How did the Victorians waterproof wooden ships?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
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Fun fact.
When the wreck of RMS Titanic was discovered in 1985. The researchers believed that the wood on the deck was still intact, because they could see the seams on their grainy pictures.
When further investigations were made with better equipment they discovered it was in fact the opposite. All wood had rotted away. What they had seen was the tar covered Oakum. Which had survived. Still fixed on the place were the seams had been.
Well, to be precise, _most_ of the wood rotted away. Sections that were made of harder woods (I want to say pine, but something tells me this is incorrect)(EDIT: it was incorrect, pine is what the deck planking was made of. The surviving wood is teak) still remain, but it's a minority compared to the large amount of wood that was spread over the ship. The wood planking on the decks themselves, for example, are all gone.
@@the_real_Kurt_Yarish The main deck boards were pine and those rotted away. The outer trim boards were made of teak and those were still intact when Titanic was found. Might still be today.
@@Mike-Hunt-Hertz That was it, thank you! At least I remembered that pine was involved somehow, lol.
From now on you know, pinewood is sh*t, so when anyone tells you anything different, they're trying to scam you.
@@the_real_Kurt_Yarish pine is one of the softest woods so if it was a harderwood I don't think it was pine
That must have been incredibly time intensive.
The amount of care and designing precision that went into old ships really explains why it took so long to build them
Not just "time intensive" but incredibly tedious and mind numbing torture.
No wonder jack sparrow was pissed when they shot his boat
pretty much everything about the navy was labor intensive until around the 1960s. look at the size of the battleship crews in Vietnam versus WW2
Still done on traditional wooden boats and restorations today.. it works. As the water expands the wood it gets squeezed tighter and seals the planks.
A ship like HMS Victory would have had miles and miles of This
done.
Sealing the decks would have been one of the most important parts ... fresh water will rot wood
even faster than sea water and a boat can sink or become soaked if the decks leak ... even hauled out on land.
Old wooden ships used a barracks or prison ships would be demasted and a pitched roof constructed over the decks to keep the water out.
One of the most impressive things about ships of this age was not just how they were built but how they were repaired on the go. The same is done today in some cases. Today mostly they are repaired in port or in dry docking. Back then ships were constantly in need of repair, sometimes even after just being repaired before journeys. The skill it took was amazing. Many ship builders and repairman would literally have to stop in the middle of nowhere, with only the resources at hand, and make repairs. Sometimes even having to venture onto land, cut trees, mill them by hand, and do things by eye. The absolute skill it took to do those things is what makes it so impressive.
Do or die!
The Men of Steel who sailed them. No trans silliness then.
I saw the crew do that in "Sinbad of the Seven Seas"
@@ryanlawrence9010
Maybe you should charge them rent if they're always hanging around in your head
@@CoolAndrew89 This guy would be triggered so hard if he knew the amount of trans women absolutely obsessed with old timey sailing on tallships
Or general historical re-enactment.
Makes it way more devastating watching a pirate ship sink. All that hard work.
Back in those days if you had a whole fleet of ships, watching one get sunk was devastating
Man, I always forget the sheer amount of labor involved in even the simplest of tasks back then
Yup...Just thinking about that tonight when I was getting tired of bending and loading my dishwasher!! Hahaha!! Our culture sure has changed!
Yeah, but stuff STAYED done because it was done right the first time.
@@dennisgumm7016the stuff that wasn't is sitting at the bottom of the ocean so who knows.
@@FrancisR420 I was speaking in more general terms of craftsmanship. Buildings for instance.
"The simplest of tasks"??? until the invention of the airplane ships and warships in particular were the most advanced piece of technology in human history for centuries
My grandmothers terraced house was built with an 8ft void under the back rooms. All her floor boards downstairs were calked like this against drafts. Her sailor brothers did it.
I bet it stopped the floorboards squeaking as well
thats very nice of them :))
That's badass. Hooray for brothers!!
Thats incredible
When I'm tripping and can't tell mind vs reality
I was a conscript in the South African Navy in 1974 and mustered into the Naval Police. For a while my job was to patrol the dockyard in SimonsTown. At the time they had two old WW2 wooden hulled minesweepers on the hard for refit. I watched, totaly facscinated at the skill of the team of boatwrights doing the caulking. One of the chaps called me over and asked if I would like to give it a try..... Much easier to watch than do.... it is indeed a skill.
Very cool memory. 💗
ThAnks for sharing the experience. I like hearing these stories from people
What a life you must've lived sir, have a great day, Jah bless.
