Shipmates,
This summer, ELISSA will begin having her three weather decks renewed in addition to the repair work planned for her hull. In previous newsletters, I have spoken about the hull plate corrosion issue and how we are going to address the need for replacing or repairing up to 56 hull plates. I would like to lay out the proposed plan for renewing all three of ELISSA’s weather decks.
Almost thirty years and hundreds of thousands of pairs of young and old feet have conspired with the hot Texas sun in wearing away and stressing ELISSA’s weather decks to where they are no longer functioning in the way they were designed. The deck not only keeps water out from below decks, but acts as a tensioning element in the overall strength of the hull. The driving of cotton and oakum strands into the seams not only serves to waterproof the planks but acts as a wedge in pushing the planks together and in turn tightening the entire structure.
A deck plank on ELISSA and on many sister ships of her size is typically 5inches wide by three and a half inches thick and averages about 22 feet in length. The seams between the planks are about three eights of an inch wide, and are formed by cutting a bevel onto the outboard edge of each plank for about one third of the planking stock’s thickness. The bevel is cut on only the outboard side of the plank so that the seam is square on one side and beveled on the other. This creates the perfect “inclined” plane to encourage the needed wedging action of driving the threads of cotton and oakum caulking.
A deck is a highly evolved and engineered element of global hull integrity. Next time you are aboard ELISSA, cast a critical eye upon the decks and notice how the planks sweep fore and aft and how they are artfully tapered, masterfully fitted and notched into place at the margin board.
One of the problems with ELISSA’s decks is the caulking bevel has been destroyed over the years by using the wrong tools to drive oakum during the frequent repair attempts over the past years. Special tools were created by shipwrights for this kind of work. There is a special caulking iron for each phase of the caulking operation and a uniquely shaped “caulking’ mallet design. The long cylindrical shape of a caulking mallet is no accident. It focuses the full force of the blow on the head of the caulking iron, and avoids twisting or glancing blows which can easily happen when you use a more conventional mallet with a wider head.
We intend to begin with replacing the fo’c’sle head deck at shipyard this summer. We will have access to cranes to lift off the heavy foredeck gear (anchors, windlass, etc.). Eventually, all the weather deck planking will be replaced. The quarterdeck will be the next weather deck scheduled to be replaced after we return from the 2012 Harvest Moon regatta. The main deck is scheduled to be replaced after our spring daysails of 2013. Our intent is to divide the work into three phases, over the next 16 months or so. Creating two smaller, more manageable jobs before the major effort of replacing the main deck will afforded us the necessary breathing room in the schedule to ensure that we will not have a break in our daysailing schedule.
I have been sourcing supplies for the job and have found several companies that have reclaimed longleaf yellow pine timbers from old warehouses and from sunken logs in rivers. While the decks laid 30 years ago were Douglas fir and old growth quality too - that caliber of timber is very hard to find these days. I have found references to the use of longleaf yellow pine from the southeast used in many of the local fishing craft. In fact in “The American Fishing Schooners” naval architectural historian Howard I. Chapelle, it mentions that the six Crowninshield schooners built in 1902 by Oxner & Story shipbuilders in Essex, Massachusetts, for Gulf Fisheries Company were built of Georgia longleaf yellow pine instead of using the indigenous and very good shipbuilding timbers of the northeast. To have all that lumber sent up to a shipyard in Massachusetts speaks volumes for the suitability of longleaf yellow pine for this climate.
It will be an exciting time aboard ELISSA once we leave for shipyard later this summer - both above and below the waterline. We will have the opportunity to breathe in the fragrant notes of freshly milled longleaf yellow pine or Douglas fir as the timbers are being shaped into new deck planks by skilled shipwrights. We will need to turn to and help wherever we can in the painstaking steps of shaping and fitting the new deck and margin planks into place, caulking the seams with cotton and oakum, then “paying” them with pitch. But, most importantly – we will need to continue to maintain the new decks by good ship husbandry practices. There is nothing as fine as a freshly tarred rig rising above newly oiled decks.
This is an exciting project to be undertaking, and ELISSA certainly deserves it. We look forward to both the structural and aesthetic benefits of this project.
Thank you all for your time and continued dedication!
Fair leads,
Jamie
James L. White
Director
Texas Seaport Museum / 1877 Barque ELISSA
Pier 21, Number 8
Galveston, TX 77550
409-763-1877
409-763-3037 FAX
www.tsm-elissa.org
"Of all the living creatures upon land and sea, it is ships alone that cannot be
taken in by barren pretences, that will not put up with bad art from their masters"
(Joseph Conrad ~ Mirror of the Sea).
