The American Whaleboat of 2014

In 1978, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., published The Whaleboat: A Study of Design, Construction and Use from 1850 to 1970 by Willits ‘Will’ D. Ansel, a shipwright and boat builder at the Museum’s Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. Ansel had been asked by Mystic Seaport to do research about the whaleboat, as by the beginning of the 1970s it was almost extinct. For many years this book was the ultimate source for anyone interested in the history of the American-built whaleboat. (To clarify one thing, the double-ended ‘whaleboat’ was the vessel lowered down from a whaleship and the watercraft from which the whale was hunted and killed. The whaleboat, with assistance from other whaleboats, would then sail or row back the dead whale to the whaleship where the whale was ‘refined’: cut to pieces, the blubber boiled in the tryworks and the oil kept in barrels. The oil was later used to light up the street lamps in all major cities in the country; whaling was a large and important industry in America during the 1800s.)

The best description of the content of this book is to name the different chapters: “Development of the Whaleboat to 1870”; “Performance and Use”; “Lines of the Whaleboat”; “Hull Structure”; “Fittings and Equipment”; “Sailing Rigs”; “Whaleboat Production”; “Building Methods”; “Painting, Repairs, and Maintenance of Whaleboats”; “The Whaleboats and Related Types”; and two appendixes: “Sail Plans and Rigs” and “Examples of Ten Whaleboats”.

Will Ansel’s The Whaleboat is a well-written, richly illustrated book – and some of the black & white photographs are taken by the author and many of the drawings are by him as well. Ansel has dug deep in old archives and sources, and this is truly a book for all wooden boat enthusiasts. A 2nd edition was published in 1983, but the book has been out of print for many years.

In 2008, while Mystic Seaport started restoring its flagship, the 1841 Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaleship in the world, the Museum soon realised that it had neither the manpower nor the funds to build the whaleboats that were needed for the whaleship’s 38th Voyage – between 1841 and 1921, the Morgan made 37 whaling voyages across the globe – and it would truly not be a total restoration of the whaleship if the whaleboats were not aboard for her last voyage. The question went out to the maritime community if there was an interest in building whaleboats for the Morgan’s 38th Voyage. When she left Mystic Seaport to embark on her voyage, on 17 May this spring, nine companies along the east coast, in a project called the National Whaleboat Project, had built ten brand new whaleboats.

The same day, the Morgan left the Museum, the institution published the 3rd edition of The Whaleboat, now with a slightly different title, The Whaleboat: A Study of Design, Construction and Use from 1850 to 2014. Added to Will Ansel’s chapters were now two new chapters by Will’s son, Walter Ansel, and Walter’s daughter, Evelyn Ansel, who thereby is the third generation Ansel to be involved in narrating the history of the American whaleboat. Walter is a senior shipwright at Mystic Seaport and has worked on the Morgan’s restoration and a lot of other vessel restoration projects at the Museum. After finishing up her college studies at Brown University, Evelyn has also worked on the Morgan, as an apprentice. This year, however, she has been a Fullbright scholar at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.

Walter’s chapter is about a whaleboat programme from 2002, when Will came back to Mystic Seaport to teach Walter and a few other shipwrights how to build a whaleboat. Evelyn’s contribution is about the National Whaleboat Project, a well-penned article, which also includes her photographs. Earlier she has published articles with some wonderful drawings of hers.

So, here we have three shipwrights who write very well, two of which also take marvellous photographs and draw and depict brilliant pictures – a very talented family, the Ansels.

Order your copy of The Whaleboat here ($24.95 plus postage).

At a book signing for The Whaleboat in the Mystic Seaport Bookstore during the 2014 WoodenBoat Show, Walter Ansel, Will Ansel and Evelyn Ansel.

Some Row Boats at the 23nd WoodenBoat Show

 A Rangeley Row Boat

The 23nd WoodenBoat Show is now in full swing at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. The weather was beautiful during Friday, and it is said to be equally wonderful during Saturday and Sunday. There are, of course, many water craft on display, and HTBS would like to present a few of them below - all being propelled by oars.

