Not only has the blog been missing in action, but the ship was closed for a few weeks. What the heck has been going on with the SS JOHN W. BROWN the last few months?!?!? This is Part two of the painting job that started last fall where the house was power washed and repainted. For this portion, thanks to a grant and lots of fundraising, we were able to have the deck professionally done, all at once. Even with a crew of professionals working 5-6 days a week, this took a couple of months, and many man hours. Sometimes a picture (or a few...) IS worth a thousand words.
In this gallery, you can see a lot of the work that was done taking things apart so that they could be better stripped of paint. You can also see a lot of the pictures of bare steel. Oh what a mess! Now it makes more sense why we needed to close the ship to visitors for a bit.
Each week a new signup sheet was generated for crew to come down to sit with the ship while work was being done. Keep in mind that summer is when many people go on vacation, and not to forget that most days on a steel ship are pretty uncomfortably hot, and you can see the obstacles faced this summer. But each day was covered and some crew members really gave tons of their time to see this through.
By July, things were beginning to come together...
Finally, about two weeks ago, at the end of painting, the crew had to lower all the booms into their cradles so that they could be painted as well. This is not something that happens very often; it's been about 10 years since they were lowered all the way. But at least one pair needed to be brought back up into position in the following week, so that supplies could be brought on the ship in preparation for New York. Here are a few pictures:
Check out the video of a small part of the process. We ended up raising the booms on the #3 hatch last weekend so that we can use them to bring heavy things on board the ship, but we still have A LOT of work to do in the next month before we leave for New York. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for continuing information.
Project Liberty Ship, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all volunteer organization engaged in the preservation and operation of the historic ship JOHN W. BROWN as a living memorial museum. Gifts to Project Liberty Ship are tax deductible