Sounds amazing! Can I ask, how has life treated you, are you still in South Africa?
@@Qasibrmost white people in South Africa left, specifically my dad left because he was conscripted into the army so he left for England
I like how she actually appreciates what shes doing and not just reading a script
The amount of labor required for EVERYTHING pre-industrial revolution is mind boggling..
Ya that how they got a job
Nah, it's jut that people weren't lazy like they are today. Ask a millennial to so much as pick up a box and they'll cry... If they even notice the box with their face stuck in their phones.
@@Szrikomaybe if the pay to lift the box was enough to make a living they would do it. Get a clue
I work in a warehouse. Pretty much every warehouseman here makes $37 an hour. It's just a really tough job @@imverygerby
@@Szrikothen you go be first in line to work 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week doing something like this.
The effort it takes to do ANYTHING in life is absolutely wild.
I hate it
That's why humans have been here for thousands of years yet the majority of progress has been in the last few hundred.
@@DarrinDarwinacious lazy
Now industrialized factories make us useless
@@whitesaintatarmaon5766 or maybe just tired. not your place to judge
I'm an ancient plumber. In the olden days we packed the joints of cast iron drain pipes with it, poured molten lead in the joint, and caulked the lead to seal it.
In 1986 in Guyana as a young 27 year old technologist I used a wood called Brown Silverballi which swells in water, to build a large 6 ft diameter tanning drum (to make chrome tanned leather) and personally and single handedly caulked it like the way this lady is doing here. When we fillled the drum with water it leaked like a sieve and the manager panicked thinking he had made a mistake giving me the job because of my youthfullness, but I told him to wait and watch what will happen. In a few hours the wood swelled and tightened up against the caulking which stopped all the leaks. Even I was amazed at how efficient the stoppage was - not a drop of water was passing. I had taken the advice of boat builders in Guyana to use this particular wood and caulking method and it worked beautifully.
Yes, waiting for the hemp fibres to achieve their entire hygroscopic value is the way to do it. Then you seal with any sort of hydrophobic substance. I helped a friend recaulk his mid 1900s clipper,
So cool. I bet you have some other incredible stories!
I met this lady at the festival, and she was very kind and knowledgeable.
“👃🏻😱😫 U G H, Smells bewiful innit”
- Weird oakem lady
@@Practicalinvestments🔻
She sounds delightful!
Her hands have definitely done some hard work.shes probably harder than most men today!
Okay
As a shipwright we still do this today! Depending on the vessel it may even be cotton dipped in boiled linseed oil then tar dipped oakum. If the seems are super wide. Too much though, and when the planks swell they may split under the pressure of an over caulked seam! 🎉
She looks silly dressed like this when it's still done today. 😂😂😂
@@damircroatmastoo1985 Not really, she's talking about how it was specifically done at the time. Was not the only thing she was discussing while dressed up either.
@@freepalestine-dm2zq The title of this short video is..... "How did the Victorians waterproof wooden ships".. Pozdrav..
@damircroatmastoo1985 Not silly for being dressed like this, this is at an event. I think someone commented they met her at a festival or Faire. Makes sense why she's doing this under a tent setup.
I hates when I over-caulks me boats
Unraveling a rope to use the material is the same vibe as sponge bob drawing a head just to erase it and get a circle
My only thought is it was easier to transport/ store?
@@BrookeKnits Cheaper to buy something that already exists and then process it further than to figure out how to make it from scratch, especially if you don't have ready access to the materials you'd need to make it. But they obviously had plenty of access to rope.
@@gussampson5029Only companies produced ships - as a gigantic business relatable for economy in the country You just contact the same industry that rope makers stock up in and buy their raw material in bulk for significantly less as producing rope requires labour. No reasonable businesses would buy the rope in bulk for that.
I wonder if making it into rope was a necessary step in the process. The fibers are still twisted around each other in a chain, just thinned out.
"Get some oakum and pound it in" from Masters and Commanders FINALLY makes sense. Thank you!
Drop the S off each. Great movie though! I didn't know what that meant either til now.
My favorite movie! I’ve always known. We still used tarred/ waxed rope to seal outside penetrations on boats
I will never take Polyurethane foam and Marine Glue for granted anymore
NO 💩!
Gross
Those headaches bro!!