I have to confess, I do not see the charm with this kind of row boat, where the oars are propelled by your feet, unless you like to get some excises on the water while you are knitting...?

This row boat did not have a sliding seat, or a thwart, just a little stool, which really didn't look that comfortable. One could, however, adjust the stool as there were different holes to place the stool in; it didn't look like one could move the foot board, though.

This little '9 dinghy was originally built between 1941 and 1942 in the San Pedro area, California; designer and builder unknown. It had been used as a tender to a 1941 40' cruiser, and had been restored in 2012-2014. The original hull was stained cedar planks, with seats of mahogany. The fellow who had restored the boat had used steam-bent ash for frames and the transom top was mahogany. The oars were also ash, and in the stern was a 2 HP British Seagull, Forty Series. A beautiful craft!

A sturdy boat with two thwarts with back-rests, perfect for a river pic-nick - don't forget the Pimm's!

I am not really sure about this boat, built by Swanson Boat Company. It looks fast, but while the hull seems perfect for a speedy outing, the arrangement of the sliding seats seem 'weak', and so do the oars, which were thin with very small blades.

Above two types of shells with sliding seats.

A traditional 'dinghy'. In the background is the Museum's 1866 Connecticut 'smack', Emma C. Berry, built in Noank. This sloop is one of four National Historic Landmark vessels at Mystic Seaport.

What I did not see this year was a Thames skiff, which I have seen at the Show previous years.

The 23nd Annual WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport

Today is the start of the 23nd Annual WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, which, as usual, is a three-day event. More than 100 traditional classics and contemporary wooden boats of every type will be on display at this festival that celebrates the design and craftsmanship of wooden craft. This year’s event will honour three of N.G. Herreshoff’s most beloved designs: the 12 ½, Newport 29, and Buzzards Bay 25. All three were originally conceived in 1914 and turn 100 this year.

The WoodenBoat Show offers something for all wooden boat enthusiasts and marine history buffs. Wooden boats of every type – large and small, old and new, power, sail, oar and paddle – will be on display including cruising yachts, launches, runabouts, fishing boats, performance powerboats, daysailers, dinghies, rowboats, canoes, performance shells, multi-hulls and racing boats.

As usual, HTBS will try to concentrate its reports on rowing boats and shells. Read more here.

About Swaddle & Winship

A Text-Book of Oarsmanship by Gilbert C. Bourne has information about Swaddle & Winship, but in which other books will you find information about this boat building company?

The other day, HTBS received an e-mail from a lady in England who was looking for information about her boat building ancestors, the Swaddles from the north of England. While I was able to help her a little by giving her some information about the boat building firm Swaddle & Winship of Newcastle-on-Tyne, which built racing shells for both Oxford and Cambridge in the 1870s, I would like to reach out to the readers of HTBS to ask if any of you might know where she might find more information.

I gave here a couple of book titles where the company Swaddle & Winship are mentioned, A Text-Book of Oarsmanship (1925) by Gilbert C. Bourne and The Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race (1983) by Chris Dodd. She has also contacted the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, but I am sure that you readers have come across Swaddle & Winship in your research and readings.

Please send your information to HTBS via e-mail: gbuckhorn - at - gmal.com

Thank you
~ Göran R Buckhorn

Make Your Own Oars

Pat Mahon of Great Lakes Boat Building School talking about how to make your own oars.

Today, at the last day of the WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport, I attended a so called Expert Skills Demonstration at the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. Close to noon, Pat Mahon of the Great Lakes Boat Building School (GLBB), located in Les Cheneaux Islands of the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was giving a demonstration on how to make oars.

Boat builders' math it not really the same kind of math they taught us at school.

Lines drawn on the loom indicating what you need to shave off to eventually making the oar round. This wood for this oar is yellow cedar.

