Bluenose II on the slip

Bluenose II was undergoing her 10-year American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) inspection on the slip in Lunenburg in December and was still on the slip during the holidays. It was a somewhat rare opportunity to see the schooner out of the water, let alone out of the water in the snow.

The Cape LaHave, the Vesta and the Great Ocean Yacht Race

In the summer of 1925 when Robert McClearn (my grandfather) was 15, he joined the three-masted schooner Cape LaHave for a trip from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. 

With no power or refrigeration, sailing vessels in the early 1900s were still limited in what they could carry to feed the crew. Presumably salted fish was a staple, or fish otherwise caught during the voyage. The Cape LaHave therefore carried a small allotment of live chickens to break up the monotony of fish. 

From my recollection of the story told to me by my grandfather, young Robert was given the task of building a chicken coop out of the available materials onboard, which was limited to some wooden slats and some nails. My grandfather did his best to fashion the chicken coop out of these basic materials, but the Cape LaHave soon ran into bad weather, and he very soon became seasick - so sick that the ship's captain apparently thought he was going to have to put him ashore. Although my grandfather recovered enough to continue on the voyage, the chicken coop fell prey to a wave that swept over the ship and smashed it to bits. The remains, along with all but a single chicken, were swept overboard. My grandfather said he remembered the single remaining chicken perched, soaking wet, on the leeward rail of the ship - that is, until a second wave swept it overboard as well. The crew was forced to fall back on salted fish for the rest of the trip, and young Robert was not very popular.

My grandfather made several models when he was a child, some of which our family still has. The finest of them (in my opinion) is a model of a Grand Banks fishing schooner.

Schooner model made by Robert McClearn.

When he returned from his West Indies trip, he built two models of the Cape LaHave using materials available around the house. Although neither model was finished, the family story is that he spent so much time on the finer of the two models (pictured below) that he had to repeat his Grade 11.

The model of the Cape LaHave. It is unfinished, and has seen better days, with some damage to the rigging apparent. As well, there are cracks in the deck from drying out.

A tweet from the Nova Scotia Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on Twitter this morning about a seemingly unconnected event prompted me to finish this blog post, something I started over a year ago.

On December 11, 1866, three yachts left the Sandy Hook light ship off New York behind and set sail for the Isle of Wight in what became known as The Great Ocean Yacht Race.

The Currier & Ives poster, sketched by Charles Parsons, of "The Great Ocean Yacht Race". It is also in the Library of Congress collection. 

The print itself is quite well known in certain circles, and Salvador Dali apparently created his own interpretation of the print in 1971. The 1866 race came about after the owners of the Fleetwing and Vesta were overheard at the New York Yacht Club discussing the various merits of each vessel, by the owner of the third vessel, the Henrietta. A race with a winner-takes-all $90,000 prize ensued: starting  the race off Sandy Hook, NJ, on December 11th of that year, the Henrietta arrived off the Needles, Isle of Wight, on December 25th after 13 days and 22 hours. Fleetwing arrived 8 hours later on December 26th, and Vesta arrived a mere 1.5 hours after that. Not bad for a trans-Atlantic race.

Many years later, immediately before or during 1916, my great-grandfather purchased a yacht named the Vesta (we assume the same vessel, though she would have been at least 50 years old by this time) for commercial use. Her yachting interior was stripped out and sold off - some pieces remained in the family's possession, including apparently a sideboard in my great-grandfather's house. For her first commercial voyage, she was loaded with lumber in her new home port of Liverpool, NS. On the Liverpool waterfront at Fort Point, she is captured in a photograph on an information display board.

The information display board on the Liverpool waterfront. Note the photo in the centre.

A schooner loading lumber in Liverpool, NS, in the summer of 1916. One of the boys sitting at the bow is my great-uncle Jack, roughly age 9. 

Looking closely, the schooner is revealed to be the Vesta.

Vesta's maiden commercial voyage from her new home port to New York wasn't exactly a success -  she was promptly wrecked near Cape Sable (the wreck database says "5 miles east of Seal Island") on 21 July 1916, a total loss. It being wartime, the lack of navigation lights may have contributed to the wreck. My grandfather recalled finding her wheel displayed in a front yard on Cape Sable years later.

Growing up in his father's house in Liverpool, NS, there would have been various bits and pieces of the Vesta lying around - including the piece of wood that he used for the base of his model of the Cape LaHave.