I was a commercial mechanical contractor. Oakem is still used today in caulk joints for plumbing applications. I have replaced many roof drains with oakem joints, they pack the area around the pipe with the stuff, hammer it down with a little chisel, and then we actually pour molten lead over it. Hammer it down again, and then a layer of rubber sealant. Very cool to see this material still in use.
lead you say 🤔
@@liukang85 yup! It’s not a common building technique anymore but there are certain applications where you can only install the drain from above, as in while you’re sitting on the roof. If you can access the pipe from below the ceiling then you can use a mechanical collar instead, called a no-hub coupling. But the lead is used as a sealant to prevent water from slipping through the joint between the pipe and the rim of the bottom of the drain itself. The oakem also acts as a barrier/seal, and the lead gets poured over it. Lead can be very easily melted with a propane torch on-site and cools pretty rapidly, and it’s soft when it solidifies so you can really seal the joint with it.
For sure. When I started out we were still setting toilet flanges with lead and oakum.
@@BoschhammerActualok good, so no water actually touches this lead then. Good to know. Dont want a flint michigan all over again.
@liukang85 plumber here, I've poured dozens of these joints and it's pretty wild every time. My foreman hands me a 5 pound ingot of lead and a torch and off I go.
Natives from Alberta and Saskatchewan used bitumen to waterproof their canoes. i need more history bits like this. Thanks
Thank-you for acknowledging our
mutual cultural history. Especially since the EXTINCT People of NFLD taught the Vikings how to build better boats and thus sealed their fate when these white people defeated the Vikings, bringing disease and death to their shores.
A trick about paint on a ship is actually to deter the barnacle problem, too. In Trinidad, they'd use the Maruga pepper's originator in the paint
My dad restored an old fishing ship in the Nineties and tried to be as accurate as possible in his building techniques. So he made me do that to the whole dang ship. I spent winter weekend upon winter weekend in an unheated hall, that was made from scaffolding. Little gas heater beside me, so my hands would completely freeze off. Love these memories ❤
😮😮😮😮😮
Thats cool. Love dads like yours
Isnt it interesting - most of us spend so much of our childhoods w mom ... but times w dad ? He creates these lasting and strong memories. Kids need their fathers
@@pibarrante6901that is a fact....
Cool.
THAT'S what caulking is? I was listening to a biography on Frederick Douglass today and it mentioned how this dude was a wizard at caulking, to the point that he used it to fund his escape from slavery (which considering that he had to hand over enough money to his master at the time to keep the guy from getting suspicious means he was making bank for a slave), and I'd heard the word before but I've never really thought to look into it. Mad respect to the people back in the day that had to go through all that.
Caulking is still a thing used often today just not the same materials especially interior of houses and stuff
Interesting, because it's said that Fredrick Douglass used to freedom papers of a sailor.
Pretty good stuff if you ask me. The stuff we use today is good but it's only quicker, cleaner, easier to clean. This stuff will hold for much much longer...but much harder to keep things clean. Caveats work this way. We have different ways of doing things, just sometimes we choose the better of such.
I know how to Caulk with the Silicone tube, but didn't know they use to Caulk with unraveled rope. Amazing
It's a little bit of both. Frederick Douglass was a skilled slave living in an industrial place so he was hired out and paid wages. He had to give most of his wages back to his master but he was able to keep a small percentage since he was responsible for his own food and housing. @@blackpalacemusiceventually after his master threatened him very badly when Douglas was late with his weekly payment one time he decided to run away.
He did use falsified papers of a free black man. Since he did work at the shipyard doing caulking he did pretend to be a sailor and he did leave on a ship but he still had to pay for that passage. With the small amount of money that he was able to keep each week he didn't have enough so his girlfriend sold some of her belongings and paid for the remainder of his ticket.
Anna his soon to be wife also sewed him a sailor's uniform
We owned a small gem mine in the Smoky Mountains for a number of years, which was open to the public. The sluice was over 40 years old, and when it started to leak in different places, I used oakum to plug it. The counter man at the plumbing supply was very surprised and happy to be able to finally sell the last half-dozen dusty bags off his shelf!
I often take for granted all the luxury modern life affords me, but being reminded of how tedious and labor-intensive (or even how dangerous) some things were back then makes me so grateful for the life I live.
In East Africa, they still do this with coconut husk and melted tires.
Can't imagine the melted tires smelling nearly as good, as oakum, but can see how that combination could work.
There's something so enabling about learning old tried and true practices
I know. When I learn stuff like this, I feel like I've accidentally found out something I's always wanted to know, but didn't realise.
