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We were hauled out at Ocean Marine Yacht Center in Portsmouth, VA, on Tuesday, April 1, 2003, instead of Monday due to high winds. The USCG hull examination was completed yesterday and we are now able to start prepping the hull for bottom paint to be applied by the yard crew.

While we waited for the USCG Inspector to arrive, the drydock yard crew cleaned the hull and worked on the steel rudder hinge plates (gudgeon and pintle plates) readying them for an epoxy "barrier" coat. Meanwhile PRIDE II's crew has been working on rigging details and bending on sail as well as many other "on deck" details. Depending on painting weather, we could be another week or week and a half "on the hard."

Ship life during drydocking is always disruptive. In the past we could live aboard the ship while it was hauled out. However, that was not an option this time so we are living in motel rooms at the local Super 8 nearly half an hour's walk away (or 10 minutes by bicycle). Fortunately, the motel is located near the center of Portsmouth so crew entertainment is not a problem.

The novel event for this drydocking is the requirement by the USCG to have some hull fastenings examined since this is the ship's 15th season. There will be similar requirements every five years hereafter. I have known about this requirement for some time, but the actual doing has presented a number of points that make me want to discuss the rationale for examining PRIDE II's fastenings so frequently with the USCG. It is a complicated discussion. It involves knowledge of traditional wooden ship construction, something the USCG is not as familiar with as they are with steel construction. It also involves regulations drawn up to establish the ways to determine the strength of a wooden boat hull but does not seem to provide any real differences between the wide choice of construction material that can be used. As usual, a discussion that involves regulations and unique knowledge gives opportunity for argument. In PRIDE II's case, she was built using metal fastenings that are not common in today's replica vessels. The bronze hull fastenings used in her, unlike galvanized steel used in most of the larger traditionally constructed 'classic' sail vessels, are not prone to wasting away like ordinary steel.

Government regulations don't appear to think this difference is significant enough to establish specific guidelines for differing metals used in traditional wooden boat construction. Nor does the government appear to recognize different strength of construction as vessels grow in size. However, there are well-recognized experts that have strongly differing opinions with the USCG position. The most significant issue being what happens to a well built wooden vessel when it is forced to experience dismantling in order to inspect metal fastenings. The point being presented is that fastenings drawn out cannot be replaced with the same certainty of achieving the original inherent strength established during construction. In defense of the USCG, their problem is the history of traditional wooden sail vessels that have sunk or nearly sunk due to undiscovered weakness of the hull. But the current regulations were written without consideration of hull weaknesses introduced by the process of safety inspections requiring dismantling. In recent times, it has been found that using X-ray technology may make it possible to avoid dismantling the vessel in order to "see" the condition of the fastening. But this technology is expensive and can't always see well enough to give a good enough picture to be sure what one is seeing is or is not presenting signs of a problem. False positives could be a real problem. But to remove fastenings means dismantling, and I am told by PRIDE II's builder there is just no way a refastening of undamaged or weakened fastenings can result in the same strength as was achieved during construction. After considering much of this, I have decided to physically remove the hull planking fastenings and to experiment with X-ray to "see" some of the keel bolts which, I feel, should not be removed merely to look at them.

For the removal of the planking fastenings chosen for inspection, I arranged for John Shellenberger, a past engineer of PRIDE II who is working as a carpenter for Peregrine Construction owned by Leroy Suroski who was the foreman of the original construction crew of PRIDE II, to come all the way down from Baltimore to remove the fastenings. The trick with removing the fastenings is the possibility that the fastening would break with the attempted removal. Fortunately, this did not happen. But this was not by good luck. Leroy coached John prior to his driving down on the ways to free up the fastening prior to removal. The fear was the fastening could be so tight in the tropical hardwood frame the fastening might be broken during removal. John was careful and all sixteen fastenings came out. Their condition looked good to me. Corrosion consultant Bob Campbell, who came down from Annapolis at my request to meet with the USCG Inspector, later confirmed my observation. But now that they are seen to be in good condition, they must be replaced with new fastenings which are not strong enough to pull back any shifting of the nearly 3-inch thick planking that may have occurred when the original fastenings were pulled. Hence the concern for any more fastenings being pulled in future years without sufficient cause. So I am waiting with baited breath to see the results of the X-ray results on the keel bolts to see if we can adequately examine hull fastenings and keel bolts for the USCG regulations without dismantling. Meanwhile, since John could not wait for the hull exam to be accomplished to re-install the new fastenings, he must come all the way back to Portsmouth from Baltimore next week to do this. Which may or may not delay our launching because we must wait for the bungs to dry that are glued over the top of the fastenings, and we must get primer paint on them before multiple coats of bottom paint can go on prior to launching. Not being able to do our dry-docking in Baltimore is causing no end of logistical problems with consequent extra expenses.

Cheers
Captain Miles