Lunenburg Waterfront

I had heard that a schooner was being launched this past Sunday, and figuring that they would launch on the high tide, I headed over to see if I could photograph the launch. Unfortunately, I was too late, but there were still some picturesque scenes for me to capture.

David Westergard continues to build schooners in the historic Smith & Rhuland shed on the Lunenburg waterfront.

The launching ways lead into the water from the old Smith & Rhuland shed.

A more modern version of the traditional fishing dory.

The schooner whose launch I missed on Sunday, already tied up at a nearby wharf.

Further along the waterfront, other boats prepare to take to the water. Wooden boats often need to allow their planking to swell up at the beginning of a season, and to prevent them from sinking, they often need to sit on the shore while this occurs. This may be what was happening here. 

Not all the boats in Lunenburg were sitting alongside or on the shore - the tour boat in the background was taking passengers around the harbour.

It started out overcast, but the sky cleared and provided some beautiful light on the waterfront.

Sailing in Hebridee II

When done well, museums bring history to life for visitors. Working museums, such as the various working farm museums, sawmills, and blacksmith shops around the province, add live action and interactive elements, where action replace the words on an information plaque. My interests in boats and boat building aside, the opportunity to not only see a traditional Nova Scotian boat being built (or in this case rebuilt), but to actually see the end product sailing around the harbour - and if you're really lucky, to be able to join the boat for a sail - is a real privilege.

Hebridee II heading out into Halifax Harbour under sail.

I'm been following the progress of reconstructing the schooner Hebridee II at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on the Halifax waterfront for some time, and she has been the subject of this blog before:

Reconstruction of schooner Hebridee II

Revisiting Hebridee II

Rigging Hebridee II

Hebridee II - Back in the Water

Hebridee II Rechristening and Relaunching

In addition, all of these photos, and more, can be found in my Hebridee II gallery on Smugmug.

After the rechristening and relaunching, I was told by builder Eamonn Doorly that I should invite myself out for a sail at some point. It took me a while to find the time, but with the hurricane and boat hauling seasons upon us, I decided to take him up on the offer. I was instructed to meet up on the waterfront next to her berth at noon on Friday. We left the wharf in calm conditions under the power of Hebridee's electric motor, and went looking for some wind, which we found beyond George's Island. 

It was a four cruise ship day in Halifax. 

After raising the sails, the electric motor was shut down, and off we sailed. The wind started out light, but gained strength throughout the afternoon, and of course gave us some of our most exciting moments just before we were due to lower the sails. 

Soon after we put up the sails, we crossed wakes with the auto carrier Guangzhou Highway - and what a wake it was!

Approaching Guangzhou Highway.

The auto carrier had just pulled out of the Autoport in Eastern Passage, and was making a hard turn to port in order to round McNab's Island and head out to sea again. 

A rare view of an auto carrier (for me, anyway) taken low to the water and with nothing but the ocean's horizon beyond.

Guangzhou Highway's hard turn to port left significant turbulence in her wake.

Hebridee II crossing the boundary of Guangzhou Highway's wake and the tail eddies left by her propeller wash.

At this point, we temporarily lost steerage in all the turbulence, and marveled at the effects of the prop wash on the surface of the harbour. Small whirlpools passed along our port site.

A small whirlpool from the ship's prop wash.

Eamonn made his crew work for our passage, and our participation made the sail that much more enjoyable. Under his watchful eye, we took turns on the helm, raising and lowering sails, and trimming sheets. I managed two turns on the helm myself, and probably had a stupid grin on my face the entire time.

Looking up a schooner's vast mainsail - the boom often overhangs the transom, and requires running backstays to keep the rig from falling forward when going downwind. Unlike the single backstay that I am used to on my boat, running backstays need to be reset after each tack or gybe. The "BJ" at the top of the sail stands for "Bluenose Junior", the name bestowed to Hebridee's class by her designer, William J. Roué. Sailboats usually carry letters or a symbol indicating their class on the mainsail.

Schooners are known for being reluctant to tack (some more than others), and Hebridee is no exception (though this may have been exacerbated by her inexperienced crew). I am used to a smaller sloop rigged boat that is fitted with a tiller and a fin keel, and she turns on the proverbial dime. Hebridee, on the other hand, has a full keel and her rudder is turned with a wheel - the former kills more momentum when she turns, and the latter takes longer to shift the rudder hard over. One trick is to allow the jib to backwind during every tack before hauling in the jib sheet on the new tack, to allow the wind to bring the boat onto the new course quicker - but we were not always effective in doing so, and sometimes Hebridee's bow would take a while to fall off onto her new course. The light winds probably didn't help in this respect.

