Vive L’Hermione

July 19, 2015  Hours spend building to date:  1,212

To recover from the boatbuilding workshop, we took a trip up to Castine, ME, to tour the magnificent French frigate reproduction L’Hermione.  She is perfect in every way.  A bit of the 18th century reborn, built over the last 20 years in France, where maritime preservation is, frankly, a very important part of the national psyche.  I would wager that in every part of France from the Pyrenees to Paris, you could ask “do you know anything about the frigate “L’Hermione?” and get a fairly cogent answer.  Get much past New England and ask about the Charles W. Morgan, probably not much awareness.

So what the heck is this about Castine, ME?  The Hermione was the ship that brought Lafayette to America with excellent news about French support for the American Revolution.  She stayed several years helping the colonists and one of her tasks was to reconnoiter the Maine coast (then part of Massachusetts) and chase away British ships and privateers that had been harassing the fishing fleet.  Castine was the provincial capital at that time, so was Hermione’s base.  The little town (three restaurants, two B&B’s, a gift shop and a number of very friendly Golden Retrievers) did a wonderful job hosting the hordes.  Hermione is now off to the Canadian Maritimes, then back to France before the hurricane season.

Returned to the Tardis and got some serious work done for the first time in weeks.  Forward cabin bilge is painted and the forward sole is down and seems quite solid, even before laying teak and holly plywood over the 1/2-inch substrate.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on bonding, even with hot weather that limits sessions to about 45 minutes before the epoxy starts to smoke.

The magnificent L’ Hermione

L’Hermione — hard to get the whole ship in one frame

A shapely derriere

Capitaine Molly at the wheel — British beware!

Forecabin sole

Forecabin bilge looks nice all painted up

Bonding is creeping ever-slowly to the stern