Clearing two feet of snow from your driveway is stressful enough. Clearing it of a historic 113-foot whaling ship anchored in the river is another thing entirely.
Shipyard workers at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut limited themselves to rubber and plastic shovels as they carefully dug Tuesday from Record snow storm Which struck the northeast of the country. Anything metal, such as a snow blower or metal shovel, would damage the decks of the Charles W. Morgan and other wooden boats in the Maritime Museum’s collection.
“You have to be careful on your trip,” said Shannon McKenzie, vice president of watercraft operations and conservation. “The added difficulty is that you have to lift it over all the rails of the boat, which are 4 feet and 3 feet in some places for the Morgan. So, it’s an exhausting effort.”
Scott Gifford, the museum’s shipyard manager, said the crew is trying to mitigate wear and tear on the boats’ historically accurate natural materials. This involves caulking Morgan’s roof layers made of bitumen — a mixture of pine tar, linseed oils and other “old potions” — that prevent leaks. It can be pulled out with a metal shovel.
Removing snow is only the first step. Pure rock salt should then be sprinkled on the surfaces to remove any remaining snow or ice. Fresh water from melting snow is not good for wood.
“Wooden boats definitely prefer to have salt water rather than fresh water. It gets a little more permeated which is much better for the wood,” McKenzie said. “So we put salt on the roofs so that the salt dissolves in the fresh water that melts from the snow and does not contribute to the rotting of the boats.”
The process essentially replicates the way wooden ships were preserved generations ago, when ships were regularly washed with salt water, Gifford said.
“This was not our idea,” he said. “This was in the world of wooden boats long before us.”
Mystic Harbor, the country’s largest maritime museum, houses three large ships, including the Morgan, the last remaining wooden whaling ship from the 19th-century American merchant fleet. There are also about a dozen medium-sized ships in the museum that need to be cleared of snow every storm.
The process of cleaning up the entire 37-acre boat and riverfront property from this latest storm, including parking lots, began in earnest Tuesday. The Maritime Museum includes a historic seaport village with cobblestone, slate, and gravel walkways that had to be shoveled by hand. It’s a process that has been repeated several times this winter.
“It tests our patience a little bit,” McKenzie said with a laugh.
She said an enthusiastic team of about a dozen people started disinfecting the boats at 7 a.m. and finished by lunchtime. They then joined seven other workers to help finish clearing the sprawling grounds.
“There’s piles and piles of snow, but it’s really beautiful. And it was a beautiful day outside,” she said. “It wasn’t too cold. It was great. We had a great time.”
During the storm, workers had to keep a close eye on the boats. There’s always a risk that snow could jeopardize their stability, especially if it piles up on one side, McKenzie said.
The museum is expected to be open to staff with limited exhibits available to visitors on Wednesday. The Morgan will be ready for visitors over the weekend. But that may depend on the latest forecast, which includes more snow.