Class of 2015 to Build a Pilot Gig for the Historic USS Constitution

A couple of spokespeople from GLBBS were guest visitors onboard the USS Constitution for the annual 4th of July celebration in Boston. That visit resulted in the exciting news that GLBBS has been commissioned to build a Pilot Gig for the historic vessel.

The project is based on the Cornish Pilot Gig “Treffry” built at Saint Mawes on the Cornish coast in 1842. The lines of the original boat were reproduced and a history of the pilot gigs and their construction well documented in John Gardeners book “ Building Classic Small Craft”. This same boat was recently finished for the “Come Boating” organization of Belfast Maine and they supplied a new table of offsets to compliment the information in the Gardener book.

The “Treffry” gig is thirty-two feet in length with a beam of four feet eight inches. The six rowers sit opposite of their oarlock, each man with a twelve foot sweep. The original construction employed mostly local wood, narrow leaf elm was used for the backbone, planking and frames. A combination of elm and oak was used for the many knees and rails that finish out the boat. Traditional fastenings of clench nails at the plank laps and rivets for the frames were used.