@@jennytaylor3324 same, and I’m hungry for more!
You can definitely tell that she is so passionate and loves what she does and loves history and talking about it. I love hearing about it.😊
Oakum was used whenever a plumber poured a lead joint in cast iron pipe. It was tamped into the cast iron pipe joint then capped with liquid lead melted in a pot. The process was used until PVC cut into the pipe market.
I've seen old timers do it on job sites. Pretty cool process. You can actually still buy boiled oakum at Home Depot.
"The devil to pay and no pitch hot" comes from this activity. The devil was the longest seam, along the main deck.
I always understood the devil to be the seam between the keelson and the lowest plank. The most uncomfortable seam to work on, hence "between the devil and the deep blue sea" meaning in a bad place.
'Paying' was the process of pouring melted pitch into the caulked seam.
@@tonyanderson-ln9gl also the only time when "payed" is correct rather than "paid"
@@Liliphant_ Interesting. Is this where the phrase "put payed to that" comes from? It's finished at that point?
I've never heard any of these phrases before, lol.
Bermuda has tar on its beaches because of the old shipwrecks.
I lived in Bermuda (husband is Bermudian) and I don't recall seeing tar on any beaches.
Upon looking this up, it appears as though back in the 60s and 70s you could find tar balls, but hardly ever now. Very rare
Now you know why
Lies
That sounds like a huge leap to conclusion
It's mind boggling how much time and change the Victorian era spans. It began with sailing technology that was little changed from Elizabethan times and ended with iron-hulled steamships.
Taking a Catalina (amphibian aircraft, WW2 era) hull apart preparing a museum exhibit revealed that the equivalent waterproofing between aluminium sheets was rubberised canvas. Was a fascinating job (volunteer, Classic Flyers, Tauranga NZ).
They use to use oakum to plumb sewer lines in buildings too. They would fit the cast iron pipes together and stuff the joints with oakum then pour hot lead into the joint to seal it.
And for the love of god, try getting that to liquefy again to change it a pipe. Never.
Used to? They still do!
@@ronway9110it is illegal to use oakum and lead in the United States now, it is amazing how long the practice survived though. We will be replacing lead services for years to come.
@@trevorfeik3903 a quick Google search confirmed that it is still acceptable in drain lines as of 2020. 705.3.1Caulked joints.
I've seen it done in several installs in my area by top notch well trained union plumbers, as per licensed engineer drawn, city approved blueprints.
Now as far as I'm aware, any domestic water systems involving lead pipe or joints are no longer within code and any modification of the system requires updating to bring it up to code. But I will admit that I don't have specific knowledge of that being code vs' best practice.
Some of use older plumber still pack and pour lead and oakum joints.
I had the privilege of taking part in this task as a laborer on the USS constitution during a renovation period years ago. It was surreal. Felt like I was in a time machine.
With how much time and effort is put into this, I'll never look at a sinking ship the same way again.
When I was a kid in Newfoundland they still did it like this.
First thing that came to mind was “Captain and Commander” where Jack Aubrey says, “Run like smoke and oakum!”
So now I know what oakum is!
Recently watched it as Black Sails fan, definitely an unappreciated gem of a movie
Exactly what I thought. So many terms learnt from that one film!
Same here. Great film.
Interestingly, the Old English pronunciation of oak (as in, and oak tree) sounds like oakum. I wonder if there’s some connection there.
@@wesley_snipesi wouldn't call it unappreciated. The movie is very popular.
Shipwright(1963)here.. remember caulking many HM naval deck planking, still have my caulking irons...
That's amazing. I served in the Navy. Hold on to those items and pass them onto someone who will treasure this knowledge and history.
Thank you for sharing ❤
I was stationed on a Wooden Minesweeper in the US Navy. We carried Oakum in our stores for repair and emergencies.
I had to do an oakum joint on an old drainage system a few months back, still works like a hot damn
Mine has it too!
Used it instead of rubber pipe insulation at my grandpa's. When I saw what he wanted to use I was sceptical. Worked like a charm.
My house still has cast iron with lead and oakum poured joints. They clog like hell, and slow up I need to be snaked every year, but are still working 80 years later. Eventually they'll have to be replaced with PVC when a snake punches through them or hopefully before LOL
Me and my friends used to do joints of oakum as well, but instead of using the roots of the plant we'd use the flowers. Real strong stuff
@@kona702 It ain’t the lead and oakum joints that make it clog, it’s the scaly old cast iron.