The kind of oars they are making at GLBB are not the oars used for racing shells, they are more the type you use in a skiff and a dinghy. Good wood for this oar is for example ash, fir, spruce or yellow cedar. Pat, who is a good teacher, explained how to ‘measure’ out the different parts of the oar: the handle, the loom (where the closes part to the handle can be square as that’s the counterpart which balance the oar), neck, shoulder, blade and tip. The boat builders in the olden days – and I am now talking about builders more than 1,000 years ago –  knew that the important part in oar making is to figure out the proportions, not the exact measurements; the most important tool you use in making an oar is your eyes.

Make sure that the oar is fasten when you are working with the tools as you will be needing both hands.

To cut out the piece that will be your oar, you need a band saw. After that, you only need a few tools like a pencil, ruler, drawknife, plane, spokeshave and a patternmaker rasp. Pat showed how easy it was to use these tools – or, should I say, it looked so easy when he did it.

The tools that you need to make your oars: from the bottom, drawknife, plane, spokeshave, ruler and rasp.

I appreciate a good craftman’s work. Pat taught me a good lesson during the one hour session that will save me both time and money. As much as I wish I had the skill and knowledge, and maybe the guts, to make my own oars for my little 10-foot dinghy, alas, I now understand that I do not posses these skills – I just have to buy the bloody oars.

2013 WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport

Welcome to Mystic Seaport!

The first day of this year's WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, looked as it was going to be a wet event, but the rain stayed away during the show which again offered all kinds of beautiful wooden watercraft. Below are some picture taken yesterday, Friday.

The Museum's sandbagger Annie.

The pride of Mystic Seaport, the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, which will be launched on 21 July this summer. This photo was taken a couple of days ago.

There they are, the whaleboat from the Apprenticeshop which left Maine on 16 June, coming up the Mystic River in the craft that these students have built to donate to Mystic Seaport's Charles W. Morgan. Despite all days out at sea and hitting bad weather at the last leg, the crew rowed up the river in good spirit and style. Photo: Dan McFadden.

The whaleboat is escorted in to Mystic Seaport by the Museum's own whaleboat crew, seen on the port side of the Apprenticeshop's boat.

Finally at Mystic Seaport.

Below are some of the whaleboats that were already at the Museum:

Great Lakes Boat Building

Independent Seaport Museum

Beetle Boat Shop

Lowell's Boat Shop

On a Whaleboat Expedition to Mystic

Today, summer begins at Mystic Seaport – The Museum of America and the Sea, Mystic, CT, as the 22nd Annual WoodenBoat Show kicks off. It is the seventh year in a row that the WoodenBoat Show is held at the Museum. As usual more than 100 exhibitors and vendors will have beautiful wooden boats on display, making it one of the largest wooden boat shows in the USA, drawing approximately 13,000 Museum visitors to the banks of the Mystic River during this three-day event, 28-30 June.

This year there are some special exhibitors, who are building whaleboats for the Museum’s 1841 whaleship, the Charles W. Morgan, which is the last of her kind in the world. During a five-year period Mystic Seaport has restored the Morgan in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. She will be launched into the Mystic River on her 172nd birthday, 21 July this year. Thereafter, she will be fitted and rigged so next May she will go back to sea for a ceremonial 38th Voyage, revisiting some of the New England harbours where she once anchored during her whaling heydays.

The Morgan will have seven newly built whaleboats on board. These boats are part of a ten-boat national project to construct replica whaleboats. The organisations building these 28-30-foot long open boats for Mystic Seaport are: the Independence Seaport Museum of Philadelphia, PA; Rocking the Boat of Bronx, NY; Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway of Vineyard Haven, MA; the New Bedford Whaling Museum/Beetle Boat Shop of Wareham, MA; the Great Lakes Boat Building School of Cedarville, MI; The Apprenticeshop of Rockland, ME; Alexandria Seaport Foundation of Alexandria, VA; Lake Champlain Maritime Museum of Ferrisburgh, VT; Wooden Boat Factory of Philadelphia, PA; and Lowell’s Boat Shop of Amesbury, MA. The seven first organisations on this list will actually be displaying their whaleboats during the WoodenBoat Show.

