Dutchman

looks great! good work

Blackbeards Crew

Ahoy all, Today found Tom W., Larry, Talon, the shipwright and myself onboard Luna. We split our efforts and made progress on projects and getting ready for new projects. We have a major project beginning a week from Monday (yikes, thats a week from tomorrow!). We have found someone who is going to rebuild the bowstem, or front end of Luna! We knew from the start that we had to replace this huge chunk of oak and kicked many ideas around about how to do this. Here are some of the discussions: A solid replacement piece of oak weighs close to a ton and would take almost two years to dry once it was cut…. IF we could find a solid piece to start with. Piecing smaller blocks of oak together would be weak. Marine plywood would be manageable and lighter, but would take a long time to fit and could possibly rot. So with this in mind, we now beging the dissasembly of the bow. Below are some pictures of what we will be removing. Luna’s original bow stem, or front of the ship will begin her rebuild next week. The flat beam going top to bottom in the picture is coming out. The interior of the bow. the beam running up and down the middle of the picture is rotten and is coming out. The worst is visible at the bottom of the picture. Our gentle reader, you may be asking what we are going to do with this bow….. Stand by for more pictures next week. You’re not going to believe how were doing this! Talon and I were in the aft cabin installing new but blocks. Not much exciting there but a necessary job. The but blocks ensure that two ends of planks are solidly joined. The ones we worked on today will be visible so they need to be just right. Now onto exciting work. Tom W. and the shipwright joined forces and began installing the railcaps! These are the tops of the rails on the deck. The shipwright installing railcaps on the starboard side. We are able to reuse most of the original material. This will be fiberglassed over and a new wood one will go ontop of it. A new cap is cut and being glued together in place. Unfortunately, we had to use new material rather than the original, but this will be fiberglassed over and great! A thing of beauty to come! This is the point where the shear, or side profile of Luna changes and where the two sections of rail cap come together. This step will be fiberglassed, but looks mighty plain. Traditionally figures are carved and placed here. Often they are mermaids, fish, animals, ornaments of some sort… Our youngest shipbuilder, Pere, will be taking these two carvings on (one to port and one to starboard) and we can’t wait to have them on board! And finally, what is Larry working on and whats it for? You’ll see shortly!

to careen without a tide swing is doable but takes some planning. all of the above techniques are correct but is missing a step in areas with little tide fall. Go to the charts and find a place with deep water next to shore. These can be most often found on the back sides of sandbars or islands at the mouths of rivers with a strong current when the tide ebbs. beach along side one of these, then use the above techniques to haul the vessel over. I would carry cribbing to block up the bow and stern since all the weight and force will be at the widest point of the hull. If you have a few crusty old commercial fishermen I bet they may be able to direct you to where they used to do this in the days before boat yards with fancy lifts.

well..... the visitor count was over 15,000. As silver has pointed out, unfortunately not everyone was dressed out..... But what a grand time!

damn near pee'd on myself looking at some of these! http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pirates+pack+the+park&oq=pirates+pack&gs_l=youtube.1.0.0.141.4969.0.9266.11.8.0.2.2.1.234.1093.3j3j2.8.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.24VoRqYcxb4

Ahoy shipmates! hot off the presses is our Fall 2013 newsletter!

CONGRATULATIONS BO!

The third attempted, first annual................... August 7, 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Ocracoke-Hatteras to present Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree OCRACOKE--The Hatteras-Ocracoke Council of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce will present Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree, a weekend pirate fest Friday, Oct. 25 to Sunday, Oct. 27, on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands. Chief activity of the jamboree will be a historically authentic encampment Saturday by Blackbeard’s Pirate Crew, a 12-member living history organization from Hampton, VA., from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the grounds of the historic Wahab House, 161 Irvin Garrish Highway, Ocracoke. The festival will begin Friday evening with a meet-and-greet at Hatteras Landing with a dozen of the pirates from the crew. Among the re-enactors will be Captain Horatio Sinbad and the Devilmen of Cape Feare, who will arrive in boats and conduct and authentic ship-to-ship battle on Saturday. The 10-person Devilmen on their longboat The Flory, will battle with Sinbad and his crew on the Meka II. Other activities for the festival include a scavenger hunt in Ocracoke Village, book signings, sing-alongs and a memorial remembrance Sunday morning at 10 at Springer’s Point, the site of the demise of Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard. “We wanted to have an event to promote the area in the shoulder seasons on both islands,” said Daphne Bennink, an Ocracoke business owner who spearheaded the event. “This was Blackbeard’s favorite place and we want it to span both islands.” This is the first year of this jamboree (despite its having to be canceled in 2011 and 2012 due to hurricanes), building up to a grand event in 2018--the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard’s death. Organizers want the yearly dates for the event to be the last week in October. Updates will be posted on the website www.piratejamboree.com and the Facebook page: Ocracoke/Hatteras Pirate Jamboree.

Ahoy one and all! Despite not posting lately we have been hard at work onboard Luna between our festival obligations. Here we have a couple of pictures from our latest efforts. This is the poop deck, so yes, the Captains cabin is now roofed over! The clamp at the back is holding a stick which will mark the railing height. ( 42 inches). It's not really obvious in this photo but the deck has a heck of a camber, or curved slope, to it so we will not be regularly using this area- also the boom will be at chest height here so under sail it will be a no go place. The main companionway is to the left forefront and the deckhatch is about center. And here is a view of the cabin top/poop deck from the port side looking back. Pretty, isn’t she! Our shipwright coming up from the cabin! what a great look! the cabin face is spanish cedar and it is beautiful! The camber is evident in this shot.