The shape made the rope is the same as we aim for in welding. Interesting how things stay the same
Thank you for keeping history alive and sharing it with us!
I would never have expected to see someone knowing exactly how this was done. Thank you!
I don't know if the people showing and explanating those things are historians or just history enthusiasts, but it's always amazing to learn a tidbit of the past from them because they are clearly passionate about what they do.
Most reenactors are enthusiasts but very particular about historical accuracy and knowledge
It varies. Some also study history.
My grandfather used to recite a verse to me ,"Safe in the arm's of a policeman, Safe in Lincoln gaol, Six month's real hard labour, Pulling the donkey's tail." .The old rope being unravelled looked like a donkey's tail, (think of Eeyore) and that was the slang for picking oakum.
What is Lincoln gaol? And why safe in the arms of a policeman? I’d love to hear more about the meaning of this one
@@kafka9627, Gaol = jail. Caught, convicted, sentenced to hard labour in the slammer at Lincoln.
Thank you for investing your time in this old practice so that you can Show it to us today! Appreciated! 👍🙏
Growing up I never understood why it took so long to build a ship. But recently I've been learning a lot more about the way they would go along building them. This is absolutely crazy to me to learn about this
Oakum was also used by plumbers as late as the 1970s to seal pipe fittings, especially for waste drainage. You still see it in many old homes, that stuff lasts forever.
They still sell it in the plumbing department of the big box stores.
It is still widely used over here in Europe, mostly for tap water.
During houses rebuilds, i've removed some that were over 50 years old and still perfectly waterproof ( I'm a plumber).
When I make those kinds of comments on plumbing videos, US plumbers often call me crazy, stupid, and backwards for not using a potentially toxic ( pfas) matter called Teflon...
Heh
I worked at a country feed store and we stocked oakum with the farrier supplies. It was rarely sold, but had some sort of use for hoof care. It did have a great aroma.
@Kelvallontan Oakum and tar? Or oakum and something else?
@@longiusaescius2537 Oakum, and a linseed oil based paste/compound.
Without the compoud, there would be too much friction inside the threads and it would not rotate until the right depth.
That's so freaking cool. Just imagining that sailors of old came up with this kind of thing speaks to the reaches of human ingenuity.
Oh dear! Now I understand why wooden decks were eventually banned..."Melted tar and oakum..." They were floating fire death traps...
I joined a boat making guild a few weeks ago and they had a demo of this out for visitors. Haven’t done it yet myself but building boats is fun!
A fine example of the hard work and enginuity from a bygone era. People claim that what we have today is better than anything in the past, but mean and women spilled blood, sweat, tears, and passion on making the monuments and infrastructure that got us where we are today. They cared about quality and wanted things to last. It was what they had, and they made the most out of very little. Respect. I hope these skills and teachings never see the end.
Only partially true. The other part of the equation was that the people near the top of the hierarchy were even less concerned for those nearer the bottom than we are today. Child labour, "workhouses" (poor people rounded up and forced to work akin to slavery) and prison labour were the ones responsible for this task.
Like she said, it's "hard on the hands". Can you imagine how horrible that would be to do 16 hours a day, 6 days a week (the norm back then)?
They didn't do that work voluntarily. It's not passion driving them.
@@lysandersensale2792 They can leave anytime they want, work your shift and leave, find a real serviceable job with care, start learning trade and subject instead of underwork. Just say that you can't handle ANYTHING nice said about this era because you feel unintelligently responsible for their suffering and can't see any good in such a vile time, bullying anyone who dare even peeps a happy tone out about the time period you have probably never studied in your life.
@@WitchKing-Of-Angmar "They can leave anytime", ah, the trademark refrain of Americans...
It's hilarious enough to see it used today, never mind when the topic of discussion is the industrial revolution. Where exactly were they gonna go? Debtors' prison?
The port city of Marseilles used to be entirely surrounded by hemp fields, providing the fibers for boat ropes and lines. Its main avenue is still named the Canebière, after the Latin word for hemp: Cannabis.
Two different things
In case you dont know what oakem is, it's horse hair covered in wax. The horse hair is corse and the wax makes it hydrophobic.
Im a plumber and we still use oakum, mainly only on cast iron toilet flanges.
It's the same concept but we use lead instead of tar.
So we pack as much oakum around the flange as possible and then dump molten lead on top of the oakum creating a tight waterproof seal.
That's an experience that is probably more fun to look back on than it was experiencing.
