GLBBS

GLBBS makes History!

Education Director Patrick Mahon reports:
The summer of 2014 was a busy and exciting time for everyone at GLBBS. We had delivered the Whale Boat to Mystic Seaport Museum the year before and now the Charles W. Morgan and her complement of whaleboats were on the 38th Voyage, visiting numerous coastal towns including her birthplace, New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The next weekend, staff member Bud McIntire and alum Ed Greiner attended the July 4th celebrations in Boston and were able to take part as guests in the yearly sail of the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor. During that visit, Bud made the fi rst contact with Captain Sean Kearns and started the process of commissioning a special boat for the USS Constitution crew. Soon after the new school year began, the U. S. Navy signed off on the building of a 32-foot Cornish Pilot Gig by GLBBS.

This six-man rowing gig has a long and interesting history. Developed in the early 1800’s on the coast of Cornwall England, the boats were originally used to ferry pilots to the incoming sailing ships in order to guide them to safe harbor. The lightly built lapstrake gigs needed to be seaworthy and fast; six strong rowers and a coxswain were employed to race the boat out in any weather, and the nature of the Pilot business soon turned into a competition to be the first crew there and get the pilot aboard. The gigs were also used for rescue and salvage operations, and, due to their speed and seaworthiness, were used by smugglers, crossing the 170 miles of open and dangerous waters between the English south coast and Brittany.

To keep in condition, the crews of the many gigs waiting for the chance to row to a ship started rowing against each other in organized competitions. Soon these competitions became popular spectator events with substantial cash prizes. There GLBBS makes HISTORY! was even an all-female rowing crew that travelled to the many competitions, taking home considerable winnings!

The gig evolved to its present form sometime in the mid 1800’s and, though the means of delivering the pilot to the ships changed, the gigs remained popular and continued to race in competitions put on by the coastal towns of Cornwall and throughout Great Britain. The gig that GLBBS is building for the USS Constitution 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 Gardener’s book, Building Classic Small Craft. This same boat was recently finished for the Come Boating! organization of Belfast Maine, and they supplied us with a new table of offsets to complement the information in the Gardener book.

The Treffry gig is 32-ft. long with a beam of four feet, eight inches. The six rowers sit opposite of their oarlocks, 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. For our gig we chose Iroko, a strong and rot resistant African hardwood, for the backbone; Port Orford cedar planking and white oak for the bent frames. Various woods will be used for the thwarts, knees and rails. The color scheme will be determined by the USS Constitution crew but I anticipate a bright interior complemented by a painted hull, no doubt Navy Blue.

Student Services Director Bud McIntire completes the story:
I contacted the office of the USS Constitution to try to get two tickets for its annual, July 4th cruise. This was a way of thanking graduate Ed Greiner for his attendance at three Wooden Boat Shows at Mystic on behalf of the school, and, since he was retired Navy and a naval historian, I thought he’d really enjoy it. When I told the administrators about our involvement in building the whaleboat for the Mystic Seaport’s restoration of the Charles W. Morgan, we were promptly issued VIP tickets for the event. At the end of the cruise, Captain Kearns sought us out to talk about building two rowing boats for his crew. They had been rowing a couple of larger, traditionally-built boats owned by the Boston Rowing Club. The question was, what were these boats?

After several phone calls to the rowing club, I reached the head of their boat shop. He told me about the 32’ Pilot Gig, and that several other rowing clubs were using this same boat (in Gloucester and Hull, Mass., in Belfast, Me., and at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum near Burlington, Vt.). I called the Lake Champlain museum and found that their 32’ Pilot Gig was based on a boat drawn by John Gardner many years ago, from lines taken off of a historic Pilot Gig called the Treffry. I communicated this to the offi cer who had been appointed Project Manager by Capt. Kearns, and sent along photos. He agreed that this was the boat they wanted to have built. I gave this info to Pat who took it from there in putting together a proposal, and getting a set of drawings and offsets, etc., from a boat builder in Belfast, Maine. 

While we were researching the boat, Ed had another trip planned back in Boston, and he agreed to spend time talking further with Captain Kearns and the project manager about our whaleboat project, the school, etc. I believe that Ed, being a retired Navy Sr. Chief, as well as a graduate of our school who had been involved in the building of the whaleboat, made the difference in the decision to give GLBBS the commission. Additionally, in talking with the project manager for the Constitution’s upcoming restoration, I learned that Matthew Stackpole was on the Advisory Board. As usual, Matthew has been modest about any influence he may have had in our selection but we know how supportive he is of the school’s good work.