The What Is It Contest????


***See bottom of page for answer to last week's photo & the current week's photo***

The What Is It? Contest!


Every Sunday until ELISSA returns from shipyard, I will post on this page a cropped photo of a section or part/piece of gear aboard ELISSA for you to correctly identify.  The answer and un-cropped photo will be revealed the following week on this page.  When ELISSA returns from shipyard, we will have a party to welcome her back and to christen our new dockside facilities.  During the party, the winner(s) from each week will be placed in a hat and one winner will be drawn for the following prize:


Grand Prize: 

 A 36" x 24" giclée of ELISSA as Fjeld



 "Is that a spirketting plate on a 'tween deck stringer?"                                          

I think that while ELISSA is in dry-dock we need to keep our minds sharp by remembering what she looks like - especially all the parts, the bits and pieces that make her up as a whole.  As many of you know, I am on a quest to have all of us use the correct terms for the work we do and the gear we do it to.  Several volunteers have heard me moan when someone tells me the fore "course" braces need repair.  There is a fore course (sail) and there is a fore yard, but there is no fore course yard.  The correct term is fore braces or fore yard braces. 
As you can see, this game will also be a means to help teach us what is a wash plate, or a chesstree, or an upper topsail crane span.  Some weeks the photo may be of something on deck, or aloft, or an item found amidst her many strakes, wash plates, and butt straps.  Yes, this will also be a good way to learn how ELISSA is put together and what some of her myriad of parts are called.  I promise I will not include my favorite bit o' gear...the elusive timenoguy.  
For example, the image directly below is a cropped section of a larger  unaltered photograph of a piece of gear found ranged out all along the main deck, on both port and starboard sides of the ship. 

...but what is it????



...and the original image



Answer: It is a chesstree or bulwark stay or bulwark stanchion eye.

  • The correct answer would be a chesstree, but bulwark stay would be acceptable.  If it did not have the eye, it would simply be a bulwark stay or bulwark stanchion.  Remember part of the fun of this contest is to correctly identify the bit of gear with the correct nautical term...not by saying a bulwark post or pillar or bulwark bar for example.

Contest Rules


1) To be eligible, you must have at least 20 volunteer hours on record since ELISSA's last daysails in  March 2010.

2) One entry per person per week. Email only, please no telephone or text messages.  Send your answers to either bosun Mark or John Schaumburg, please no attachments.  Your entry must be received by the Saturday following the posting of the week's photo.

3) If no one succeeds in correctly identifying all of the images by the deadline, then the top three entrants will be given hints which I will publish on this page, until all images are correctly identified by one of the three entrants.  That will be the winning entry for the week.

4) The What Is It? images will be posted every Sunday on this page.  The weekly images will remain here through out the contest.  Remember the more times you enter, the better your chances of winning.  I would hope that all of our volunteers would make weekly attempts.

5)  Contest is not open to employees of GHF...sorry staff!

The first photo is below....... Good luck!

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Last weeks photo and answer:








This "item" is one of many that are located along the sheer strake at the fore and main mast.  This fitting is one of the ELISSA's chainplates.  It is more accurately known as a chainplate palm and is the lower end of the chainplate that is riveted to the sheerstrake/ bulwark interface.

The winners of last week's contest are:
  • Root Choyce 
  • Ed Green
  • Janine da Silva 
  • Rick Bounds
  • Erich Wagner
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Sunday October 14, 2012

What Is It? Contest!




Thought I would make it a little more challenging this week.  I have so often heard this fitting referred to a variety of names and seldom the correct one.  You do not need to identify which one this is, only what is its name.  Part of the idea behind this contest is to educate all of us on the proper terms for the bits of gear we all see or use every time we step aboard ELISSA ~ a kind of vocabulary quiz from the lexicon of a square-rig sailor.  I hope more people give the contest a try and remember to look at 19th century British sources for the answers. 
 
 I would suggest looking at one of my favorite rigging sources for 19th century British sailing ships - Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier by Harold Underhill...and we just last week received a copy for TSM's Maritime library.  Please avail yourselves of the wonderful library at TSM.
 

Fair Leads,

Jamie

2 comments:

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  2. Be sure to email your answer to John Schaumburg or Bosun Mark. Any answer left here is ineligible for the contest.

    Jamie

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