A Shipwright in Training

On Saturday, May 17th, Roann was relaunched after more than 3 years of steady work.  

Everyone said it, and I said it too… you can’t believe how different she looks outside when you’re used to seeing her inside.  In the shop, you never get to back up and see her completely… you only get to see sections at a time.  Outside, you can step back and see her for the big, saucy, shapely craft she is.

Who’s a pretty boat?  WHO’S a pretty boat??  You are!

Walt Ansel, the lead shipwright, described her aft end as “bodacious.”

Absolutely, Walt.  You can’t describe her without moving your hands as if you’re running them along her.

The grand daughter and wife of Chet Westcott were there for the launching ceremony.  Chet sucessfully fished Roann out of Point Judith RI for many years.

They poured seawater on her, as Walt looks on.  For a relaunching with the same name, you don’t smash a bottle of champagne, by the way.  That’s just for christenings.  Walt looks like a happy fellow.  He looked like that all day for some reaon.  Weird.

Roann was designed by Albert Condon in  1944.  Albert was a classically trained designer, meaning that he started out as a shipwright.  He took marine architecture classes at night and gradually moved over to ship design from there.  His son was also a shipwright, working under Alan Vaitses in Maine (Vaitses wrote the first book on lofting that I ever read). 

And so, when Walt was given a backing out plane that used to belong to Albert, and later to his son, you get it that this was a big deal.

Walt told me that one her captains came to the museum and walked along her deck, like he’d done thousands of times in the past.  He knew the boat intimately, by feel, in daylight and pitch black.  He told Walt, “you got it right.” 

There was ceremony, pomp, circumstance.  Lots of dignitaries from all levels.  Olin Stephens was there.  It really was a good pre-launch ceremony.

I didn’t get a single picture of any of them.  Sorry.  My sweetie took this nice photo of dog feet if that helps at all.

And a few people took photos of those of us involved in the boat’s construction.

But mostly we took photos of the boat.

You can somewhat see the extra layer of sheathing that was put on the boat to protect the hull from the banging fishing equipment as it came over the side.  Walt and the crew did a beautiful job with it… it just blends right in to the lines of the boat. 

And we took photos of ourselves witht he boat.

That’s the area that I faired out last summer.  See, you just can’t keep your hands off of her.

And then, they started the lift dock, and she began her slow descent into the Mystic River.

Down

Down

Down

Nice view of the lift dock motor housing, don’t you think?

The whole process takes 17 1/2 minutes.  Lots of time to talk, take pictures of dog feet, that sort of thing.

And at last, she was quietly afloat.

Aside:  I think it should be a requirement that all ship builders have white beards.

And once again, in the water she looks very different than she looked in the shop, than she looked on the hard.  It’s weird that way.

Aren’t those just the nicest lines?  She looks sweet and substantial.  And small again.  She’s only 60′ long, after all.

A few folks stuck around after she was moved to the side of the lift dock to check her out.

The eternal question:  “What’s Down There??”  and “Can I Go??”
(Answers: the foc’sle, yes.)

So here we go, down into the foc’sle.  This was the crew quarters, and will soon be refitted with everything that was on the boat when she was given to the seaport in 1997.

It seems small now.

But, once again, it’s tough to keep your hands off her.  These are the ceiling planks I installed with Shaun.

Quite the change from this:

All in all, a beautiful day.  There’s nothing like a launching.

PS  if the link to Roann at the start of this entry doesn’t work, go to Mystic Seaport, search for Roann, and click on the link with her name.  That shoudl get you to a good little description of her, as well as a photo of her coming out of the shop.  She made it through the door by inches.

Tags: roann, launching, mystic

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 6:07 am and is filed under Mystic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.