Five colleges were onboard for the last three weeks. Each student will receive 3 hours of history credit from his/her institution. We also have a high school program this year + a college-level Environmental Science program. We interviewed the students this morning, and we can’t wait to show you the footage online….you’ll be blown away!
Learn how to get your school involved in 2012: simply call 814-452-2744x223
The Erie Maritime Museum and the Flagship Niagara League invite you to the annual Maritime Family Fun Day on Saturday, June 11, 2011, at the Erie Maritime Museum.
The Museum will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with special activities scheduled from 10:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m.
The Museum will again partner with Michael Hooks and his “Back to School Haircut Event”. Every August, Michael’s Hair Salon provides free haircuts to prepare children for the new school year. In addition to the haircut, students also receive backpacks with school supplies, as well as refreshments throughout the day.
Children attending the Maritime Family Fun Day are admitted FREE with a regular adult admission. In addition, the first 150 children who donate school supplies or backpacks to the “Back to School” event that day will also receive a wooden shipbuilding kit, courtesy of the Flagship Niagara League. Any new school supplies, from pencils and crayons to notebooks and backpacks, are gratefully accepted.
Special activities scheduled for Family Fun Day include:
• Knot-tying – learn to tie knots the way sailors do
• Learn casting from S.O.N.S. of Lake Erie
• Learn about Signal Flags, and make your own hoist necklace
• (Temporary!) Tattoos, Origami, and other activities for the youngest visitor
• Guided tours of Niagara until 2:00 p.m.; last tour begins at 1:30 p.m.
Erie General Electric Federal Credit Union is proud to present Blues at the Brig featuring the Duke Sherman Blues Band Friday, June 10 at the Maritime Museum Amphitheater. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., admission is $3, children 6 and under are free.
Blues at the Brig provides a great way for our Credit Union to give back to the community,” said Gail Cook, President and CEO of the Erie General Electric Federal Credit Union. “All of the money raised will support local charities.”
This is the second consecutive year the Duke Sherman Blues Band has teamed up with the General Electric Credit Union to give in this way. Monies raised from this year’s festivities will benefit the InProve Charitable giving program (the charitable arm of the General Electric Credit Union) and the Flagship Niagara League.
The InProve program at the Erie General Electric Credit Union is designed to work with various charities and non-profits to fulfill the Credit Union mission of giving back to the community. This year’s spotlight charity is the YMCA Kids Club at the John E. Horan garden apartments. The Kids Club program is designed to provide a place for children who live in low-income housing an opportunity to gain positive life skills in a safe environment.
The Credit Union has similar events scheduled throughout the rest of the year – including participating in the Back to School Free Haircut Day, a comedy night at Jr.’s Last Laugh and a golf outing later in the summer. More information including pictures, testimonials, video recap, and more info about the charities supported by the Credit Union through this program can be found at www.InProveErie.com
“We are always looking to impact our community in a positive way,” said Trent Mason, Chief Marketing Officer. This concert will do just that! There are many great causes and organizations in Erie and we are honored to help support them!”
Fourth Grade Students Interpret the Battle of Lake Erie
Ninety-six fourth grade students at Union City Elementary School worked since September, 2010 to create the pieces for the Erie Maritime Museum’s new exhibit of student art. Their instructor, Megan Sabatini, developed a maritime-focused curriculum which explores the Battle of Lake Erie and the U. S. Brig Niagara through visual arts.
The interdisciplinary approach used in this curriculum taught art concepts such as perspective, proportion, color, and design, using math, science, language arts, and of course, history, to help students make creative statements.
Students with diverse learning styles were able to achieve a greater understanding of difficult historical themes through the artistic process, which allowed them to connect more fully with the meaning of historical events. Their work and their reflections about the work are both purposeful and imaginative, and students have achieved a depth of knowledge about the Battle of Lake Erie and Niagara unusual for this grade level.
The student art work will be on display in the Museum Orientation Theater and area from April 12 through June 1, 2011.
Erie Maritime Museum to Host U.S. Coast Guard Art Exhibit
Fifteen paintings by 13 artists of the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program will be on view at the Erie Maritime Museum from April 5, 2011 through September 16, 2011. These works feature Coast Guard activities on the Great Lakes. They bring to life the myriad missions the service executes in the region including ice-breaking operations, search and rescue, domestic security patrols and vessel inspections.
