February 17, 2016

Things needing to be fixed...

February 17, 2016

Crew on the BROWN have many projects going on and would be more than happy to see the end of winter and to finally see Spring's smiling face. With exciting trips coming up (Norfolk, Va in May and NYC in September), we have many things to accomplish and lots of planning. But we are also in the midst of some major repair work. As many of you know, we spent the end of Fall with painting the ship (thanks for ALL who donated to that fundraiser). We raised the $100,000 needed for that part and will hear back about a matching grant that we applied to for the next phase of this project.

Unfortunately, with major painting and paint removal down to bare steel, one also finds all types of small problems that need to be addressed, like rusted areas in need of welding for instance. Currently, these repairs are almost completed, and if the weather would cooperate, we'd be done already.

Once the welders are done, hopefully it will be warmer and we can finish some smaller painting project.s. With that in mind, we have been getting lots of inquiries about what you need to do to volunteer on the crew.

You need to come to the ship on a Wednesday or a Saturday.
You will need to become a member (insurance requires you to be a member to work on the ship (you can pay when you come or you can order your membership online through the online store)) and a year long individual membership is only $30.
Be prepared to learn and share. Each person will most likely be a good fit for something. If you don't know anything about ships (or historic ones), no problem, there are plenty of people there who can show you how to do different jobs. This does not mean that we only need people for technical or manual work. We ALWAYS have work that anybody can do. This type of office work or even specific jobs for upcoming projects, is always available. If you know about fundraising, grant writing, media communications, IT work (the list goes on and on), and you're willing to volunteer, we have work for you.

So, do we have requirements to volunteer? We don't require our members to volunteer a set number of hours a month. Any time you can give to the project, is welcome. We do have requirements for going on cruises and out of town trips, which requires you to be coming around long enough for us to get to know you and have a specific number of hours of logged volunteer time on the ship. Some people can get these required hours withing a couple of months, while others take 8-9 months of coming once a month, to get the same number of logged hours.

Also, we would love any help from members in Norfolk, Va and NYC. Many of you may not be able to come to the ship but may be willing to do some ground work for us to promote our visit to your city. More info to come soon about both the Va and the NYC visits, so stay tuned.

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.

andrea horrocks

February 10, 2016

Looking at the BROWN with fresh eyes

andrea horrocks

February 10, 2016

In October, students from Johns Hopkins came to visit the ship and get some practice photographing different things. Howard Ehrenfeld, Instructor, Johns Hopkins Center for Visual Arts brought his students to the ship while the house and bridge were being painted, saying that he thought the ship would be an interesting venue to practice their skills. Once they arrived, they received a safety talk and some history of the ship and then were able to go around and shoot pictures. Some of the students have sent their thoughts and a few of their pictures, so enjoy looking at the ship from a very different perspective.

Student Elizabeth Mark graciously sent the follow pictures and said :

When I asked the woman giving us a tour what her favorite feature was, she said she liked the little details. Sometimes you can get overwhelmed with all of the stuff on the boat, but when you visit it enough, you notice small details such as the rust and pealing paint.

Another thing that was very present on the ship was rope. I found this very interesting because there were many fine details that could be focused on when shooting them.

On the deck there were a lot of tall columns and wires. These sort of distort the view of the picture because the vertical lines make the objects seem taller than they were and I liked this optical effect.

I created this HDR picture of the door leading out to the deck because there was a lot going on that I wanted to capture. The inside of the boat is so simple in comparison to the deck and I think this picture captures that.

Yay, I caught Raven (fellow classmate) looking out at sea!

Another student Elena House-Hay also sent her pictures and she wrote:

______On the Ropes

Again in this picture, I made sure that the sky was nice and blue, but I also paid attention to the imagery of the ropes. I liked the texture of the ropes and how sharp they were. I also liked the perspective of the image and how it looks like a bunch of odd creatures trying to abandon ship.

____Yellow

I'm not exactly sure why I like this photo, but I do. I think maybe it's that the yellow contrasts so much with the background, but stays part of the theme of the picture because of the griminess that is present on top of the yellow and on top of the gray paint.

_____Bolts

The order and texture in this picture are important to me. The rust on the bolts compared to their orderly arrangement is interesting to me. I liked how they were in a perfect line. I also like the earthy colors.

_______Drinking the Kool-aid

While maybe not the best photo technically, I thought the subject was funny. I see a face with two eyes (the two bolts), and a mouth drinking out of a straw (the pip leading the bottom of the pentagon shape).

________Linked

I liked this photo because it is an introduction to the slightly run down vibe that I focused on for most of my photos. The rust on the chains came out well when I upped my blacks a little and the background was a challenge because I wasn't sure how bright to because so that it wouldn't distract from the chain links.

Finally, here are the photographs taken by Schuyler Metzger, who wrote:

___Life Preserver. This was one of my first shots from our visit to the John W Brown. The patterns created by the rope netting created an interesting textured background for the life preserver.

___Flag. This shot was tricky since I had to time it properly to get the wind unfurling the flag, and balance the light reflecting off the water as well.

