Work Party: Welcoming The New York Harbor School!

This weekend we were visited by students from the New York Harbor School as part of our work party weekend. The New York Harbor School is a public high school located on Governors Island in Brooklyn, New York and relates every aspect of six unique career curriculum in the maritime industry. https://www.newyorkharborschool.org/

The BROWN has always enjoyed their interactions with the Harbor School students .We always seem to have great youth groups who are highly motivated and have high work ethics and this group is NO exception.

If you missed our first blog, check it out HERE!

JWB Volunteer Mike taught a number of students how to maintain valves. Students were tasked with finding fire stations throughout the ship and removing parts for regular maintenance, which they had the opportunity to conduct under supervision.

Practicing newly acquired skills in the pipe shop and throughout the ship's interior spaces. 

Joe, our Chief Steward (aka. the most important man on the ship), had lots of help in the galley. With twenty teenagers and four adult chaperones added to our working crew this weekend, it really made a difference!

We regularly inspect all of our life jackets. Once they reach the end of their service life they are replaced. The students swept and mopped the floor, set up the tables, and then moved the life jackets from their racks to the tables. 

A panoramic view of #1 tween deck with the lifejackets that are being replaced this year.

View fullsize

A long way down! Crew and students join together to carry buckets of our unused rivets from the shipyard from the main deck down all the way to #5 lower hold. The structure you see in this picture is actually the propeller shaft alley.

Coffee Break! Students join the crew on the mess deck for coffee (and hot chocolate). 

Cargo Operations: The crew has recently undertaken a project to restore this historic artillery piece, a Bethlehem Steel 37mm Gun. Like the BROWN, these guns were produced at Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, and were produced between 1916-1917. This was a great opportunity for the students to see active cargo operations aboard a merchant vessel, observing from all angles including right alongside the winch operators!

Cargo Ops

Students observing how the process will go and the rigging of the ship. 

Cargo Ops

Crew members rig straps to lift the gun while keeping it perfectly level. 

Cargo Ops

The lift continues. The winch operators follow the signals of the rigger while the load is out of sight.

Cargo Ops

Clear the deck! The load is about to be pulled across the deck and be set on the cargo hatch.

Cargo Ops

Once the winch operators can see the load, they take over until the 99 year old gun is almost in place.

Cargo Ops

Steadying the gun and turning it to orient it properly on the hatch. 

Cargo Ops

The delicate and precise process of setting the gun down on jack stands and a platform so it can be restored: This is where the experience of the winch operators, riggers and crew really show!

Laying down on the job? OR Testing our the Pipe Berths.

The Historical Research Library:

The BROWN has, for the past 25 years, been collecting and receiving donations of historical texts, blueprints, novels, personal memoirs, training manuals, etc. Beginning last year crew have begun the first comprehensive inventory and digital catalog of all of the items in the Library and around the ship. Upon completion, this space will become a real research library for use by PLS Members. Look for followup posts on this project as time goes on! 

Students pose for a shot in the library after unloading dozens of boxes of books and old uniforms from the library annex. They also got to enjoy the opportunity to look through historical items in the annex, including a complete collection of LIFE magazines from as far back as 1938, training manuals and history books from the 1940's, and even a complete set of flash cards from the BROWN's School Ship years.  Photographs and wartime propaganda posters were a big hit, allowing the students to see how marketing has changed over the last eight decades, and get a glimpse of what life was like before and during the war years. 

Looking into the Historical Library from the passageway, you can see most of two of the bulkheads, newly rebuilt by our volunteers.

Students were able to visit the MARK MORAN, one of several tugs just up the street from the BROWN.

Mark H., BROWN volunteer and AB on the MARK MORAN gave a tour of the tug and is seen here explaining how tractor tugs operate. 

Students also spoke with the captain and crew of the MARK MORAN. Everyone was impressed by the students' intelligent and practical questions. 

On Sunday the students took the lead and loaded a binnacle built by one of our crew members.

They brought it on board and moved it to the aft gun deck, the ship's emergency steering station.

Before And After

Before And After: Students prep the deck for paint in a bunk room.

Before And After: The students' finished work. 

Students and crew clear out storage spaces for routine cleaning and in some cases changing out items on display. 

A number of students jumped a the chance to work with our engineers on our winter maintenance projects. 

Morning muster: Bill is the BROWN's Harbor School liaison. In addition to being a member of the Deck Department, he is an active member of the School Ship Alumni Association. 

