SAD CHAPTER FOR GALVESTON BENEFITS HISTORY PROJECT
By Harvey Rice
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 8, 2010, 9:22PM

GALVESTON — Sam Turner had no idea where he was going to get enough live oak to supply Spanish shipwrights building a replica of the 1779 brig Galveztown, named after Galveston, Texas.

Then Hurricane Ike swamped the city Sept. 13, 2008, killing an estimated 40,000 trees with salt water.

“This project got kicked off in May 2008, and Ike hit in September, and the connection was made that there is a lot of wood there,” said Turner, archeology director for the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum in St. Augustine, Fla.

Continue reading "International Partnership Gets Help from Galveston" »

Read the full story and view John Pemberton's great photos.

Welcome to the LAMP Boatworks Hull Inventory. This is an ongoing listing by Hull Number of all small craft constructed by LAMP Boatworks at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum.

Continue reading "LAMP Boatworks Hull Inventory" »

Today boatbuilders prepared the joinery, or scarf, that will attach the Galveztown yawl boat’s assembled stem post to the craft’s keel. This was done by clamping the stem to the keel and drilling pilot holes for the silicon bronze fasteners, in this case nuts and bolts with washers.

Continue reading "Prepping the Galveztown Yawl’s Keel/Stem Scarf" »

We are pleased to announce the LAMP Boatworks Chaisson Dory Tender Drawing! We will be giving away our beautiful little rowing boat, complete with hand-made ash oars, to the lucky winner of this contest. The 10' long wooden boat was built by our volunteers at the Lighthouse and its hull number is LMP0003. All donations received from the drawing will support LAMP Boatworks, our traditional wooden boatbuilding program.

Suggested minimum donation is $5 per ticket or 5 tickets for $20. The drawing will be held in conjunction with the Lighthouse Maritime Festival on March 20, 2010. LAMP representatives will be traveling with the boat to a variety of events and locations throughout St. Augustine, where tickets will be available, and tickets will always be available at the Lighthouse through the time of the drawing. The official rules to the drawing are listed below.

Continue reading "LAMP Boatworks Chaisson Dory Tender Drawing" »

LAMP Boatworks chief boatbuilder Maury Keiser (right) and St. Augustine resident Roy Jaeger pose in front of the Galveztown's erect frames in Malaga, Spain.

One of our more exciting international partnerships is that with the Astilleros Nereo, a shipyard and maritime museum in Malaga, Spain. The shipyard is building a full-size replica of the Revolutionary War ship Galveztown, which played a critical role in the battle that switched Florida from British to Spanish control at the end of the Revolution. LAMP archaeologists provided archaeological data to inform the Malaga shipwrights as they designed the vessel, and our volunteers at LAMP Boatworks are just beginning to build one of two yawls, or ship's boats, to accompany the Galveztown on her goodwill American tour which is scheduled to begin with the trans-Atlantic voyage to St. Augustine.

LAMP's chief boatwright, Maury Keiser, headed to Spain on holiday this week and made it a point to visit the Astilleros Nereo shipyard. While there, he got a first-hand look at the Galveztown on the stocks, and got some great press as well.

Continue reading "LAMP Boatwright Visits Galveztown Under Construction in Malaga, Spain" »

Event: LAMP Boatworks' Bevin's Skiff on dislplay at the Antique and Classic Boat Show
When: Friday November 13 to Saturday November 14, 2009, 10 am to 4 pm each day
Where: Maritime & Classic Boat Museum at Indian RiverSide Park, Jenson Beach, Florida

Continue reading "11/13-14/09 Event: LAMP Boat on display at the Antique and Classic Boat Show, Jenson Beach" »

Event: LAMP Boatbuilders and boat on display at the "Pirate Gathering" Festival
When: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Where: Francis Field, St. Augustine, Florida

LAMP Boatworks volunteer boatbuilders using a planer to smooth the sides of a future keel piece.

Now that the oppressive heat of the summer has finally been replaced by cool fall weather, there has been a lot of activity at LAMP Boatworks lately. This volunteer program is dedicated to keeping alive the dying art of building traditional wooden boats. Right now our boatbuilders are in various stages of building four separate vessels. With this flurry of activity, I thought I'd share a few photos so everyone can see our boatbuilders at work.

Continue reading "Boatbuilders at Work!" »

The Chaisson Dory Tender, our most recent build.

LAMP boatworks has joined the ranks of American professional boatbuilders by passing its first Coast Guard builder's inspection. Marc Redshaw, of the U.S. Coast Guard Recreational Boat Testing & Factory Compliance Program, stopped by for a surprise inspection yesterday afternoon. Sam Turner, head of the boatworks, gave Mr. Redshaw a tour of the facility and presented the Chaisson Dory Tender, our most recently completed project.

Last spring we received a Manufacturer's Identification Code from the Coast Guard and our prefix is 'LMP', which will go on every boat built here. While we have been operating under this certification, having passed the first inspection is a nice landmark for the program. Congratulations to everyone who has made this a success!

If you would like to help support the program, hull #LMP0003 can be yours. We are currently selling the Chaisson Dory Tender, with handmade ash oars, for $3,500. Stop by and see it at the Lighthouse Visitor's Center.

Friday was an exciting day! LAMP archaeologists joined a team of St. Johns County scientists to recover a 20-ft long, 100-year old historic dugout canoe from the alligator pit at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. The boat had been sitting on the ground, exposed to the elements and to the activity of large alligators (one of which made her nest against the boat) for several years. We visited the boat the Monday before, and observed that it was clearly suffering heavy deterioration, which is why Alligator Farm officials were happy to trade it to the St. Augustine Lighthouse in return for another boat, a historic flatboat replica made by the volunteers at LAMP Boatworks.