The boat builders from the Maine based Apprenticeshop will arrive in style as they have rowed and sailed their whaleboat on a 350-mile voyage from Maine to Mystic, starting on 16 June and planning to arrive today. On board the boat is Captain Bryan McCarthy, Apprenticeshop director, at the helm, apprentices Rachel Davis, Daniel Creisher, Simon Jack, Garrett Farchione, Tim Jacobus and Pat Lydon. They have been accompanied by chase boat Advent. The crew has been sharing photographs, videos and daily updates on The Apprenticeshop’s Facebook page and blog.

HTBS welcomes all the whaleboat crews to Mystic!

For those who are interested in learning more about the ten-whaleboat national project, in the current issue of the Mystic Seaport Magazine, which is now available on-line, Mystic Seaport's Morgan Restoration Project historian Matthew Stackpole has written an article about building whaleboats for the Morgan, on pages 10-12 (on page 12 there is also an article about whaleboat racing!). Go to the on-line version of Mystic Seaport Magazine, here.

Photos above © John Snyder/Marine Media

From Pine To Plastic

The (real) Cambridge Boat of 2013.

HTBS’s Tim Koch writes from London,

In the 2013 University Boat Race, Oxford rowed in a German ‘Empacher’ while Cambridge used a Canadian ‘Hudson’. ‘Hear The Boat Sing’ has previously noted that once the boats for the ‘Battle of the Blues’ were not only made in Britain, they were produced from wood just a few feet from the Boat Race course. However, one hour before the start of the 159th Oxford - Cambridge clash, there was a race from Hammersmith to Putney (‘The Watermen’s Challenge’) which involved traditional British made craft. It included replicas of the two boats used in the first Oxford - Cambridge race in 1829.

The (replica) Cambridge Boat of 1829.

The ‘Oxbridge Cutters’ (as the pair are known) were commissioned by The Boat Race Company Ltd to celebrate the 150th Boat Race in 2004. Like the original boats, the design was strongly influenced by Cornish Pilot Gigs, though the Oxbridge boats are made of pine, not elm, and are eight-oared, not six. Originally the replicas were painted in the original colours, green for Oxford and pink for Cambridge. Today, they have been repainted in the accepted dark blue and light blue. Last February they were given on long term loan to the charity, London Youth Rowing. It is good to know that the cutters will now be in regular use and will help to bring young people into the sport of rowing – truly ‘living history’.

P.S. The original Oxford boat of 1829 is on now on display at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley. A famous picture of this boat and its 1929 successor is here.

The replica Oxford Boat of 1829. As there are no outriggers and because the boat is wider in the middle than at the bow and stern, the oars are of different lengths to produce a uniform span.

The sleeve is made of leather and the button is of rope. The oars are rowed ‘square blade’ and are not feathered.

The seating is staggered, not in line, with starboard side rowers sitting on port and visa-versa.

A Danish Old Boat!

Greg Denieffe sent HTBS some breaking news from Denmark. An old boat has been found during an excavation at the Vordingborg Castle in the town of Vordingborg. The famous Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde posted some congratulations on Facebook and a picture. I can only agree with Greg, when he writes: ‘Looks like she needs a bit of work to get rowable!’

Up the Creek with an Oar

In the September issue of Down East, which calls itself ‘The Magazine of Maine’, there is a nice little article about the old oar and paddle making company Shaw & Tenney in Orono, Maine. The company was founded in 1858 and today has seven workers who hand-make all the products: oars, paddles, masts, spars, flag poles, and parts for canoes, kayaks and Adirondack guide boats, etc.

I had, of course, heard about the company before, but it was first when I began looking around for a pair of sculls that I spent some time on Shaw & Tenney’s website – lovely stuff. I did not buy a set of sculls from the company this time as, in a round about way, I came across some used sculls.

While the company sells mainly oars and paddles to be used on an outing, so to say, they have also started to sell ‘engraved paddles’. One of the latest ones of this kind was actually sold to Paul McCartney’s children who wanted to order an engraved paddle for their father for his birthday. Shaw & Tenney has also sold props to different films, Virginia M. Wright writes in her article in Down East.

