Onrust

Viewed from the boat launch, some of the details of Onrust. (Some history in yesterday's post.)

There's another sailing vessel tied up on the other side of the dock from Onrust - a pirate ship! It looks like these are friendly pirates, though...

From the bow, we see the bowsprit, the hole for the anchor line, the main mast with the sail gathered round the base, the even longer gaff mast going up at an angle, the leeboard (one on each side) and in the stern, the tiller is barely visible. No wheel, but a tiller.

This ship draws something like 4 feet of water, so she's not going to be deep enough to sail a reach (wind from the side) without being blown over. That's why her builders (then and now) added leeboards. These drop down into the water when sailing and act in the same way a keel does - it resists the movement of the boat from slipping sideways through the water.

Because there's one on each side, it doesn't matter which tack she's on; as she heels, one of them will be in the water! Leeboards are a very clever engineering answer to the problem of a ship having to sail in shallow water.

Onrust

Onrust is a Dutch word meaning 'restless.' This Onrust is a replica, built by hand with native trees and the construction methods of 1614.

Adriaen Block was a Dutch explorer who was stranded in Manhattan when his ship Tyger burnt. Rather than give up, he and his crew built a new vessel - Onrust - and proceeded to sail her up and down the East Coast from New Jersey to Massachussetts. Block Island is named for him, and the maps he made were so good they were still in use a hundred years later. That makes Onrust the first ship built by Europeans in North America.

I'm sure that's all interesting (yawn) but what has it got to do with Schenectady? The new Onrust was built just outside the city, at the Mabee Farm in Rotterdam Junction. She's currently tied up across the Mohawk River at the marina on Freeman's Bridge Road.

Why was she built in the first place? Because it was in the year 1609 - 400 years ago - that Henry Hudson made his voyages of discovery on the East Coast. And the current Onrust is part of the quadricentennial celebrations. She's already sailed to New York City and she's back up here for a while, enjoying the relative quiet.