Posted By Sarah on July 26, 2011
Heart of Oak has joined the modern era (in a manner of speaking). We’ve got a Facebook page now. Please check us out and “like” us over there, too.
Photos from Ogdensburg can be seen here at the Facebook page.
More photos will be added as other crewmembers dig out their cameras and extract the photos.
Posted By Sarah on July 16, 2011
Founders’ Day at Ogdensburg, NY is next weekend, and the crew of the Merganser is getting geared up to make the 6+ hour trek. Our primary boat-pulling vehicle died over the winter, so it’s been a scramble getting everything together. All the components seem to have fallen into place, though, and we’re looking forward to another great event from the folks of Fort La Presentation.
I’ve been looking for some tidbits to add to the site during the down time when we’re not at events, and am finding some great anecdotes in 18th and early 19th century popular magazines. I will leave you with one from the New Bon Ton Magazine, 1818:
When the baggage of Lady Hamilton had been landed at Palermo, Nelson’s cockswain was very active in conveying them up to the Ambassador’s hotel. Lady Hamilton addressed the man, presented him with a moidore [Portuguese gold coin], and said, “Now, my friend, what will you have to drink; you sailors love a glass better than money.” “Why, please your honour,” said the cockswain, “I’m not thirsty;” but, said her ladyship, “Nelson’s steersman must drink with me, and what will you take for a dram, a glass of grog, or a glass of punch?” “Why,” said Jack, “as I am to drink with your ladyship’s honour, it wouldn’t be good manners to be any ways backward, so I’ll e’en take the dram now, and drink the grog whilst your ladyship is mixing the punch for me.”
Posted By Sarah on June 26, 2011
We’re still here. I apologize for the delay in new posts, but it’s been a hectic winter. Our website was hacked for a while, but we’re back now. The intrepid crew of Heart of Oak is still around and making plans for the upcoming event season.
Right now, our tentative event schedule includes the Founder’s Day Weekend at Ogdensburg July 23-24, the Battle of Plattsburgh Sept 9-11, and the Burning of Kingston, NY October 14-1. Other events will undoubtedly be added to the list.
In the meantime, I thank you all for your patience.
~Sarah
Posted By Sarah on July 29, 2010
As we continue to make progress on Heron and daydream about the future, more and more pirate themed events are presenting themselves to us. This is very cool, but it’s causing me to re-evaluate some of my long-held opinions about the boundaries between reenacting, performing fiction, and “edutainment.” Confession time: “Pyrates” have been the bane of my existence in more than one period of historical reenactment. I grit my teeth and smile every time some group of kids runs along the shore beside our vessel yelling, “Pirates! Look at the pirates!” With the exception of one or two very specifically-themed events, we don’t play pirate. Our usual portrayal is naval militia, the armed gunboats common in an era of border skirmishes and simmering war.
Despite the Hollywood caricatures of the lovable, dimwitted comic figures or the sexy, dangerous (yet not actually threatening) rogues, I’ve just never gotten into the whole pirate thing. I don’t think of Johnny Depp when I think “pirate,” I think of the International Maritime Bureau’s map of reported present-day attacks. I’ve been on watch in piracy-prone waters. I have friends who are currently working aboard ships that routinely pass through some really nasty areas, and I worry for them sometimes. When Pirates of the Caribbean came out, my non-maritime friends fought over who got to sit next to me in the theatre to watch me foam. (They were disappointed – after a certain point, my brain just went, “Oh, this is an alternate world without the slightest basis in our own reality,” and shut off. After that, I had a great time with those movies.)
But with the likelihood that I’m going to become a “professional” pirate reenactor/performer growing increasingly likely, I’m starting to look at it in a whole new light. Surprisingly, I’m getting excited about the idea. For starters, I’m getting better about maintaining that disconnect between Hollywood-pirates and present day sea-thugs. I can see the attraction of the pure-fantasy aspect – the “yarrgh me hearties” pyrates are a chance to let your hair down, play really fabulous dress-up, and play with guns. Without the responsibility of authenticity, *everybody* can be an officer dripping with lace! That leather corset, skull & crossbones necklace, and black lace skirt is totally okay if we all agree we’re playing theme-party dress-up.
What gets me is when you see the above, and they’re claiming to be based in real history. I suppose I can’t get entirely cranky about Hollywood pyrates, though – they provide a good hook (pun not intended, I promise) into actual teaching moments. Pirates are popular. Everyone knows something about pirates, and it can be a good starting point for conversations about the myths, legends, and realities of the maritime world in the age of sail.
For the record, I’m not *totally* anti-pirate, historical or otherwise. There’s been some fascinating scholarship coming out on piracy’s implications in the early modern Atlantic world. Marcus Rediker has produced some great books looking at shipboard proto-democracy, most notably in his books Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.) and The Many-Headed Hydra : Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (With Peter Linebaugh. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.) David Cordingly has done a great job separating fact from fiction with his Under the Black Flag : The Romance and the Reality of Life among the Pirates. (New York: Random House, 1996.) There’s a lot of really neat stuff there.