One of the problems for a small company as Shaw & Tenney, the article tells us, is that the company does not have a large inventory, as it hand-crafts oars and paddles more or less ‘on demand’. One big order for the company was when another Maine based company, L.L. Bean, ordered 500 paddles because of the company’s 100-year anniversary this year.

If you are looking for a first-class, handcrafted pair of sculls for your boat, Shaw & Tenney is probably the company for you! Here is a video from the company:



The photograph on top is from Shaw & Tenney's website.

Plying The Oars On The Mystic River

Trying out the new boat. Not a perfect stroke, but a happy rower with a boating 'belle' in the bow.

In my former job at Mystic Seaport – The Museum of America and the Sea, I moved around a lot, but since I was appointed editor of Mystic Seaport Magazine in January 2011, I have mostly been sitting still in front of my computer. The only exercise I get is hammering away at some articles and lifting the receiver of the phone trying to get a writer to understand that the dead-line date that I gave him or her was not at all just a suggested date to send in the article, it was actually the date when I needed the piece.

I still remember vividly my glory days as a person who frequently, almost daily, got good exercise using an old wooden single scull rowing around the canal in my home town of Malmö in the south of Sweden. The rowing club, Malmö Roddklubb, was a block away from my little flat, so I rowed in the mornings before I went to the publishing company where I worked as an editor. I would usually also scull for an hour or so after work. That was now 14 years and quite a few kilos ago. Frankly, it now shows around my waist that I am not getting my daily dose of exercise plying the sculls.

Yes, I have tried the erg, and a month ago I had a good run of exercise, but then the ergs at the YMCA, where I was rowing, all broke down, and the manager did not seem to be in a hurry fixing them as very few people were using the machines.

Enough is enough I said, what I need is a rowing boat! But then, when I gave it some serious thought, I realised that what I need was not really a racing shell, a single scull, but a wider rowing dinghy, something that was safe enough to take the children in without capsizing. I mean, after all, we have been living close to the Mystic River for twelve years now, it is high time that the children learn how to scull, especially as their father is claiming to be, never a former rowing star, but at least interested in rowing history.

Anders viewing Mystic Seaport from the river side.

It was the WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport some weeks ago, and there I happened to meet my friend Bill, who is a rower, too. When he heard that I was looking for an old wooden boat, he said he had just the one for me in his backyard. Now, not only is Bill a nice person and a rower, but also a boat builder. He has built kayaks, sailboats, and rowing boats. Bill said he would happily have me take over the first boat he ever built, thirty years ago, a 10-foot pram designed by the famous American boat builder John Gardner. I immediately agreed to take a look and to try out the boat.

While I tried it out a week ago, certain things were not working out well. I misjudged the tide, it was low tide and the boat got stuck in the mud at the launching area, which gave me a hard, good work-out just to get the boat in the water. It was a hot, humid day with the sun blazing down on the river. A light breeze fouled me so I ended up with a really bad ‘farmer’s tan’ after a one and a half hours row. The oars that I had borrowed were too short and did not really give me the right stroke in the water.

A happy, young rower, starting early to pratise for her rowing scholarship to an elite school. Look at her perfect grip, both thumbs were they should be.

Yesterday, however, was a perfect day for an outing on the Mystic River with the family. It was not too hot, we launched the boat when it was high tide, and I had borrowed half a foot longer oars, which did the trick. We got a nice voyage on the river, although our son, Anders, after a while complained that he was bored. Just the other day, he had learned how to ride his bicycle without the ‘training wheels’, so he was more eager to ride his bike than being out on the river. Our daughter Ingrid was, however, more than willing to have a go at the oars. She did very well; I see a rowing scholarship at an Ivy League school coming her way…

I guess, there will be more stories to tell about plying the oars on the Mystic River in the near future.

 How do I look, dear? Am I too late out of the water?

Let's see, was it left over right, or the other way around? And where is the slide?

A happy man, he who has a boat!