A pusher boat - massive engine used to push the sailboat when engines were allowed to be used - the dredging for Oysters had many strange rules, such as you had to use sail only for 5 days a week but could use the pusher on the other days! the small boat could be hoisted aboud the bigger craft.
The inside workshop
America is blessed with many varieties of wood available in significant quantity. Britain and Ireland did have lots of Oak, and to be fair some other woods, but Scotland and in particular Shetland had little. I recall seeing cargo manifests in a Shetland Museum that listed "flat pack boats being delivered from Norway to Shetland as deck cargo. Boats such as sixereens and foureens were built like Ikea kits - hundreds of years ago, since there weren't enough trees in Shetland. Wood is used everywhere in the states - Docks and houses, roof "slates" as cedar shingles and of course wooden boats! In my later visits to Mystic Seaport boatyards and Museums I see how raw logs arrive at the "boatyard" and the complete planks, frames and knees are cut from scratch.
To build wooden boats you needed to understand everything about wood.
Designs were also in attendance - I will subscribe to an American magazine when I return home - that specialies in Wooden boats.
As well as the boat shed inside there were skilled staff working on bigger projects outside.
These remenants of a boat could be described as a good do-er upper project! In the old days they laid complete logs down as the starting point, When wrecks were dug out of nud, or even brought to the yard after decades sitting in rain sometimes not much was left. They are foing to rebuild this boat! It will almost be as old as a ballymena hammer - you remember that one? it was really old, it has had three new heads and 4 new shafts.
The birds like this one!
Quite a few old wooden boats went out on the water too - you could pay for a trip around the bay, the boats were busy day and night.
Oyster tongs
All that Varnish, a labour of love.
Sorry for the patchy nature of this blog, it is really just an aide memoire for what I saw.