As a historian, I’m really interested in from-the-bottom-up kind of history, the stories and material culture of the working man and the common housewife. Piracy isn’t as cut-and-dried as Hollywood makes it seem. (Old joke: What does a historically accurate pirate look like? Just like a historically accurate fisherman when the fish weren’t biting.) Piracy ranged from intermittent attacks of opportunity in coastal waters to multi-year professional hunting voyages with dedicated fleets. It could be a back-door way to wage war against foreign countries. In some areas, entire communities supplemented their living by luring ships onto the rocks and ensuring there were no survivors to claim the surviving cargo. Accurately portraying pirates and other common seamen could be a useful and interesting way to tell the stories of a wide section of the non-Navy maritime world.
The other issue with getting more into historical piracy – a minor one, fortunately – is that it’s a shift backwards in time for us into a period we haven’t really researched before. We usually do events that range from the mid-18th century to the early 19th, and the commonly accepted Golden Age of piracy runs from the 1650s to the 1720s. I’ve done a fair amount of scholarship for that period, but I’ve never done any costuming for that era. Fortunately, there are resources out there already, and I plan to make good use of them.
Folks like those behind the Gentlemen of Fortune website have done a great job collecting and sorting various resources for authenticity-minded pirate reenactors. Researchers such as Kass McGann have put out articles & patterns for basic seamen’s clothing of that period. We draft most of our own patterns, but I’m considering getting one of her patterns for an early common sailor’s jacket. We’re lucky in that our usual portrayal is dirt-poor common sailors, and a lot of the basic look doesn’t change except in accessories. (Not as dirt-poor in appearance as our friends the Sea Rats, however, who have managed to take the “dragged out of the gutter and into the fo’c’s’le” look to an art form!)
I suppose one of the big questions now is where we want to go with this. I’m okay these days with playing the Hollywood yarr-pyrate, if that’s what the event sponsors want us to do. That can be fun sometimes. We’re pretty good at being entertaining. (Though really, with the boat & the cannon around, any crew is really just secondary entertainment as far as most folks are concerned, I think.) I’m really hoping we get contacted to do more serious history, though. Historical piracy is one of those fields where the truth is so much more fascinating than the pop culture fiction.
Posted By Sarah on July 25, 2010
In my travels and studies over the years, I’ve collected a pretty decent library of maritime works. Some of these are chosen for their ability to tide me over the winters when there’s no liquid water around, vicariously following Sterling Hayden’s voyage to Tahiti or Farley Mowat’s amusing misadventures along the Newfoundland coast.
Others are chosen for their value as historical or technical resources. One of my favorite books for this purpose is Darcy Lever’s The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor, first published in 1808. Most of the book comes from research Lever conducted with experienced seamen; Lever himself was not a sailor. The book is lavishly illustrated with line drawings of rigging and step-by-step directions for a variety of sailhandling maneuvers.
While much of it is not relevant to a modern-rigged sailing vessel, or a small boat, it’s an invaluable resource for those who serve on traditionally rigged ships or who want to familiarize themselves with the mechanics of such vessels. Fans of Patrick O’Brian or C. S. Forester will also find it useful as a cheat-sheet for some of the terminology. As I was told when I was with SEA, young naval officers would keep a notebook of handy information to assist them in their professional studies. This notebook was called a sheet anchor. The officers would add to them throughout their time at sea. I started one when I was at sea, but my own sheet anchor is sadly out of date these days.
When I was a deckhand on the Corwith Cramer, this was one of the books we carried. As Ekk & I continue work on Heron, this book is once again on my mind.
John Masefield
We’re bound for blue water where the great winds blow,
It’s time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go;
The crowd’s at the capstan and the tune’s in the shout,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and warp the hooker out.‘
The bow-wash is eddying, spreading from the bows,
Aloft and loose the topsails and some one give a rouse ;
A salt Atlantic chanty shall be music to the dead,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and the yard to the masthead.’
Green and merry run the seas, the wind comes cold,
Salt and strong and pleasant, and worth a mint of gold;
And she’s staggering, swooping, as she feels her feet,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and aft the main-sheet.’
Shrilly squeal the running sheaves, the weathergear strains,
Such a clatter of chain-sheets, the devil’s in the chains;
Over us the bright stars, under us the drowned,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, and we’re outward bound.’
Yonder, round and ruddy, is the mellow old moon,
The red-funnelled tug has gone, and now, sonny, soon
We’ll be clear of the Channel, so watch how you steer,
‘Ease her when she pitches, and so-long, my dear.’
Posted By Sarah on July 22, 2010
I’ve put some of my photos & video clips from Ogdensburg together into a slideshow movie. I had a little trouble with the soundtrack, so it might be somewhat choppy at points. Bear with me. If the sound is still botched in a day or two, I’ll take it down & try again.
Posted By Brian on July 15, 2010
Jon Garth Swim was kind enough to share some of his photos from the Restigouche event. All photo credits are his.
