JB goes upriver

Wow, what a pretty day today.  Paul and I took Jeff up the Mystic River to the Seaport, where hopefully he will be sitting beside the Emma C. Berry tomorrow in "Smack Alley."


So we get underway and slither out of the harbor . . . 


First stop: the Stonington train bridge, which always reminds me of the Gulag.  Paul was impressed by my ability to whistle (3 times) for the bridge to open (we'd forgotten the air horn).  This is a very cool bridge, which rotates around on its axis so it is parallel with the river and there are two "lanes" to pass through for those coming and those going.


Then on to the Bascule Bridge in Mystic, where we twirled around a bit waiting for it to open (at 20 minutes to the hour).



Here comes the Seaport.  The amount of gleaming brass and perfect varnish lining the piers was making me a little woozy.
 
I have to say, this was thrilling me to death.  I don't get up the river much, and never on an old smack being pushed by a skiff.

So we anchored Jeff on "the flats" right off of the main area (the show had started today, which I didn't know) and presumably the staff will move him to his rightful spot by Emma this evening.  Said Paul, on our way back, "At least it's in shallow enough water so if the pumps fail it doesn't have too far down to go."  Ever the optomist.


JB looks right at home!

On the mooring . . .

. . . and ready to go to the Wooden Boat Show tomorrow and have a side-to-side confab with Emma C. Berry. 

Although I'm a little nauseous . . . I've seen the photos of those boats that are going on display and there is not one grain of wood or particle of brass out of place on those things. 



Here's our current neighbor at the mooring.  Kind of a monster . . .


And here's a kayak view of old Emma at the Town Dock, the day before she went back to the Seaport.

Paul tells me that visitors will like seeing what a "real working boat" is like. I just hope Jeff is not too embarrassed by my efforts this year.  But he'll be far enough away so the "10 foot paint job" might fool some of the people most of the time . . .

If you can't join the party from the mooring . . .

. . . watch it from the shore, that's what Jeff Brown will be doing.  Bruce (my new idol) got this idea yesterday, since he feared a quick descent to the bottom-o-the-cove if we just threw Jeff in the water and dragged him out to the mooring.  He has to sit in the straps for a few days, for the electric pumps to do their work.  He normally has three solar pumps  but Bruce made that sort of waterfront-skeptical face that I am learning to recognize in these old maritime types, and I trusted his judgment.  Was just abut to give up when he shows up at the house and outlines his plan: why not bring it down to the town dock, where there is going to be a celebration for Emma C. Berry's big 150th-birthday weekend--and the 50th anniversary of the Historical Society, and the two old things could attend the party together.
So that's what we did.

Here's Emma all refurbished and coming down the Mystic river to Noank, ready to go through the bridge.  Louisa Watrous took this great photo.


Louisa was also standing on the original railway where Emma was launched when she took this photo.
 

And from the sublime to the fairly-ingenious: here's Jeff getting towed down to the Town Dock:

and here's Bruce sliding Jeff into his temporary party spot (the sunbathers were mildly amused.  You can see the Argia going by in the background.)
















 
Party time! Emma C. Berry is to the left.  And the weather is perfect-- they're both ready for their close-ups.

I just hope Paul doesn't have a cow.  We couldn't find him to ask if this was okay, but I've got oatmeal cookies ready, to soften the surprise. Paul was on the crew of the Berry when she was sailed from New Jersey to the Seaport after she was donated in 1969.  This is a very big day, and I'm so glad Jeffie gets to be part of it.

Tick-tick-tick-tick . . . .

3 more days till the 50^th anniversary celebration of the Noank Historical Society . . . and the arrival in Noank of the Emma C Berry, who’s 150 this year . . . and Jeff is supposed to be in the water, right out on the mooring for all to see . . . and Bruce has not showed up yet!  Paul says don’t push him, since he does everything for free, which is incredibly nice (I have no idea what storage, launching, trailering and hauling fees are but I suspect I could not afford them), but the man has got to shake a tailfeather.  We won’t be able to get the rig on in that amount of time (ie, a day).  Geez, it’d be nice if he got it in in time for the wooden boat show.  Oy!  I suspect it’s time to deliver another pie.  Worked the last time.

The Memorial Day Parade was cancelled due to rain so the anniversary and boat show are JB’s only chances to vogue in front of a mesmerized crowd.

