Mystic

A break from the bustle of New York

Taking time out from the full on pace of  New York we took the train up to Mystic in New England for a couple of days.  For many years, a visit to the Mystic Seaport Museum has been on my bucket list. 

From a distance, a tantalising glimpse of 

Mystic Museum's treasure trove of vessels. 

The New England town has the sleepy charm of a bygone time. In the days of wooden ships, Mystic was a thriving shipbuilding town, its port alive at the peak of the whaling industry of the 1800s. To our minds today, the slaughter of thousands of whales seems horrific but the products derived from whaling back then set up many a New York dynasty. The Macys, the deparment store family, owned a fleet of ships and grew their fortunes on the back of whaling. 

Charles W Morgan, built 1841

While we may now be disturbed by its history, the Museum has done a worthy job of preserving a snapshot of the era. The whaling vessel, Charles W Morgan, is a survivivor of the hundreds of these rugged ships built at Mystic, and is still capable of going to sea under sail, having done so less than 10 years ago. She was not built for speed but was well suited for her grim task and in her working years made several sorties into New Zealand waters.

'Joseph Conrad' her sailing days over, is now a classroom 

Close by lies the gently rusting hull of the 'Joseph Conrad'. She was of particular interest to me. In my youth I had eagerly read Alan Villiers tale of her world voyage 'The Cruise of the Conrad' . Villiers was an experienced seafarer and adventurer. He acquired the retired Danish sail sailing vessel 'Georg Stage' renamed her, gathered a crew together and set off in 1934 to sail her around the world. To this day she still provides a classroom for would-be seafaring students.    

 

Aboard the 'Conrad'. She still has a role to play.

The schooner 'Brilliant' is also owned and managed by Mystic Seaport Museum, She fulfils today's seagoing sail training experience in a very similar manner to that of Steinlager 2 and Lion in New Zealand. Given half a chance, I would have stepped aboard and helped cast off.

The 76ft schooner 'Brilliant' ready for sea,

  with a full season of sail training trips lined up

Among the many museum buildings is the 'Rope walk' where thin natural fibre yarns were 'spun' into ropes and cables. The original 'Walk' was over 1,000 ft (300m) long. This shed is only half that length.

Reels of course yarn 

feed the rope spinning machine

The 'carriage' twists and binds the fibres.  

The rope walk is still in working order

The 'Draken Harald Harfagre'  was built in 2010

 One seemingly out of place vessel in Mystic was this massive Viking Dragon ship. 115 ft (34m)long and 26ft (8m) wide. The dream of her owner Sigurd Aase, she was built in Norway by hand as faithfully as possible to the original Norse lines, to retrace the Viking discovery voyages to the 'New World'. Having proved herself in the North Atlantic and voyages along the US coast, her home has been in Mystic for the past few years. On the day we visited she was hauled out for survey before heading back to Norway, sadly this time aboard a freight ship.

We have delayed the launching of Antiope in order to fly to England and catch up with friends and family for a few weeks. So our next blog update will come from aboard Antiope, afloat once more in Dutch waters.

Cheers Charles and Annie