Workday: Historic Ships in Baltimore – Nov. 17, 2018

Photo by Anne Puppa
Heidi, Jeff and Donna Removing Paint from Range Light

The final work day for the season was a bright crisp November day. There were remnants of the first snow of the season in the shadowy corners of some buildings, but there was no threat of snow or rain on this last preservation weekend of 2018. We had seven volunteers show up for the annual decorating of the Lightship. Every year we string the colorful lights on the front and back of the ship. This year there were some new strings which was nice because we eventually got all the bulbs to light and they had a nice twinkle to them. The Captain’s Cabin received a little holiday decorating as we placed the now familiar little Christmas tree on the Captain’s desk. (I think we’ve set up this same tree for at least six years.) A mini string of lights was wrapped around the little tree to add a festive feel to the otherwise fairly barren room. Another “light” chore was to replace damaged bulbs and secure the line on the overhead lights that are strung year-round.

Photo by Anne Puppa
Tony Vacuuming up Paint Chips in Lab

Now when I mentioned it was crisp, this meant it was on the chilly side. It has to be at least 50 degrees to paint, and that wasn’t going to happen. So we attacked some of the other chores. One was to straighten out the lab that is one deck below the exhibit deck – in a section the public doesn’t get to see. You have to be a VIP (Volunteer in Preservation) to see these areas. We pulled all sorts of stuff out of there, then scraped the bulkhead, vacuumed up the paint chips and replaced all the “equipment” in an orderly fashion back on the now cleaner shelves. That leaves one more area in the forward section which we will tackle next May.

Volunteers also went down to the engine room and cleaned some of the engines that visitors can see when peering thru the porthole after climbing the steps built by Chapter volunteer Hobie Statzer. They did a good job – those engines shine! Then there was a lot of just plain cleaning. We cleaned windows, mess deck bulkheads and portholes, the bathroom in the Captain’s cabin and to finish off we polished some of the brass in the wheelhouse.

There was not a lot of electrical work this time but Greg was able to install an electrical box for some new AC lights in the engine room.

And since it was too cold to apply paint we decided we needed to remove some. So we all participated in scraping the paint off of the range light that was removed from one of the masts because it was coming lose. It is in the process of being restored. We got most of the paint off, so next time we are hoping it is warm enough to apply some paint.