Maine Maritime Museum

Bath, N 43 53.710 W 69 48.818

Today was museum day. We got a good deal from the nice people there. Instead of ten dollars each for admission, we paid thirty dollars for a mooring that included two admissions plus hot showers and a free laundry. Such luxury cruisers can not resist.

This museum was recommended by Pete Lemme and Pete always gives good advice. Bath was the site of more than 40 shipyards in the 19th century and the museum stands on the site of one of the largest ones.

The most impressive thing by far in the museum is a sculpture. It is sort of surreal and sort of life-like. The sculpture in in two pieces. One piece is an outline of the bow and bowsprit of the schooner Wyoming. The other piece is an outline of the stern. Both pieces sit on the shipyard grounds precisely where she was built in 1908. The huge gap of open air between the two pieces conveys the immense size of this ship. It was mightily impressive. I backed off 300 yards to get a picture of the sculpture, but it still wouldn't fit in the image on my camera. I had to back off even more and move to an oblique angle to get a picture. I'll post it to the blog when I can. That was one of the most effective works of art I've ever seen. The museum plans to finish it, with more outlines of the skeleton of the keel and ribs plus the six masts. That will no doubt be quite a work of art too but I can't help wondering if it might become less effective as it becomes more explicit.

We followed the guided tour and learned a lot about the life and the methods used in the shipyard. Wow. They sure had impressive technology back then. They also had to have numerous skills to build the ship and to outfit her with sails and rigging and furniture and living implements. It is sad to think that today we have not only lost the skills of those ship wrights, but we also don't have the enormous trees in sufficient quantity to build another ship like that today.

We also went aboard the Sherman Zwicker. She is a Grand Banks fishing schooner built in 1942 -- one of the last of that type. Now she is retired and tied up at the dock of the Maritime Museum every summer. Using the critical eye of the newly informed I used my knowledge of the problem of hogging in wooden ships to look critically at her. You see, wooden ships had almost all their buoyancy midship. After some time, the ship droops down in the bow and stern and rises in the middle. Sure enough, the lines of Sherman Zwicker were spoiled. She was hogged. I'll post a picture. According to the museum guide, the useful life of most large wooden ships was only 13 years, numerous exceptions notwithstanding. It was hogging, not worms that did them in.

I also learned that the USS Constitution was hogged. To restore her, they put her on a bed of sand, and year by year they dug a little sand out from under midships. She eventually warped back to her original lines. Since she sits in the water on display, she will get hogged again and a second restoration will be needed.

All in all it was a very enjoyable day. Thank you Pete for the suggestion.

p.s. It is now 1800. The museum is closed and all the tourists are gone. There are no other boats here on the moorings. Libby and I just went ashore to take a long, hot, luxurious shower using unlimited time and hot water. That is a nearly sinful indulgence for cruising sailors.

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