Posted By Sarah on July 14, 2010
The Merganser and crew spent last weekend in New Brunswick, Canada, up at the Restigouche 1760 event. It was a long drive, about 9 hours, made longer by the excessive heat and lack of air conditioning in the truck. We got there just in time to get nailed by a heavy squall. The rain felt great after the hot truck ride.
There was some skirmishing on the water on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, as well as a field school about naval cannon drill for sailors, a wreath-laying ceremony, and plenty of time to hang around and enjoy the scenery. The site was lovely – a broad tidal river in the middle of the mountains on both side, with a bridge that spanned the water. We had much fun maneuvering to fire cannon under the bridge. The span reflected much of the noise back down in an interesting echo, and then the clap reverberated from mountain to mountain down the bay.
On Sunday afternoon, the entire fleet sailed down the river to the Quebec side. The breeze was light enough for most of that weekend that we had all our canvas up, including the square sail. This photo, taken by Jon Garth Swim earlier, shows us going down river wing-and-wing (the two big sails on opposite sides, going straight downwind).
After visiting Quebec, we teamed up with the Sea Rats to row back to the New Brunswick side and explore the shoreline. The beach is covered with all sorts of interesting flotsam and jetsam, from 19th century ceramic shards to half of an entire concrete bunker-type structure half awash in the tide. We all took turns pulling the boats. The trip was actually one of my favorite parts of the whole event – we looked like castaways on a deserted shore. The impression was bolstered by our frequent stops to pull scrap metal out of the sand. With three blacksmiths between two boats, wrought iron was a useful item to scavenge up.
It was a good event. This was apparently the first time such an event has been held in that area, and the locals were fantastic. I’ve never met such a friendly town – random visitors on the pier bought us meals and offered us crash space to get out of the rain, and everywhere we went people stopped us to thank us for coming. My only regret is that I didn’t get to explore the area more. We’ll just have to go back!
Our next event is Founders’ Day at Fort de la Présentation, in Ogdensburg, NY. That has always been one of our favorite events. (We’re even featured on their boats page… bottom center.) I’m sore, sunburned, and a little deafened, but this was a fun weekend.
Posted By Brian on June 7, 2010
The Merganser and a skeleton crew took part in the Mohawk River Heritage event in Herkimer & Mohawk, NY this past weekend. Sarah couldn’t make it so I ended up as bowman and gunner for most of the weekend. The idea was that the boats would pick up and deliver troops for an amphibious assault. The problem was with many of the troops not wanting to get their shoes wet. We ended up with a pass-in-review and mini battle in front of Gems along the Mohawk, a local eatery on the Mohawk River and sponsor of the event.
Shout-outs are due for the crew of the new battoe, “Moon” and our friends, the Sea Rats.
Friday night, the Captain and I slept under a tarp propped over the side of the (trailered) Merganser. It rained. We got soaked. We only survived the night thanks to large quantities of rum and beer, which we accidentally finished before bedding down. Saturday night, we slept on the Merganser’s deck while she was tied up along the other boats. It rained. We got wet, but thanks to the decks allowing the rain water to flow down into the bilge, not as wet as the previous night. My opinion: I like sleeping aboard better, but next time, we need to use the tarp…
The wind proved difficult for some boats. We helped crew the “Moon” on Sunday for the pass-in-review, but the way home, up river and into the wind proved a significant challenge. We rowed like mad men and were aided by a small zodiac with an outboard motor. Huzzah!
We stopped in Schenectady on the way home to have dinner with my family and then headed home smelling of black powder, slow match, campfire, rain, and Mohawk River.
Posted By Sarah on March 8, 2010
The snow has finally melted enough to get back to work on Heron. We had laid her frames down for the winter to prevent warping from snow load, and by last week we were impatient enough to shovel them out and let the sun finish clearing the yard. Ekk and I went to the lumber yard a few days ago to buy hemlock for the battens. Crewman Brian came up for the weekend and helped stand the frames. By the end, we had a recognizable vessel again!
Brian holding some of the first battens at the stern.
A lot of this is temporary. The battens are just tacked into place so we can shift them easily to find the appropriate final location for each frame. It was still enough to get an approximate idea of her general size and lines, though.
Ekk standing at the stern. This photo was taken from next to the stempost. You can really get a feel for how long and beamy she will be.
Getting the frames restood and the battens on was a major accomplishment. Now that things are freestanding again, work can be done by one or two people instead of several. Of course, having all three of us working together meant many pauses in the work while we realized the magnitude of what we were working on. She looks even bigger in person.
Ekk & I standing on the keel
For reference, the decking will be just about where our necks are in this photo. She’ll have some cast-lead ballast and an iron keel-shoe, but we’re thinking about the possibilities of water ballast, also. The interior will be divided into three watertight compartments, each accessible only from on deck.
The work crew. (Most of the weird angle is due to the camera; Heron's not really that crooked.)
Onwards and upwards!
