All about schooners

I spent most of the day walking around the Maritime Museum in Bath. Bath was the fourth largest ship building town in the US during the latter half of the nineteenth century. They built mostly schooners which were the reliable cargo ships of the era. Schooners have fore and aft rigging so the sails are parallel with the length of the ship. The traditional tall ship, such as a clipper, has square rigging, which is perpendicular with the length of the ship. It takes way less men to sail a schooner than a square rig. This is a schooner.


The largest wooden ship ever built in the US, the Wyoming, was built in Bath. There is a sculpture by the museum that shows the size. The thing was immense.


I also learned about how boats were launched and how they were built. This is the joiners building where trees were sawn into planks and all other wooden ship parts were fabricated. This is a three story building. Note the size of the Wyoming sculpture next to it.


There was a place where rope was made, one hell of a job.


I took a 1 hour boat cruise on the river that went by the Bath Iron Works where Navy destroyers are built.


We went past some lighthouses.



The two lighthouses below were designed so that when a ship sighted them, it would maneuver so that the front light completely overlapped the back one. The lights were placed such that when this overlapping occurred, the ship would be in the deepest part of the river channel. Pretty ingenious.



-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Wiscasset Rd,Boothbay,United States