Breandan
03-16-2006, 10:45 PM
This is a Scow Sloop we built (we being me, my brother, and about a half-dozen other volunteers) a while back. She's a replica of a 19th century fishing vessel that we built using traditional tools, methods, and materials, being supervised by an ancient man from Mexico who helped build them down there as a kid (they were still to be found in Mexico up until the thirties or fourties I think).
I was not the only person involved in building this thing, not by a long shot, but my brother Máirtín and I re-forged the anchor, worked on the rigging, the hull itself (both construction and the sealing), the deck, and the rudder (the tiller of which is one big horkin' piece of oak). I also sailed on her as a crewman on her maiden voyage (while there is no crow's nest, per-se, I was sitting on little cross-spars at the top of the mast almost the whole bloody way). It was fun as hell :) It's now sitting at the Texas Maritime Museum in Rockport, TX, about an hour outside of Corpus Christi along the coast.
La Tortuga (http://ciarraide.org/temp/pics/la_tortuga2.jpg)
Close-up of the hull (http://ciarraide.org/temp/pics/la_tortuga1.jpg)
I was not the only person involved in building this thing, not by a long shot, but my brother Máirtín and I re-forged the anchor, worked on the rigging, the hull itself (both construction and the sealing), the deck, and the rudder (the tiller of which is one big horkin' piece of oak). I also sailed on her as a crewman on her maiden voyage (while there is no crow's nest, per-se, I was sitting on little cross-spars at the top of the mast almost the whole bloody way). It was fun as hell :) It's now sitting at the Texas Maritime Museum in Rockport, TX, about an hour outside of Corpus Christi along the coast.
La Tortuga (http://ciarraide.org/temp/pics/la_tortuga2.jpg)
Close-up of the hull (http://ciarraide.org/temp/pics/la_tortuga1.jpg)