Institute of Maritime History

A lost Caravel lost in the sands of timeThe year was 1612, proudly three small ships were being keeled, three years later a turn of events will mark them in history. Little is known of the changes or modifications of what is referred to as the "Latin Caravel" similar in design to two of the three ships that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic to discover the New World in 1492, but changes in the course of the years did evolve.

It's been almost a year since my last entry here-- sorry!  Work has progressed on Ballena Blanca, even though I almost uniformly forget to take pictures of the results.  Finally, here's somewhat of a progress report.

Permanent slip

Ballena Blanca launched today!  all wet

We did decided on a red stripe for the boot-top... here she is a with a little bling last month:red stripe

It is Thursday morning (I think) and I am taking a few quiet moments to get set for the day. 

Starting off Monday afternoon with 400 Scouts, we have had 2000-3000 youth and adults go through the intro to Scuba area each day.  I am located in the Exhibits tent that they go through on the way out.

Topside sanding's done, so I broke out the paint this weekend.  It was only about 95 degrees-- why not?  I managed to get primer and 2 coats of Brightsides on the starboard side.  The port side and transom will have to wait a few weeks.

Here she is, taped and ready to go:ready for paint

IMH board member David Johnson spoke recently at a TED event in Washington DC dedicated to the BP Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Johnson had five minutes to represent the underwater archaeology community to the diverse audience of TEDxOilSpill as part of the session on conservation that included such notable speakers as Sylvia Earle, Susan Shaw and Carl Safina. You can watch the entire session below, David's comments are at about 2:04.

This weekend I decided to do some clean-up.  Perform a Pretty-ness on the boat.  Basically a motivational activity to keep my spirits up.

So I broke out the power-washer and went to town on the teak.  I can hear the collective gasp of all you old salts out there about destroying the precious teak!!  Don't worry-- I'll probably never do this again.  And I can't think of another way to scrape through 20+ years of pine-tree poo to actually get down to wood.

Here's the results:

Now that the spring archaeology projects are out of the way (specifically, the Roper's biennial haul and the much-touted Mount Vernon survey), I've gotten back to working on the Gypsy Blanca in earnest. 
This weekend was devoted to ripping out all the rotted hose that was connected to the deck scuppers.  Instead of draining over the side through thru-hull fittings at the waterline, all the rain from the deck was running into the bilge.  And of course, if she were in the water, the slightest roll or wave would was

We have the title to the boat!  So Gypsy is officially no longer abandoned.  We've decided to rename her, against many complaints from the "locals", who see this boat as a fixture of the marina-- as Dave likes to say, he's been here so long, he's no longer a "regular," he's furniture-- and the boat's been here far longer.  She'll soon be in the water, which will change the whole look of the boat-yard.