Workers at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard have caulking on their minds these days. Sitting on the ways is the tall ship BOUNTY, originally built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, for the 1962 movie “Mutiny on the BOUNTY.” Her hull has over a mile of seams.
“Our calculations told us we would need 5,280 feet of planking,” said David Stimson, the yard’s general manager. “If you include the timbers for the stem, it’s actually closer to a nautical mile.”
Since it came under new management two years ago, the yard has undertaken some impressive projects, but nothing quite this large. Forty-seven years old and 120 feet long, BOUNTY first visited Boothbay Harbor Shipyard five years ago. At the time, she was a basket case, ravaged by shipworm, her bilge pumps bailing 30,000 gallons an hour to keep her afloat. The yard gave her new planking below the waterline, but more work remained. She returned a year ago for new topsides, a new stem and a new transom.
Stimson plans to have her sailing by June.
The yard is a hive of activity. Forklifts buzz back and forth carrying lumber; small groups of people prepare strands of oakum to caulk the seams. Stimson says most of his crew have worked on wooden boats before, but steam-bending three-inch oak planking and pounding locust trunnels was still a new experience for many.
“We have about 40 people working here now,” he says. “Many of them have never worked on something like this, but they’ve learned fast.”
Since the yard’s current owner, Terry McClinch, bought the business in 2004, the shipyard has attracted talented craftspeople eager to build boats using traditional plank-on-frame methods. Most positions are filled by word-of-mouth, both with veteran boatbuilders and graduates of boatbuilding schools like the Rockland Apprenticeshop, the Carpenter’s Boatshop and the Landing School.
Some talent comes from even closer to home. Joe Jackimowicz, the yard’s foreman, has worked at the shipyard since 1978 and elected to stay on and share his experience with the new business. And Stimson has also had help from his son Nathaniel, both in the shop and in the design studio.
“He calculated the center of effort, the center of gravity, the center of lateral plane, designed the keel and the masts,” said Stimson, referring to his design for the 36-foot schooner Valora, launched last summer. “Not bad for an 18-year-old.”
The yard would like to develop its apprenticeship program to draw more young hands into the boatbuilding business. Stimson hopes to work on that in the coming years, and also hopes to improve efficiency. Getting the yard’s many facilities — including a machine shop and a shipsmithing forge — to work in concert takes a lot of planning. But its diverse services give the yard a great advantage on large projects.
Despite its complexity, the yard keeps its big ideas simple. Stimson draws his plans by hand from a half-model, eschewing the design software on which many designers rely. He and his crew hold themselves to high standards, but generally avoid “gilding the lily” when it comes to fit-and-finish. He hopes that the yard’s future will include more custom design and construction work. Now on the drawing board is a design for two 74-foot sail-training schooners, and there is talk of more schooners down the road.
But for now, like the rest of his crew, Stimson stays focused on the job at hand. There is much planking and caulking left to do.
“We have three projects at the moment,” he said. “BOUNTY, BOUNTY, and BOUNTY.”