Monday was RELIANCE’s last night in Building 28. As of now, she has been transferred down to the Hall of Boats for debut at the Frostbite Bash.
Here’s Captain Trivia’s last cruise while Sandy cleaned up. This is the community’s last time with the spirits of 28.
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!
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 now got the topmast lodged onto the rest of the mast’s body, with Herb working on some rigging details. While slaving away in his lonely corner of Building 28, Herb noticed an error on the spreader’s rigging: one of the wires was too short. Fortunately, he was swift to correct the wiring, and has since progressed on the spreader/mast system.
Keith is beginning the process of attaching the rudder to the model. He’s screwed a long metal piece–a set of gudgeons–to the back of the keel; the rudder will be pinned to this piece by a series of pintles.
An interesting fact we discovered is that the RELIANCE’s rudder was actually held up by a bearing attached to the lower part of the ship’s hull. Still figuring out how we’re going to work that into the design.
Meanwhile, Steve is working on setting up turnbuckles to be plugged and added to the overall structure.
Keith has been completing the truss and it is now mounted onto the mast.
Laura has now started to fabricate and attach the truss and spreader guys.
Meanwhile, Laura and Herb have been studying photos of the Reliance bowsprit and are now completing all the little bowsprit details.
They have also completed the upper ends of the standing rigging and, as shown, have them tarred, varnished, and ready to go. We’re just a week or two away until the mast can be hoisted upright in our mast jig and the standing rigging can be completed at deck level.
We thought we could find tasks for Steve that would not involve power tools, but Sandy caught the ever creative Steve with a Dremel tool in his back pocket… we’re just trying to excite his inner crafts person, but the power tool guy always comes to the surface…
After more than a decade, RELIANCE moves off her shipping cradle and on to the display stand. Can you believe it?!!!
We moved RELIANCE to the back of the shed under the chain falls; we hoisted her out of the shipping cradle and said goodbye to that cradle. Our head rigger Laura holds RELIANCE aloft with one hand.
As you can tell from their work, our female team mates are very talented, great team members, and very strong! Laura holds the bow up so Steve can position Bill’s display stand under the keel blocks.
Bill carefully lowers RELIANCE onto the 1,500 lb. steel plate while Keith inserts drift pins to assure alignment of bolt holes (since Keith measured and drilled the holes in the steel plate, he is actually out of the picture saying a couple of “Hail, Mary’s”: the secret of Notre Dame engineering, I’m told).
Steve and Laura tighten the bolts in place, noting how perfect the fit is – no shims or alignment tricks needed!
Here are the bolted blocks up close. Note the wooden wedges which keep the boat aligned fore and aft, and away from the blocks which were welded at a 15 degree angle. The engineers assured Sandy these wedges were unnecessary, but he’s a belt and suspenders guy and has been around engineers too long. (P.S. they were necessary!!.)
RELIANCE’s profile is revealed; beautiful, amazing form!
RELIANCE is moved back to our work space and “The Guy Upstairs” Dave miraculously appears to inspect and approve our work.
Then Keith and Sandy replaced all the parts that had been stripped off RELIANCE for the full evolution.
Bill has started building the grand stand to top it off.
As part of the celebration, we have a Tuesday crew photo opportunity moment; unfortunately, camera shy Laura has gone to another job.
This respite is short, however; soon, everyone is back to work. Except, apparently, for Sandy, whom we’re sure needs some relaxation time!
Keith works on the rudder between all the other tasks we give him. He likes engineering problems and more often than not come up with simple, innovative solutions. He has a Notre Dame engineering degree and Michigan advanced degree, so he’s a conflicted soul. Here it looks like he is invoking a higher spirit into a solution.
Steve is our amateur Astronomer, so we give him work on our mast so he can get closer to the stars.
Tim is a psychologist so we gave him 450 screws to set the boom sail track in place; it’s finicky work that requires precision. We try to play with his mind every once in awhile because we’re worried that in the background he’s writing a “tell all” book about the RELIANCE inmates. In this picture, he has about 150 screws in place – only 300 more, Tim! In the background, Herb is proving his wire to manila splicing technique.
Meanwhile, Laura works on bowsprit rigging. The bobstays are tensioned by tightening the bowsprit retaining bar; there are no turnbuckles on the bobstays.
Ken from Hall Spars dropped by on his evening constitutional and we talked about how boats today tension their shrouds with hydraulic mast rams since the turnbuckles are too short to perform this function. He also noted that on large racers rigging eyes are replacing tangs.
It’s always nice to hear what children have to say about our RELIANCE Project; when we get some of their input, it’s always interesting. Here are some recent examples:
Stephen and his Dad came for a visit after sailing school; I asked Stephen to give us his impressions of the boat. Several days later, he came back with a Lego diorama: a waterfront scene just like the one at the sailing school, but with RELIANCE at her mooring. You’ll note that RELIANCE has a bow-mounted cannon. Stephen says: “Every big sailboat needs one!” If only Charlie Barr were so inventive…
The scene is complete with a navigational buoy in the foreground. I like what the sailing school is teaching its young students, but now I’ll have to see if Stephen has smuggled a small cannon onto one of the HH12 1/2’s….
Charlotte brought Queen Elsa to visit her Scandinavian subjects, but it seems the Third Mate has other things on his mind!
The RELIANCE Project 