The two sails on the
JC weren't sheeted home, basically turning them into giant weathervanes.
As a training ship, the
Conrad's masts were only about 2/3rds the height of a "real" three-masted ship. Still too high for me!
The novelty value of this ship was pretty high for me. I think I took more pictures of it than anything else at the seaport!
(Is it just me, or is that open washport in the lower left corner of this picture just
waiting for a small child to crawl through it?)
The
Joseph Conrad is half-steel, half wood. In this shot, the masts, hull, bulwarks, forward deckhouse, and pin rails are steel, but everything else is wood.
The
Australia started life in 1862 as a blockade runner, before being captured by Union warships. A century later, the seaport deemed her to be too heavily damaged to receive a full restoration, so they removed the masts and most of the planking, and use her as an exhibit on wooden ship construction. You can actually walk around inside the ship - most of the deck beams are thankfully padded for the protection of clumsy visitors!
(Check out those steep ladders, gaps between the frames, and nails sticking out of the planking. Wonder how much they have to bribe OHSA every year?)
The inside of the blacksmith shop. The guy "running" the shop at the moment seemed pretty happy to talk about his tools and creations, and enjoyed hitting metal with heavy objects.
The sort of tool collection men grunted and drooled over in the days before power tools were invented.
None of the docents dress in period clothes, which seems to irk some people in reviews I've read online. They're probably grateful they actually get to do things, instead of standing on corners with fake beards glued on, shouting things like "shiver me timbers!" or "call me Ishmael!" at random intervals.
Why you shouldn't make the blacksmith angry.
