What: Blacksmithing demonstration with a traditional forge. Items to be made include boat fasteners (spikes, nails, etc.), chain, oyster knives, etc. Where: St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, by the LAMP Boatworks boatbuilding station When: Thursday and Friday, November 13-14, 2008, 10 am - 4 pm Who: Sam Turner, LAMP Director of Archaeology, and Brendan Burke, LAMP Archaeologist & Logistical Coordinator For more information click here
The Xynides Boat House. (Photo courtesy of Lowell Beyer)
Standing on top of a pile of broken timbers, exposed nails, torn electrical wiring, and a healthy dose of tetanus-in-the-wings can be a normal day for a maritime archaeologist. We recently had some of those days and I report on them here.
October 29th dawned bright and chilly. The day marked the beginning of the Galveztown Yawl Project at LAMP Boatworks. The Galveztown is a replica brig under construction in Malaga, Spain. LAMP Boatworks is a principal project partner supplying the Spanish shipyard, Astilleros Nereo, with Live Oak timber for the construction of the ship’s hull. LAMP is also assisting the project by building two yawls. These small ship’s boats will be 14 and 16 feet long and will travel nested on the deck of the Galveztown after the tall ship calls in St. Augustine in 2011.
All craft, be they ships or boats, require fairly special lumber. The process begins with the collecting of tree trunks of suitable timber and then milling them into the required dimensions and shapes.
LAMP Boatworks has just finished framing the Chaisson Tender, a small rowing gig that has been under construction for some months at the Lighthouse. It’s an important milestone in the building of this particular craft and one for LAMP Boatworks as well. Frames and half-frames, also known as ribs, are important structural members of any boat. In this case half-frames were used and were steam bent, a technological innovation that gives boat builders a leg up in savings of time and materials. Steam bending is an important skill to master and apply and so doing places LAMP Boatworks further down the road toward a first class boatworks.
The June 2008 LAMP maritime archaeology field school, accredited by Plymouth State University, is currently underway in St. Augustine, Florida. Here students Ben Siegel and Ryan Flory are in the background with LAMP intern Renee Post. PSU Professor Dave Switzer is in the foreground.
Most folks know that one of the most exciting new projects at the Lighthouse is our wooden boatbuilding program. Part of LAMP's First Coast Maritime Archaeology Project, the LAMP Boatworks is dedicated to keeping traditional maritime craftsmanship alive, while providing experimental archaeological and public outreach avenues to help us better interpret boat and ship remains preserved in the archaeological record. Our first build was a Bevin's skiff, a traditional skiff design available as a kit build through the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. While this inaugural and beautiful little boat was an undisputed fantastic success, many of us were eagerly awaiting our first boat to be built from scratch. This was to be the barca chata.
Last Friday night was a wonderful Boat Launch Event, as we launched the Bevin Skiff now christened the William A. Harn, after Lighthouse Keeper William Harn, a man who was at Ft. Sumter as member of the Union army when it was fired upon. This small skiff, designed in New England was perfect for Harn, whose family might have kept such a craft for bringing in supplies from Steam boats named Fern and Armeria, when they docked on what is now Salt Run. This boat is the first finished product of our recently established traditional boatbuilding program, LAMP Boatworks.
Monday October 10, was a big day for LAMP Boatworks. We installed the finished centerboard trunk in the Bevin’s Skiff, (our first building project, see blog To Build A Boat, August 2, 2007), made considerable progress fashioning the oars, built some sawhorses, and assembled a new tent effectively doubling our workspace. Jim Gaskins has spent considerable time meticulously fashioning the centerboard trunk. This piece is critical since it holds the centerboard to provide stability under sail but more importantly, has to be robustly built in order to absorb the shock transmitted to it through the centerboard during grounding events. The correct installation of this structure is also of great importance since it’s through the hull and subject to leaking if not properly done.
UPDATE: Read more about LAMP's boatbuilding program in this Florida Times-Unionarticle online.
Posted by Brendan Burke
Visitors to the lighthouse may now notice an abundance of hammering, sawdust, and wood shavings just over the fence from the lighthouse tower. This is the newly established LAMP Boatworks. LAMP has been fortunate enough to attract the skills of several volunteers who have prior boatbuilding experience and other who are interested and willing to learn about wooden boat building. With the combined resources of LAMP and these valuable people dedicating their time and labor, we are pleased to announce the boatbuilding program is well under way!