This will mark the first ever show of Coast Guard art at the Erie Maritime Museum. The museum is an apt venue for the art given its role in preserving the region’s rich maritime heritage. The museum opened in 1998 and provides a wide range of multi-media and interactive exhibits and interpretive programs.
The Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP) uses fine art as an outreach tool for educating diverse audiences about the United States Coast Guard. Today, more than ever, the service addresses an abundance of challenges as it works to maintain the nation’s security at home and abroad and to execute its 11 statutory missions. COGAP art provides visual testimony to the unique contribution the Coast Guard makes to the nation in its multifaceted roles as a military, humanitarian and law enforcement organization.
Art from the program is exhibited at museums around the country. It is also displayed in offices of members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, senior government officials and other military services and Coast Guard locations nationwide.
Coast Guard artists—most of whom are professionals—donate their work to the collection. Today, the collection comprises over 1,700 works showing the missions performed by the service’s force of 42,400 active duty members.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the art program’s creation. It is co-sponsored by the Salmagundi Club, a New York City art and cultural center.
On Saturday, March 26, 2011, the Erie Maritime Museum Speaker Series presents a talk about Andrew Jackson Higgins and his boats, given by Dave Bierig. The presentation starts at 2:00 p.m. in the Hirt Auditorium at Blasco Library, and will include vintage film footage of Higgins’ boats and factories.
In 1964, Dwight D. Eisenhower called Andrew Jackson Higgins “the man who won the war for us”. Without Higgins’ Land Craft Vehicle Personnel (better known as the Higgins Boat), the strategy of World War II would have been much different, and winning the war much more difficult. During the war, Higgins Industries of New Orleans produced over 20,000 boats for the war effort.
Higgins, the man, was colorful, brash, and a visionary. He had the foresight to risk purchasing and stockpiling materials that the War would put in short supply, and the character to fight with the Navy itself to use his own design specifications, knowing that his designs were the best. His factories were able to manufacture world class boats in record time, and his employment practices were ahead of their time. He employed men and women, with no regard to their race, and paid them all equally.
In addition to the vintage film, Bierig’s talk will also include rarely seen footage of an unsuccessful test drop of the Higgins Airborne Life Boat.
The talk is open to the public free of charge, donations appreciated.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2011
Contact:
Mr. Caleb Pifer, Flagship Niagara League
814-452-2744x223 cpifer@flagshipniagara.org
Senior Captain Walter Rybka, Erie Maritime Museum
814-452-2744x203 wrybka@state.pa.us
Flagship Niagara Program Redefined
Erie, PA – The Flagship Niagara will serve as a floating college and high school campus this summer, and engage in three distinct voyages on the Great Lakes. The Flagship Niagara League has developed consortia relationships with colleges and premier preparatory schools around the United States. The schools worked in conjunction with the Flagship Niagara League staff to create customized courses that were specifically crafted for shipboard education. The three programs include a college level history consortium, college level environmental science consortium, and a high school level preparatory school consortium.
These unique programs will provide college students with an unparalleled experiential learning opportunity. Participating college students come from Walsh University, Canton, OH; Edinboro University, Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania; Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania; University of Connecticut, Avery Point, Connecticut; Heidelberg University, Tiffin, OH; Niagara University, Buffalo, NY; State University of New York College at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY; Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania; and Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Participating high school students come from the University School, Cleveland, Ohio; Sidwell Friends School, Washington, D.C. and Shady Side Academy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Students in all three programs will receive course credit from their home institution that will count towards their graduation requirements. “The combination of learning ecology, while living, working, and studying on the Flagship Niagara, will allow students an amazing learning experience,” asserts the lead professor from the environmental science consortium, Dr. Bill Edwards of Niagara University. The programs are the first-of-its-kind, according to Senior Captain Walter Rybka. “We have created a shipboard educational model that does not exist anywhere else in the United States,” he said. Caleb Pifer of the Flagship Niagara League added, “This is just one more example of how the Flagship Niagara is in a league of her own when it comes to formalized shipboard education.”
More about the Flagship Niagara “Pennsylvania’s Official Flagship and Sailing Ambassador” is one of the nation’s largest tall ships (198’). The ship is a reproduction of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s flagship from the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The ship was built in 1988 and is homeported at the Erie Maritime Museum, located in Erie, Pennsylvania.
