Take a virtual tour of the US Brig Niagara, on deck and below! Senior Captain Walter Rybka guides you through a brief tour of the ship. Watch out, there’s low head-room!

Many thanks to Professor John Chrisman and the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania for making this film possible.

Here’s a great animated description of how to ware the Niagara. Senior Captain Walter Rybka worked many hours burning the midnight oil consulting and providing guidance toward the production of this animated short film. Many thanks to Edinboro University and the production team who made this film possible.

To ware a ship is to turn it away from the eye of the wind, sail off the wind, allow the wind to cross the stern of the ship, and continue turning until the wind comes from the opposite angle from where it was upon beginning the maneuver. In short, it’s like a gybe (or jibe). You turn the ship around to go the other way, but you turn downwind and through the wind that way, instead of turning into the wind and letting the bow cross the eye of the wind.

Here is the animated explanation, check it out and see why an animation makes understanding the maneuver so much easier!

Watch this short Public Service Announcement/ television commercial to learn about sailing as a trainee on Niagara.

I apologize to anyone who’s been looking forward to updates about Niagara, her crew, activities onboard, etc… I’ve been too busy over the last year to keep up with the blog. I’m hoping to expand authorship of the blog to include some of our crew and volunteers in the near future to prevent such long lapses. No guarantees, we’ll see.

Last summer was very busy. Our “Home Year” was far more taxing than are our “Voyage Years”. We conducted 27 daysails and visited several ports on Lake Erie during the months of June, July, and August last year. The ship sailed about as often as any other year, but the shorter passages and many daysails meant that the crew were tasked more frequently with the hard work of setting and furling sails. They got quite good at it by season’s end in September.

By mid-October, the ship was rigged down for the winter, the winter cover installed, and we sent the mainmast ashore to dismantle and re-condition the main tops (the big platform on the mainmast), and to replace the main mast. I was encouraged to find that the mast was just beginning to rot where the standing rigging is seated at the hounds. That is to say,  rot was found to have developed up to one inch deep in the twenty-inch thick mast. So while the rot was not serious, it was likely to grow quickly, and it’s good we replaced the mast.

The new mast is made of laminated pressure-treated pine. The old mast was laminated non-treated pine, and we have been affecting rot repairs to it for years…always working hard to keep it in excellent condition. The masts (new and old) weigh about the same, and it’s my hope that the new mast will last for decades without rotting.

The big news is the choice of material for the new mainmast’s standing rigging. We’re replacing the 3/4″ wire cable shrouds, which are “wolded” with 5/8″ rope, with 2-inch Kevlar Rope. The old shrouds had rope wrapped around wire cable and made to look like 2-inch fiber rope. Despite a good effort, it was not a very authentic-looking solution to creating long-lasting and low-stretch standing rigging. Instead of looking like authentic 4-strand shroud-laid hemp rope, it looked like what it was…skinny rope wrapped around wire cable.

The new standing rigging material is 4-strand, shroud-laid, kevlar rope, which once tarred, tooks very much like hemp, is 10 times stronger, has no appreciable stretch, and is lighter than the wire & fiber rope standing rigging we are replacing.  We considered using hemp, and a much lower materials cost. Hemp is more than adequate, if not an excellent material for the job, but would likely require complete replacement every 2-3 years. The relatively frequent rig construction, assembly, and tuning labor would be far-more costly than the extra expense spent now for Kevlar. So in the long-run, I think the new kevlar rig is a labor-saving, more reliable, longer lasting, and therefore more cost effective solution than hemp. At any rate, it will certainly be better looking, longer lasting, lighter weight, and more reliable than the old rig which held up nicely for 18 years.

Check out the photos of the mast removal on John Baker’s photobucket site at: http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd89/bakerbrig/Niagara%20Mast%20Project/

Check out the photos of the new standing rigging under construction at: http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd89/bakerbrig/Winter%20January/

I regret that I am rather late with this entry, but some of you may wish to see the flickr pics from shipyard and know what they are about.

In the last drydocking in 2004, we replaced two planks (one of which can be seen at right.) This year we left Erie on September 22nd for the Great Lakes Towing Shipyard in Cleveland, OH. After haul-out on Sept. 25th and surveying the hull for the first few days of the drydocking, we were please to find no rot in the hull.

The drydocking this time involved a substantial re-corking job. NIAGARA is carvel planked, which means each plank is layed alongside the next as they are fastened to the frames. The seam between the planks is “corked” by driving relatively thick cotton yarn into the seam, then several layers of oakum. Oakum is a thick hemp yarn, which is treated with a tar/ linseed/ terpentine or similar chemical mixture to protect it from water intrusion and rot. After the cotton and oakum are driven into the seams, the remaining 3/8″ or so of the seam’s depth is filled with a seam compound (putty).