Eamonn Doorly adjusts the foresail sheet. Sheets are the ropes that pull sails in and out, and they often (as seen here) use blocks to gain a mechanical advantage to make it easier to pull the sail in against the force of the wind. In Hebridee's case, the blocks are from the original schooner and were refurbished for use on the new.

Speaking of the helm, the helmsman (or helmswoman) sits on a seat on top of the worm gear that the wheel is attached to. The wheel itself turns in the opposite direction of where you want the boat to go, which takes some getting used to for anyone who is used to driving a car or, for that matter, boats where the wheel operates normally. I eventually got used to it to a certain extent, but continued to second guess myself everytime I turned the wheel, and made a few mistakes. I did not offer to bring Hebridee alongside the floats at the end of the sail.

The view from the helm, with two of my fellow crew, Aaron and Ray.

When not under sail, Hebridee is powered by an electric motor and a battery. This makes her very quiet under power, and simplifies a number of aspects in her operation and design. No longer does she carry flammable diesel fuel, and the blower normally required to remove explosive fumes from the bilge of vessels powered by internal combustion engines isn't present. The "throttle" for the motor is a simple dial located by the helmsman's right ankle, and one turns it forward to go forward, back to go aft, and it is merely turned to the neutral position when under sail. Power is instantly available when needed by turning the dial in the desired direction. The endurance of Hebridee's batteries isn't known at this point, but Eamonn says he has run the engine for 5 hours and only run down the battery by 10% (although he suspects when the batteries do drop off, they will do it quickly).

Mainsail and boom.

On our way back downwind, we managed to get the fore and main sails "wing on wing" - the foresail was on the port side, and the main was on the starboard. I didn't even know this had a name until that moment.

Sailing "wing on wing". 

A good view of the cockpit from dead aft, with the helmsman at the bottom of the image. We were still "wing on wing" at this point.

I spent some of my time lying flat on my back up at the bow, under the jib, to get some shots of the rig set against the sky. I find this often makes for good photo composition, and I love the curve of the while sails set against the blue sky.

Halifax, and George's Island, make an appearance in the bottom of this image taken as we headed out the harbour. One of the halyards is tied off on the port shroud.

The sails on my boat feed into a track in the aluminum mast. On Hebridee, a rope spirals up the foremast to attach the luff of the sail to the mast. 

The curve of the jib mirrors that of the foresail.

As with the leech of the sail to the mast, the foot of the foresail is attached to the boom with a spiraled rope. The leech and foot of the mainsail, on the other hand, are attached to clips that run in tracks in the mast and boom respectively.

Another shot showing the different attachment methods used for the different sails.

Hebridee II's restoration isn't quite finished, and Eamonn expects to work on her this winter. The turnbuckles that connect the shrouds to the chain plates, for instance, are from the original schooner and grey paint is covering up their true age. She also requires some modern electronics to allow her to sail farther afield than just afternoon sails in Halifax Harbour, and Eamonn hopes to sail her down the South Shore for Chester Race Week and schooner races in 2018.

Hebridee employs polypropylene rope that has been treated to look like traditional hemp rope.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable sail. As Friday afternoons go, I've had much worse.

Goodbye to schooner "Sorca"

The Nova Scotia-built wooden schooner Sorca is reported to have sunk today about 287 kilometres southeast of Halifax, while on her way to Bermuda. The CBC is reporting that all four crew members were rescued after the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre received a distress call around 12:30 a.m.

(CBC has an updated story after interviewing the rescued crew.)

Built in Lunenburg in 1978 by Murray Stevens, Sorca was scheduled to participate in the RDV2017 Tall Ships regatta, which will stop in Halifax between July 29 and August 1.

I believe I first managed to photograph Sorca in June 2013.

In the harbour, with the Georges Island (left) and McNab's Island (right) lighthouses in the background.

Alongside at Bishop's Landing.

I'm a sucker for nice reflection.

I think the last time I managed to photograph Sorca was in July 2015, when she was alongside in front of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.

The sky was grey, and conditions for photography weren't quite as nice as in 2013.

These photos will just have to do, because it doesn't look like I will get another opportunity.