Continue reading "LAMP Archaeologists Rescue 100-year old Alligator Farm Logboat" »

It’s Pocahontas Number Three coal, from the famous seam in Tazewell County, Virginia, and according to Brendan Burke it is great for blacksmithing.

After Burke moved the coal from the edges of the forge into the firepot, he labored at the blower churning air through the tuyere and into the fire. Green smoke rose from the coals as Burke fed the flames. “The smoke is just weakness leaving the fire,” said Burke. More precisely, impurities, like sulfur, burning off of the coal as it smolders create the green smoke and turn it into coke that is very different from the kind you would drink with your value meal. To a blacksmith, coke is the very high quality source of heat left once the “weakness,” or impurities, burn away.

Burke turns the blower to heat the steel

Continue reading "Back to 1888" »

What: Blacksmithing demonstration with a traditional forge. Items to be made include boat fasteners (spikes, nails, etc.), chain, oyster knives, etc.
Where: St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, by the LAMP Boatworks boatbuilding station
When: Thursday and Friday, November 13-14, 2008, 10 am - 4 pm
Who: Sam Turner, LAMP Director of Archaeology, and Brendan Burke, LAMP Archaeologist & Logistical Coordinator
For more information click here

Continue reading "11/13-14/2008 Blacksmithing Demonstration at the Lighthouse" »

The Xynides Boat House. (Photo courtesy of Lowell Beyer)

Standing on top of a pile of broken timbers, exposed nails, torn electrical wiring, and a healthy dose of tetanus-in-the-wings can be a normal day for a maritime archaeologist. We recently had some of those days and I report on them here.

Continue reading "Un-breaking the Mold" »

October 29th dawned bright and chilly. The day marked the beginning of the Galveztown Yawl Project at LAMP Boatworks. The Galveztown is a replica brig under construction in Malaga, Spain. LAMP Boatworks is a principal project partner supplying the Spanish shipyard, Astilleros Nereo, with Live Oak timber for the construction of the ship’s hull. LAMP is also assisting the project by building two yawls. These small ship’s boats will be 14 and 16 feet long and will travel nested on the deck of the Galveztown after the tall ship calls in St. Augustine in 2011.

All craft, be they ships or boats, require fairly special lumber. The process begins with the collecting of tree trunks of suitable timber and then milling them into the required dimensions and shapes.

Continue reading "Milling Begins for the Galveztown Yawls" »

Boat builders- job well done!

LAMP Boatworks has just finished framing the Chaisson Tender, a small rowing gig that has been under construction for some months at the Lighthouse. It’s an important milestone in the building of this particular craft and one for LAMP Boatworks as well. Frames and half-frames, also known as ribs, are important structural members of any boat. In this case half-frames were used and were steam bent, a technological innovation that gives boat builders a leg up in savings of time and materials. Steam bending is an important skill to master and apply and so doing places LAMP Boatworks further down the road toward a first class boatworks.

Continue reading "Bent at the Lighthouse" »

The June 2008 LAMP maritime archaeology field school, accredited by Plymouth State University, is currently underway in St. Augustine, Florida. Here students Ben Siegel and Ryan Flory are in the background with LAMP intern Renee Post. PSU Professor Dave Switzer is in the foreground.

Continue reading "LAMP/Plymouth State University Maritime Archaeology Field School is Underway!" »

Most folks know that one of the most exciting new projects at the Lighthouse is our wooden boatbuilding program. Part of LAMP's First Coast Maritime Archaeology Project, the LAMP Boatworks is dedicated to keeping traditional maritime craftsmanship alive, while providing experimental archaeological and public outreach avenues to help us better interpret boat and ship remains preserved in the archaeological record. Our first build was a Bevin's skiff, a traditional skiff design available as a kit build through the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. While this inaugural and beautiful little boat was an undisputed fantastic success, many of us were eagerly awaiting our first boat to be built from scratch. This was to be the barca chata.

Continue reading "Sea Trials for the Barca Chata" »

Last Friday night was a wonderful Boat Launch Event, as we launched the Bevin Skiff now christened the William A. Harn, after Lighthouse Keeper William Harn, a man who was at Ft. Sumter as member of the Union army when it was fired upon. This small skiff, designed in New England was perfect for Harn, whose family might have kept such a craft for bringing in supplies from Steam boats named Fern and Armeria, when they docked on what is now Salt Run. This boat is the first finished product of our recently established traditional boatbuilding program, LAMP Boatworks.

UPDATED! More pictures and video below the fold . . .

Continue reading "Boat Launch a Yo Ho Ho Success!" »

Monday October 10, was a big day for LAMP Boatworks. We installed the finished centerboard trunk in the Bevin’s Skiff, (our first building project, see blog To Build A Boat, August 2, 2007), made considerable progress fashioning the oars, built some sawhorses, and assembled a new tent effectively doubling our workspace. Jim Gaskins has spent considerable time meticulously fashioning the centerboard trunk. This piece is critical since it holds the centerboard to provide stability under sail but more importantly, has to be robustly built in order to absorb the shock transmitted to it through the centerboard during grounding events. The correct installation of this structure is also of great importance since it’s through the hull and subject to leaking if not properly done.

Continue reading "Big Day for the Boatworks" »

UPDATE: Read more about LAMP's boatbuilding program in this Florida Times-Union article online.

Posted by Brendan Burke

Visitors to the lighthouse may now notice an abundance of hammering, sawdust, and wood shavings just over the fence from the lighthouse tower. This is the newly established LAMP Boatworks. LAMP has been fortunate enough to attract the skills of several volunteers who have prior boatbuilding experience and other who are interested and willing to learn about wooden boat building. With the combined resources of LAMP and these valuable people dedicating their time and labor, we are pleased to announce the boatbuilding program is well under way!

Continue reading "To Build a Boat..." »