!”

RELIANCE: Deck Progress

We continue to make progress.
Spare topsail club being constructed which we’ll place on deck
Deck structures delivered by Joe Uzzo.
Companionway and its ladder, monitor, and hatches. Monitor has hinges inside the windows!
Balance of lower main shroud chainplates, spreader chainplates for upper main shrouds, and chainplate for truss stay.