5 June 2016: At South Street Seaport, New York City, one has long been able to see, visit aboard, and marvel at the two iron-hulled clipper ships moored there as displays. There are several other ships there including a lightship and a couple of schooners still in active use. Shops and inside displays round out the exhibits at this wonderful museum.
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| Peking (4 masts) on left, Wavertree at bottom |
Pictured here is an aerial of the Seaport showing the two clippers, Wavertree and Peking, along with the Ambrose Lightship (very small and red at dock opposite the sailing vessels.
During the course of last year, it was determined that both of the ships needed some major refit work.
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| Peking at her berth in South Street Seaport |
The museum also decided to let Peking find a new home and she will be leaving for Germany (her origins) where she will get the attention necessary to restore her earlier glory and be appreciated by tourists and locals alike. Which left Wavertree as the centerpiece of South Street and needing work.
The following article appeared this past week in the New York Times and was shared by an archeologist, Sarah Ward, from Australia (!).
ABOARD WAVERTREE IN KILL VAN KULL —
In the 131 years since the iron-hulled cargo ship Wavertree was built, it has
been tossed and tattered — its main mast ripped away in a hurricane, and its
role demoted to sand barge.
So when the vessel sailed from the South Street Seaport to Staten
Island last year for a mast-to-hull restoration, the crew feared that the
extensive damage would draw out repairs and delay the ship’s return to its
Manhattan berth.
They should have known better.
Wavertree, which has endured no shortage of natural and economic calamity,
turned out to be more resilient than anyone anticipated. In September, after more
than a year away, she is set to return to the South Street Seaport Museum,
mended, gleaming and ready to remind visitors of the ships that define New York
City’s history. The 15-month, $13 million city-funded undertaking has
progressed ahead of schedule, hastening the goal of once again sailing
Wavertree through New York Harbor.
“We were pleasantly surprised,”
Jonathan Boulware, the executive director of the seaport museum, said. “It’s a
real testament to the era’s wrought iron.”
When it was commissioned in
Southampton, England, by R. W. Leyland & Company of Liverpool, Wavertree
was among the last large-scale sailing ships fashioned from wrought iron and it
remains the largest afloat, according to the museum. Last May, workers brought
it by tugboat to the Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company in the Richmond
Terrace section of Staten Island and expected to replace 10 large metal plates
on the hull. Instead, the 4 ½-by-20-foot slabs of iron, which sit below the
water line, needed only minor repairs.
Wavertree has nonetheless required
an ambitious overhaul, carried out by a crew of up to three dozen. The ship
spent five months in dry dock, where workers scrubbed away barnacles, seaweed
and other gunk before adding layers of protective paint to its underside. The
team has also been replacing three decks. The wood that once covered the main
deck has been exchanged for steel to keep out water. The poop deck is being
repaired traditionally, using wooden planks caulked with cotton and oakum then
sealed with pitch. And Wavertree once again has its ’tween deck, a modest level
between the main deck and the cargo hold that had been absent for decades.
The most daunting task, workers
said, has been the renovation of the ship’s three square-rigged masts and their
rigging. For that, Caddell built a pair of basketball-court-size sheds
outfitted with both old-fashioned and highly modern tools. Inside one, the crew
is building 16 spars from laminated timber. The other has held more than three
miles of wire, which was stripped of its old protective coating and wrapped in
a new layer of tar-soaked pine and leather.
Though the crew did not expect to
fully rig the ship by September, time and money saved on the hull plates
accelerated the schedule. “I marvel at how effectively and efficiently we’ve
been able to conduct the restoration,” Mr. Boulware said.
Although its immense iron frame and
masts give Wavertree a distinguished profile today, it was a relatively common
model when it was built by Oswald Mordaunt & Company in 1885. A plaque
identifies the 325-foot Wavertree as the company’s hull No. 231. Mr. Boulware
noted that stringers, which fortify the hull, on the ship’s port side dip below
those on its starboard — one of several imperfections in the construction.
The cramped quarters once held bunk
beds stacked tightly to accommodate a crew of 35 men in the ship’s heyday. Over
the years, Wavertree circumnavigated the globe nearly 30 times, ferrying sundry
cargo — coal, kerosene, jute, cotton, tea, coffee, molasses, timber. On Jan.
14, 1895, it called on the Port of New York, bearing a load of nitrate from
Chile.
In 1910, a violent storm off Cape
Horn splintered Wavertree’s masts, ending its cargo-shuttling days. Its owners
sold the ship to Chilean businessmen, who used it as a warehouse for 30 years.
It transferred hands again in 1947, beginning a career as a sand barge in
Buenos Aires. Wavertree was acquired by the museum in 1968 through the efforts of the late Peter Stanford and others who founded the museum after arranging for the ship to be towed there from South America.
The ship’s homecoming was made
possible in part by the impending departure of Peking, another tall-mast sailing ship,
which has graced the seaport since 1974. Peking, too, has been battered — by
war, by waves and by weather. It suffered through plummeting tourism in Lower
Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the devastation of Hurricane
Sandy in 2012.
Faced with mounting financial
difficulties, the museum considered dispensing with the four-masted barque,
which was built in Hamburg, Germany, in 1911. However, salvation came from the
German government, which is spending 30 million euros (about $33 million) to
bring Peking home, carried across the Atlantic Ocean on the back of a heavy-lift
ship.
“I’ll be sad to see her go, but it’s
what’s best for everyone,” Mr. Boulware, said. “It’s about resource
allocation.”
We will await eagerly her return to the dock at South Street!
Until next time,
Fair Winds,
Old Salt