Wrapping up

The New York Harbor School was a fantastic group of kids and adults, and we were very impressed as always. The crew got a ton of work done, planning new exhibits, inventorying, and moving forward on restoration and maintenance projects. We are all excited for upcoming events this year, and can't wait to share them all with you here! Follow us on Facebook for news and events, and check back in HERE for your weekly blog updates!

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.

Welcome Aboard! Living on the BROWN in Shipyard.

Welcome to our first official Blog post! Check back every Wednesday for new material!

Many of the crew members are 'salty old souls' (even some of our younger members) and dry dock was nothing new for them, but some of us came to the shipyard for the first time this year! Colonna's Shipyard in Norfolk is about a 5 hour drive from Baltimore. To bring the ship down to the shipyard and sail the ship back to Baltimore we had ~80 and then-~60 crew members. But there were 17 or so that actually drove down and spent anywhere from two days to two weeks to the entire month aboard the ship! These crew members worked, ate, showered and slept (ie...lived) aboard our 70+ year old 'ugly duckling'. Here's a quick look at what it's like to live on the BROWN!

The view walking from the parking lot towards the ship and wondering, as a 'first timer' how in the heck one goes about getting onto the ship. It looked formidable. 

Our daily cardio, completed multiple times a day. Made extra special for those with large feet, because the steps themselves are narrow.

Once you climb the ladder on the wing wall (previous picture), you had to cross the brow... basically a steel 'gangway' that took you from the top of the dry dock to the ship. Yes, you could look down to your possible death, and NO, it did not help to hear old 'sailor stories' of the time one fell 70 feet, right after someone had crossed over it. One crew member, who shall remain nameless, was not fond of the brow... AT ALL. Yet got daily laughs from Colonna's crane operators, who watched said crew member take deep breaths, do the sign of the cross, start singing and a multitude of other things as they got up the nerve to cross. 

The end of the day brings a regular "debriefing" with the crew including a great view of the sunset over Portsmouth and Norfolk VA. On the Horizon you can see the Hammerhead Crane used in the construction of American Battleships, which we will detail in a later post!

Work: So far you must be thinking 'wow, looks like a pretty cushy experience'. But a lot of projects were done while we were there. These were things that could be done ANYWHERE, but since we were there, had the manpower and the time, it was a great time to 'get er done'. 

Lowering the ships forward telescoping mast (the small one at the top!) and changing out some old blocks was one small project. It involved a lot of really complicated rigging done by some of our crew. Despite the mast being a big piece of heavy steel, it still took a lot of convincing to get her to go down for her 5-year check up! The picture here shows Liam halfway up the mast, climbing around to the other side to remove the safety pin from the telescoping mast.

Below: A quick picture for perspective from on the top of the main mast: Our ship's photographer, standing on #2 Hatch, gets to be the center of attention in this one!

View fullsize

What's going on at Colonna's? CLICK HERE to see mid-morning panoramic view from the BROWN's main mast!

Preparing meals: We ate really, really well! In fact, we usually ate unbelievably well, depending on which culinary experts were there at the time. For hot meals, the crew gets dinner prepared every day at minimum, and very often breakfast and lunch as well. Even on our 'worst' days, we still ate well, but boy, oh boy, did we have some excellent meals when certain crew members did the cooking. We might not have pay as an incentive, but our volunteers receive some good perks in the food department. We very often invited our visitors to enjoy meals with us. Our riveting team enjoyed a hearty "tugboat soup" lunch and steak night on their last day with us, and crew from the USNS Grapple joined us one day, to name a couple. Many of the meals were purchased, cooked and served by our volunteers for their fellow volunteers. Stuffed Turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, steak, roast chickens, Pork Stir fry, Jambalaya,  Fresh produce from Maryland's Eastern Shore, and much more!

Burger Night! Bacon cheddar angus burgers on baked-fresh-that-morning raspberry walnut bread with home made bread and butter pickles and all the fixings!

And after a long day climbing up and down, doing lots of manual labor, and eating some amazing meals, it was time to chill out in our bunk rooms.

A group shot of the majority of those that came and spent time aboard while we were at dry dock. Taken the morning of departure from Colonna's Shipyard. 

Back left to right: Rick, Fred, John, Zack, Barney, Duff, Nic.

Front left to right: Mike, Walt, Andrea, Fran, Joe, Liam, and Greg.  

Missing Howard D., Joe C.,  and Paul J. in this shot.  

All pictures used with permission. 

Want to contribute? Contact us here: http://www.ssjohnwbrown.org/contact/

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.