We hired a team of four corkers from the Haven Boatworks shipyard in Port Townsend, WA to work for three weeks at the yard in Cleveland, OH where we hauled out.

Together, their team and our crew reefed and re-corked the hull from about one foot above the waterline to about 3-4 feet below the waterline. This area is the wind-water line. Last spring the same company came to Erie to reef and recork most of the topsides of the ship (one foot above the waterline to the waterway plank at the deck edge).

 The corkers were quite impressive workers. While our crew stayed ahead of the corkers reefing out the old oakum in the shipyard, they followed behind with oakum, irons, and mallets ten hours a day for twenty days. Ibuprofen was the drug of choice to keep their elbows and wrists on task.

As we finished reefing, we followed behind the corkers painting the finished oakum with bottom paint, then filling the seams with underwater seam compound. Now the ship’s hull is re-corked from the deck-edge to well below the waterline. Our survey indicated no rot in the planking and no rotten oakum below the waterline (or anywhere else in the hull).

The oakum we removed from the wind-water line was not rotten, but was wet and moving towards rot. After 18 years of service, we were fortunate to have the funding to replace the oakum in time to prevent rot from occuring. I have hopes that we won’t have significant rot problems in the wind-water or topsides areas of the hull for many years to come.

The yard period also consisted of all of the usual routine maintenance. We lifted the rudder to inspect the pintles and gudgeons (rudder hinges). We withdrew the tail shafts to inspect bearing tolerances. We sent the propellers to their dealership on the west coast for inspection and maintenance. We pulled six plank fastenings for USCG inspection, and we received and passed our bi-annual US Coast Guard drydocking inspection.

We also installed a new speed and depth transducer to help keep our navigation electronics up to date. We launched on October 14th and returned to Erie that weekend.

Seizings are used to hold two pieces of rope together. The rope lanyards on a mast’s standing rigging are passed through a wooden deadeye, which is seized into the cable. The deadeye has three holes in it. Another deadeye is attached to the ship. Rope is reeved through the holes from the deadeye on the cable to the deadeye on the ship. When the rope is hauled upon it tensions the cable by drawing the two deadeyes closer together. Once the peice of standing rigging is as tight as the rigger wants it to be, he/she uses seizings to hold the lanyard’s tension without losing any tension. Then he removes the tackles used to haul on the lanyard and ties the lanyard’s end to the cable with a cow hitch and seized the bitter end of the lanyard back down against the other parts of the lanyard.

Sometimes the Youtube link doesn’t work right, so if the video doesn’t play, try this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYe76t7afUU

Never been on a daysail? Check this out: it’s a 10 minute video that guides you through a typical daysail from arrival on the ship to the return to your car.

Courtesy of the good folks in the film department at the Edinborough University of Pennsylvania.

A short time-lapse film showing the Niagara cover being removed and the ship rigged up for the 2005 sailing season. Each year it takes about six weeks to make the ship ready for service. The crew, volunteers, and apprentices work tirelessly to rig the ship while spending time outside the normal workday to study and train to be ready to operate the vessel with good seamanship on the first “shakedown sail” of the year (Usually around May 25th.)

July 10 to July 16, 2006

 On July 10^th we departed Erie toward Cleveland, Ohio. Although the passage was expected to be less than two days, we had provisions onboard for nearly a week. We had loaded about five tons of ship’s tools, equipment, and supplies including two cords of firewood to supply the wood stove for the summer and over a thousand gallons of diesel fuel intended to last at least as far as Bay City, MI, the port after
Cleveland.

As luck would have it, the passage began with the wind from the west-southwest- right on the nose and it built to 22 knots by mid afternoon. The day was consumed with getting the crew settled into watches, reefing topsails, and establishing the underway routine. By early evening the wind had veered to the west north-west and diminished to a comfortable 10-15 knots. So our first course sent us out into the middle of the lake on a port tack, then we tacked toward Cleveland in the evening.

We sailed through the night, but by dawn the breeze had all but died. At breakfast we were forced to fire up main engines and motor hard to arrive in Cleveland on time. Shortly after breakfast we held fire and abandon ship drills through the morning watch and spent the afternoon preparing for port arrival. We had to arrive in Cleveland before the scheduled grand arrival and parade of sail because the docking arrangement required some creativity to make the ship and her brows lie appropriately on the dock. We sorted out the details that afternoon and the following morning before getting underway on July 12^th for a 3pm parade of sail.