___Rope. I really like this photo because you can see the detail of the rope and the wooden pulley. There were lots of different ropes around the deck and I enjoyed trying to capture the detail and textures of them.

___Life vest. I also really liked the large crates of life vests below deck. The patterns of the bars combined with the bright color of the vests made a great shot.

___Engine. And finally, the engine room was really interesting. However, I had a hard time getting the camera to focus for most of my shots on the tripod in the dark conditions.

These photographs from these 3 students really show the textures and colors and details that you find on the BROWN and many historic ships. In photography, there are always debates over what is the best gear, or the most interesting genre. But in reality, the best camera is the one that you have on you at any time (which could be a cell phone, a point and shoot or a $4,000 camera. It does not matter). What really matters is the eye of the photographer, and the ideas, thoughts, life experiences that are reflected in those eyes. We find these shots very cool because the students came with no knowledge or preconceived ideas, and were able to wander around and shoot what interested them.

Obviously they found some interesting objects...

andrea horrocks

February 3, 2016

Education for Seafarers

andrea horrocks

February 3, 2016

Unless you are directly related to a job at sea, or know someone who has a career as a U.S. Merchant Mariner, you most likely do not know much about it. The audience for these blogs is very diverse, from Merchant Mariners themselves, family members to history buffs and High School & College students and the general public. A day spent with students from MITAGS-PMI (Marine Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies and the Pacific Maritime Institute) at The Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education (affiliated with the Seafarers International Union (SIU)) in Piney Point, Maryland gave us enough info (and cool pictures) to be able to explain the types of training that those who make their living off of the sea, need.

MITAGS website says they are the "Leaders in Maritime Training and Simulation". They have many programs, but for those starting out in the Merchant Marines, there is Workboat Academy which is a 2 year program with weeks of classroom training and more weeks of on-board training. MITAGS offers a myriad of specific maritime credentialing courses each year, from Advance Meteorology and Advanced Navigation, to Basic Fire Fighting and Basic Shiphandling, all the way down the list to Vessel Security Officer and Watchkeeping.

The JOHN W BROWN is lucky to have 4 crew members who teach at MITAGS. For some courses, like Basic Safety Training and Advanced Firefighting, students need to be trained to be firefighters in the event that they are at sea and a fire were to start on board. MITAGS, with its very wide range of simulation training models is not equipped for Fire Fighting training, so students are bused from Baltimore, Maryland (at MITAGS) to the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education, specifically, the bridge and engine simulators at the Joseph Sacco Fire Fighting and Safety School (at a nearby satellite location).

The Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship has been training seafarers since 1967. It is affiliated with SIU and is considered a vocational school. It provides entry level instruction for those wanting to start a career at sea. This school is also on the campus of the Paul Hall Center in Piney Point, Maryland. It's a large campus that offers all types of training and for this blog we are focusing on the Joseph Sacco Firefighting and Safety training school. This is a state of the art Fire Fighting campus with awesome fire instructors, and like MITAGS, they offer a wide range of U.S. Coast Guard approved courses. Each year, they have thousands of men and women come to get certified or take specific courses. The instructors there said that they have classes each week and the fire simulators are used every week. They have so much experience with these courses that it's an art form.

The day starts out with trying to take civilian Merchant Mariners (and NOT professional Fire Fighters) and get them used to donning turnout gear. This is done by creating muscle memory...as in doing it over and over and then having them do it while timed. It also involved a safety walk through, so that students could see the buildings and the stations they would be going through that day. It was an interesting combination of showing students the safety measures and to also get them accustomed to the places they would be on that day and setting the rules (follow directions from instructors at all cost, you will never be more than 3 feet from an instructor during all live fire exercises , no one has been seriously hurt before (let's NOT ruin that streak)...that type of thing.

Then they moved onto some actual training. The campus is set up with propane, and crazily enough (and VERY cool!) with remotes held by instructors and control rooms. They started with basic hose-handling and how to approach a fire with hose in hand. This is a very methodical, and very precise approach to get the students from A to Z, with A being complete novice and Z being comfortable and confident enough to handle an emergency at sea. Students also get hands on practice with fire extinguishers, too. Students then began practicing repeatedly and correctly using SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus).

After lunch all the live fire practicals and scenarios took place, with students getting much more direct practice on hooking up to SCBA. And by practice, we mean practice until it becomes natural. Here students get to work on the Fire growth behavior lab, where they get to see what happens with smoke ceilings and they get to practice the application of water and types of patterns for direct and indirect fire attack.

One of the most interesting things to observe was how these men (this class was all men, but most classes also have females taking the training) went from being uncomfortable dressing in turnout gear and hooking up to air from their bottle, to looking much more comfortable and in some cases, VERY competent. The MITAGS instructors worked hand in hand with those from the Piney Point SIU campus to properly train this class, and it was interesting to watch. Fires are bad news to begin with, leaving a wide path of destruction in their wake and the potential to take lives. Add a fire to a self contained large ship at sea, and you can see why this training is invaluable. Hope you liked reading the information here, no matter what your point of view, and at least enjoyed looking at some neat pictures. Until next week...