The Erie Maritime Museum and Flagship Niagara will celebrate Pennsylvania’s 330th birthday on Charter Day, Sunday, March 13, 2011, by welcoming all visitors admission free that day. The Museum will be open from Noon until 5:00 p.m., with the last tour of Niagara scheduled for 4:00 p.m.
Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission sites throughout Pennsylvania participate in Charter Day annually, to commemorate Britain’s King Charles II granting the land we now know as Pennsylvania to William Penn in 1681. Most Pennsylvanians believe that our Commonwealth was named for William Penn, its founder, but in fact, the colony was named to honor Penn’s father, Admiral Sir William Penn.
Under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War (1642-51), William Penn, Sr., had risen to the rank of Vice-Admiral while still in his twenties. Admiral Penn was not regarded as a “high-minded” man in his day; he served both Cromwell and, later, King Charles II with equal enthusiasm. Despite being known as a political opportunist, as sensitive to “which way the wind was blowing” ashore as he was at sea, Admiral Penn was admired for being an excellent seaman and determined fighter. He commanded Naval squadrons for the Commonwealth of England in several battles during the First Anglo-Dutch War,but he is best remembered for helping draw up the first code of naval tactics for England, and for his crucial part in the victory at Lowestoft in 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. To encourage decisive action, successful admirals, such as Penn, were awarded vast sums of “Prize Money”.
When Admiral Penn died in 1670, his son William inherited his father’s wealth, which included the yet unpaid prize money from Lowestoft, a debt the King redeemed by granting him the Province of Pennsylvania. It was King Charles II who also insisted that the Penn name be used, to honor William’s father. So the colony established by Quakers, a religion best known for pacifists and conscientious objectors, was made possible because the King needed to pay off a debt for combat service. For the king, this Charter was a very neat solution:
It paid off a debt, without having to spend any cash.
It got the younger Penn out of the country, very desirable since Quakers were considered a subversive threat to royal authority. In an age when Kings thought they had a Divine Right to command their people to wage war for profit, a sect that would not swear oaths of fealty, recognize rank, or bear arms, was considered dangerous!
To learn how other PATrails of History sites are celebrating Charter Day, visit the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission online at www.phmc.state.pa.us.
This winter, the Flagship Niagara League tackled their most significant and expensive ship maintenance project ever… a complete re-caulking of the ship’s weather deck, which cost nearly $70,000. To understand the magnitude of a project like re-caulking the deck, one must first know a bit about it. The ship’s decks are planked with Douglas Fir, which is a high quality pine found most abundantly in the Pacific Northwest. While the ship was certainly planked with local lumber originally, Fir is widely accepted today as the best and most commonly used deck material on large wooden vessels. It is light weight and fairly rot-resistant.
A deck plank on Niagara and on many ships of her size is typically three inches wide by three inches thick by about twenty feet long (see the adjacent diagram). The seams between the planks are about one quarter of an inch wide, and are formed by a bevel that is cut into the outboard edge of each plank. The bevel is cut on only the outboard side of the plank so that the seam is square on one side and beveled on the other.
Before a deck can be re-caulked, the old material in the seam must be removed, or “reefed out”. The process of reefing out the deck seams involves using an iron hook and a bronze mallet to pound the tapered hook into the seam in such a way that it hooks the material, and the worker pries the handle and levers the material out of the seam. The worker must be very careful not to damage the sides of the wooden seam. To do this successfully, he or she must know a few tricks of the trade, and I’ll spare you the details here.
Once the seams are cleaned out and all material is removed, they are ready for re-caulking. Occasionally when reefing the seams, we find wood rot, which must be repaired. If the rot is extensive, sometimes the entire plank and adjacent plank must be replaced. This year we replaced about a dozen short planks in several areas of the deck.
In a ship’s deck, planks are nailed in place such that they touch each other on the bottom and the “V” shaped seam on top must be caulked. Caulking means to fill the seam with a layer of heavy cotton yarn and several layers of hemp oakum (another type of thick yarn), which keeps water out of the seams. Each layer of cotton and oakum must be driven into the seam with caulking irons and caulking mallets. The layers of material are aligned in a swirl pattern using a “threading iron” and a light weight caulking mallet as the material is tucked quickly, but gently into the seam, and with even and consistent distribution along the seam. This constitutes much of that part of the traditional caulker’s skill, which many people refer to as “magical voodoo”.