Jeff’s all painted and ready to go but I wanted to include this photo of the seam compound—seems that roofing tar was the material du jour after all. And, I might add, it is not leaking like it did last year when we put a garden hose in the bilge.  Just a trickle.  Amazing!!!

 

Dane finished all the varnishing last week and both the mast and bowsprit look swell.

 

 The white paint on the tip of the bowsprit  is a new addition this year--it used to be old nasty weathered black (I didn't do anything with it last year), and the jury is still out regarding the white--we may go back to black--but I think it's kinda spiffy. A white tip for the mast, however, was soundly vetoed.

 

Look at that mast--it's positively gleaming!!!

I should take more photos, but you’ve pretty much seen what the deck and topsides look like all done, and I feel like a mom at her 5-year-old’s school play, so I’ll wait to take more when he’s being admired by his public (or being transported to the Seaport).

And the boat-lettering winner is . . .

 . . . for the second season in a row, Do It Yourself Lettering.

After Sloane could no longer hand letter the stern (hip replacement--ouch!), I had to find some appropriate, stately, old-fashioned-looking, and really cheap letters that would do the job.

All the other companies had stupid-looking fonts, or were wildly expensive. (Wildly for me, anyway.)

The nice people at Do It Yourself have a great selection, really reasonable prices, and very patient customer service reps (I believe I made them cry last year).  The one thing I do not like is their absolutely asinine application instructions.  The way they say to peel the backing off and slide it below the letters . . . well, its physically impossible.  I just ended up (both times, even after 30 minutes of phone assistance the first time) just peeling the thing off like a bumper sticker and placing it (hopefully) carefully in my pre-marked spot.

Before . . . 

And After . . . 

Not bad, right?  This cost $30, including shipping.  And a dignified old font.

Not something like 

 

We are more genteel than that . . .  

Paul still hates the serif font but I think it'd be too dull without it.

At last . . .the professionals are here

 I finally started the sanding and priming of the deck but the weather’s not cooperating so it ain’t done.

However, today brought an amazing surprise.  Paul had said that the caulking master (apparently there was a caulking master in our midst and I did not know it) was going to come re-caulk Jeff Brown, but then I was told that he couldn’t make it, and besides, getting all that gunk out before stuffing new cotton back in would take too much time.  You will recall that when I reefed out the putty I was told to keep the cotton and oakum in, but when you do it right, you have to scrape all the crap out first before you can put in the cotton.  So we were just going to jam it all back in there and apply something called 5200, which as far as I can tell is a cross between Bondo and cement and long after the boat has rotted, the stuff will still be intact.

But then this morning, Jake showed up, from Bath, Maine (He grew up in Noank and worked at the Seaport), complete with his ancient tools, a bunch of good stories, and something he called “the Samurai reefing hook” which made my little hook (remember the “hoofpick?”) look like a Q-tip.  It had a curved handle that provides really good leverage so you just stick in in there and yank, and Bob’s your uncle--all the gunk comes out like buttah.

This is Jake’s little stool, that I think he said was his great-uncle’s.  It holds the tools and rocks back and forth so you can sit on it and maneuver along the keel fairly easily. On top of it is the cotton caulk and the hammers.

But since Jeff’s on a trailer, Jake had the devil of a time with the caulking hammers on the part of the seam that's in the middle.

Speaking of caulking hammers, they can make you deaf.  I don’t know how Jake did it all day, and it took about 8 hours—mostly because of that middle part where as you will recall I had twisted myself into a pretzel to get the old seam compound out.

Did you know that Dred Scott was a master ship caulker in the early 1800’s?  African Americans in the south were the only people who did caulking, because “no white man should touch cotton.”  Oy! So they got to be incredible caulkers.  And because the hammering was so rhythmic, many sang while they worked.  I wish there were some recordings of this but I couldn’t find any. The closest I came was a chain gang song called “Long John” which kind of matches the rhythm of the caulking hammers.  I wish I could find an actual recording of caulkers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G5KtQynWvc

Then it was time for the primer, which is a very festive orange color and is applied with a special brush, which they don’t make anymore but which Jake had in his box of tricks.   I believe that I will be in charge of seam cement, which comes next in a few days.  Jake had recommended roofing tar but Paul made a face, so seam cement it is.

Jake knew Uncle Jack, and had sailed on Jeff Brown years ago.  Imagine, spending 8 hours killing yourself out of reverence for an old boat and the guy who built it.

Totally cool.