The port visit was a bit crazy. The ship was accompanied by eleven other traditional vessels at the Cleveland Tallships Festival. The late afternoon arrival and parade meant that we would have to work late into the evening and the following morning to have the ship ready for tours on time.

We saw an average of 4,600 visitors per day over a four-day event for a total of about 18,000 visitors. Getting to a hardware store or out for laundry or galley provisioning proved difficult due to congestion at the festival and no access to the ship with a vehicle during daylight hours due to security measure in place on the festival grounds. The festival was a hard-earned, yet enjoyable success.

Erie to Cleveland:

Total Distance: 92 NM

Total Time of Passage: 29.5 hours

Average Speed: 3.1 knots

Distance Sailed: 48 NM (52%)

Distance Motored: 44 NM (48%)

Sailing Time: 20 hours (69%)

Motoring Time: 9.5 hours (31%)

Time at Anchor: 0 hours (0%)

Time at Other Port (Safe Harbor): 0 hours (0%)

Navigation Summary

Total Distance: 1,741.5 NM

Total Time of Passages: 446.5 hours (18.6 days)

Average Speed: 3.9 knots

Distance Sailed: 497.5 NM (29%)

Distance Motored: 1244 NM (71%)

Sailing Time: 162 hours–or- 6.75 days (36%)

Motoring Time: 212.5 hours – or- 8.8 days (48%)

Time at Anchor: 47 hours –or- 2 days (10.5%)

Time at Other Port (Safe Harbor): 57.5 hours –or- 2.4 days (12.9%)

Operations Summary

The summer arrived with its fair amount of growing pains. Being only the first year in operation as a sailing school vessel, we still had a lot of learning to do about how to reach our target market with advertising. By late spring we had filled only about a quarter of the berths available for the duration of the summer sailing season will full tuition-paying trainees.

The strategy was to market to parents of young adults by listing advertisements in prominent nationally distributed sailing magazines such as Wooden Boat, Soundings, and Spin Sheet- a local magazine in
Annapolis, MD. Ironically, we did not receive any applicants through our paid advertising. All of the applicants we received applications from either saw the ship in another port, previously visited the museum, or heard about the program through our website or from a friend.

This year we are trying a different approach. We will focus more locally, and advertise through smaller local publications such as college newspapers and yacht club newsletters. We will also continue to improve our website and attempt to expand internet advertising through publishing articles and photos on prominent websites.

The spring fitting out went well with only a modest few set-backs. Each year there is a risk that something will go wrong that might affect the sailing schedule. This year we sprung the jibboom while tuning its standing rigging. It was destined to break at some point due to imperfections in the spar’s grain and many years of exertion upon it.

Good fortune was with us in several ways. The carpenters were able to make a quick and permanent repair to the broken spar in only two days time. The entire seasonal crew started work on April 15^th, so we were able to absorb and make up for the set-back in the allotted six-week rigging up period. We were also fortunate to have a very capable full-time chief mate again and the rigging up was left largely to Jamie Trost’s planning and direction.

The shakedown cruise on Friday, May 26^th was hampered by thick fog. While it was unfortunate that we could not set more sail because we would charge off sailing into the poor visibility, it was a great exercise for the officers managing the bridge and navigation. It was also good practice for me to bring the ship into her berth with only a ship-length of visibility. We couldn’t see the pier at Rum Runner’s until we were nearly past it. A navigation challenge that early in the season helped to quickly stimulate proper bridge resource management.

The following week we prepared for and had a successful annual US Coast Guard inspection. The inspectors were sufficiently impressed by our operation of the vessel and safety drills, that the inspection was quick and rather effortless. The key item on the inspection was the approval of the new generator we installed in the engine room just weeks before. The generator worked well and passed inspection without a hitch.

During the months of June and early July we spent each week training the new arriving trainees on Fridays and Saturdays, then conducting one-day training sails on Sundays and Mondays. Then on most Monday evenings we departed on overnight training sails, which returned to the dock on Tuesday afternoons.

The trainees that sailed onboard were a mix of Erie volunteers, paid trainees from all over the country, and apprentices who joined the ship largely from other maritime organizations such as the Mystic Seaport Museum, USS Constitution Museum, and other tallships from around the country.

The “Erie volunteers” are local residents from the Erie vicinity who donated maintenance hours during the winter to pay for their tuition to sail onboard as trainees during the summer. They serve a critical role in the maintenance of the vessel during the winter, and this year (once again) they helped greatly to provide the critical manpower needed from trainees to sail the ship properly.

Later in the summer we had four apprentices from the German ships Alexander Von Hombolt and Roald Admundsen as part of an international crew exchange that was facilitated by Claudia Bankhert a
Niagara volunteer from Cleveland.