Then, the “tucked” cotton yarn is driven tightly into the seam with a wide-faced, thin-edged caulking iron and a light weight caulking mallet. Then the first layer of oakum is threaded into the seam overtop of the cotton, in the same swirl-pattern fashion as was done with the cotton. Again, like with the cotton layer, the oakum is then driven into the seam with a medium-sized caulking mallet.
Next, a 2nd layer of oakum is driven in similarly to before, and in some seams, a 3rd layer is sometimes required. After caulking the seams, they will be nearly filled with material, and will then need to be “Beetled Down”. The “Beetle” is a very large wooden mallet that is used with a heavy “horsing iron” to pound all of the cotton and oakum layers tightly and deeply into the seam, leaving the top ½” of the seam vacant. In the top ½” of the seam that is left, hot pine tar pitch is poured to seal the top of the seam to prevent the oakum from getting wet, but also to prevent it from creeping out of the seam if it does gets wet and expand. The oakum and cotton keep the water out…the pitch keeps the oakum and cotton in.
The Niagara’s deck is comprised of about 350 planks arranged in roughly 20 foot lengths. That is equal to about 7,000 linear feet of seams that must be completely reefed out and re-caulked every 20 years, then should be “beetled down” again about every 7 years to keep the water out, the decks free of rot, and in good condition. Over the last few years we have delayed this project, and we could simply wait no longer. This project cost the Flagship Niagara League about $70,000, and saved the ship from what could have been a much, much more expensive proposition just a year or two from now. Rot does not rest and in a wooden ship, it must be kept at bay.
This major deck re-caulking project was led by Bob Arlet, who worked for 18 years, first as our AB Seaman/Carpenter, and then as our Shipwright (highly skilled ship’s carpenter). Bob now works with us on a seasonal basis through the winter months. During the spring, summer, and fall, he works full time servicing yachts in Erie and the surrounding area at own company, Arlet Boatworks, Inc. I highly recommend his services. He has certainly done an exemplary job onboard Niagara.
Bob’s crew on this job included Pat Crosby (our full-time Mate/Carpenter, the three free-lance caulkers from Maine, and the six deck laborers who signed on for a few weeks this winter to conduct the back-breaking and highly skilled labor of reefing and traditionally re-caulking Niagara’s weather deck. They did a great job. All of the caulking is now finished, and the final scraping of the deck and repairs to rotten planks will be finished by the end of February.
Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who worked on this project, and all of our members, donors, Tall Ships Erie patrons, and museum visitors who made financing such a vital maintenance project possible.
Six local woman present their sailor's tales about their Tall Ship adventure as part of the Unicorn's all-women crew. Get an insider's view of what it took to sail a Tall Ship on Lake Erie, when they joined the Unicorn's crew during the 2010 Tall Ships Festival. The six local women are Linda Stevenson, Claudia Thornburg, Robin Scheppner, Beth Zimmer, Valerie Weaver and Rachel DeSimone. Join us Thursday, February 17th at 7:00 pm at the Hirt Auditorium at the Blasco Library on the Bayfront Parkway. This event is free and open to the public. However, reservations are required. The deadline is February 14th. Register on-line, go to www.wrterie.org then go to the News & Events tab. If you have any questions, call Hospitality Director Diane Wilson at 1-866-346-3122 or email her at wilsondiane@asburyliving.net. The Women's Roundtable is a business and social networking organization. New members welcome.
In a ship’s deck, planks are nailed in place such that they touch each other on the bottom and the “V” shaped seam on top must be caulked. Caulking means to fill the seam with a layer of heavy cotton yarn and several layers of hemp oakum (another type of thick yarn), which keeps water out of the seams. Each layer of cotton and oakum must be driven into the seam with caulking irons and caulking mallets. The layers of material are aligned in a swirl pattern using a “threading iron” and a light weight caulking mallet as the material is tucked quickly, but gently into the seam, and with even and consistent distribution along the seam. This constitutes much of that part of the traditional caulker’s skill, which many people refer to as “magical voodoo”.
