Great work session this past week; Keith and Sandy hung the rudder, Steve completed a dozen shackles, Herb completed several more splices, and Bill started the viewing stand. We’re on schedule to move RELIANCE to the Hall of Boats for the Frostbite Bash!
Please come and see our boat at the Bash! A sneak peek before we rig her.
PS: Enclosed is a picture of our new Executive Washroom; better late than never!
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?!
Laura made boom lift pennants and a peak halyard pennant. These doubled-over wires are made similarly to grommets: an endless loop of wire seized together at the thimbles at each end. Thimbles at the mast are directly attached to the mast eyes with no shackles, so Laura makes up the wire on the mast.
Sandy has been fabricating blocks; shown here are the eight 14″ blocks on RELIANCE, six including a double block for the main sheet (the other two are for the peak and throat jigs at the base of the mast).
Bern routed out grooves for the straps and the strippers in the base of the block.
Finally, here’s RELIANCE fully painted after Buck and Don’s hard work!
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and thanks to everyone who has supported us thus far!!
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…
The crew has been working diligently so that the RELIANCE model can be finished for the museum’s opening this coming spring.
We have put hanks onto the rigging for both the jib top sail and the stay sail; these pieces will be used to sew the sails directly into the rigging.
Meanwhile, Laura is working hard to finalize the overall rigging within the mast system.
While this has been going on, the struggle to perfectly fair the hull and keel has continued. Sandy spent a good portion of time on this duty, while Zach sanded the rudder down so that it would form well into place. He managed to take a short enough break to get a quick photoshoot!
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.
The RELIANCE Project 