Chas. Dickens himself (famous English author) had to pick oakum as a young boy in a workhouse. His sensitivity to the treatment of the young stems in part from his experience.
It's also where the saying "money for old rope" came from.
As it was used in ship building, old rope was sold to be taken apart and used.
But obviously selling rope which you are unable to use is practically getting money for nothing.
Yet I wonder; it has to be stored, kept dry, somewhat clean and pest free, which implies some management cost, I’d imagine.
@@axiomaddictit has to be kept moist, but, not wet ..
@@axiomaddictAnd yes you are right, there's no such thing as money from nothing... Except for the US government.... LoL 😢
Why wouldn't they just use fresh hemp fibers for this rather than deconstructing rope down to hemp fibers...it doesn't make any sense unless this is explained
I've been thinking about doing this for my century old bull pine floors that have massive gaps of all widths. You can see they've been filled in with other materials over the years, but as the boards shrink and swell with the seasons, those materials have come loose and crumbled. Something more flexible would be better. The gaps are honestly a nightmare for cleaning, and sometimes old nails or bits of glass work their way back up 😭
When I was living on a sailboat, I learned about the tools that were used to do this. One of my neighbors, restored old Wooden sailboats by waterproofing them this way.
"It's got a beautiful smell, aw." I don't know why but she sounded so elegant when she said that.
That's because hemp is cannabis (marijuana)
Because it was genuine
@@montgomeryfortenberry genuine cannabis aroma!
@@TheGamingNutter Its not though is it. Lower THC level of basically nothing whereas cannabis has a higher value.
@@ZACHM1LLShemp is just male cannabis. It has many valuable uses, just not as a recreational substance.
Hemp is actually used more as it's the only fibre that does not degrade in salt water
ur momma
@@bucketmonkeys"translate to English"
HEMP also expands when getting wet so it seals better when wet.. unlike teflon. There was a Hemp war, plastic, nylon, teflon etc.. and so on versus Hemp to get rid of it!
@@Okaiako your mother
@@OkaiakoI guess he really thought you didn't know what that meant.... LoL
Her admiration of the past is infectious
I served on. U. S. Navy Minesweeper (U. S. S. Gallant) in 1986, and watched the shipwrights put fresh oakum in our wooden hull in the yards. Fascinating. Mines are magnetic, you see.
The Isle of Wight (small island off the south coast of England) was famous for caulking boats. So much so the term for a local islander is a "caulkhead"
I can't tell if that's sincerity or sarcasm. In either case it's hilarious.
Last boat I had was a 1912 wooden haul boat made out of Alaskan Pine refitted in the 80’s only rope touching the main boat was for the propeller and rudder. The wood was slapped together in the cold winter while the Alaskan Pine was drier than dry and the moment it touched the water the wood began to absorb the water and moisture swelling the wood to make it even tighter. And when I got it went through checking everything and noticed only two spots of tar on the inside of the hull nothing on the outside besides some paint. Had to put another spot of tar on inside the hull. Stripped the paint on the outside replace it with paint mixed with Ground Cheyenne Peppers until relatively thick paste then painted the hull with multiple think coats then sanded it smooth and she is good for another few decades. Yeah that sounds crazy to a lot of current people even boaters with wooden hauls. But grandpas family has been in ship building for a few hundred years with the last 3 generations leaving roughly at age 30-35 to start sailing wooden hauls on there own. We believe in learning how to build and take care and fix a wooden haul before we go out on the water for a few years with another relative to learn the ropes before we go solo.
Also fun note great grandpa for fun got a WW2 PT boat for fun around Hawaii since it was a fair price and wanted to experience a steel boat. The PT is wild back during the late 60’s early 70’s if the water was bad he would volunteer to go into rough storms and help any boat in distress due to him being able to respond faster than the Navy or Coast guard at the time in rough waters. My grandpas brother had it for awhile before he sold it to whoever thought.
But wooden hauls are fun and slow. I prefer wooden hauls built in the 1930’s there kinda like the pinnacle of wooden hauls for personal usage if you update them with a modern diesel engine. You can shove a semi engine right in and convert them for fairly cheap to be used in a boat aslong as the engine sits above the waterline that the boat has inside. Yes wooden hauls allways have some sitting water inside.
That's a great story. Love seeing those beautiful wooden schooners built long ago and still sailing the Pacific, see them in Cairns and Sydney. Greetings from an Aussie 😊
"Swabbing the deck" was used to keep the planks far above the waterline wet and swollen up to help with sealing the caulked gaps, so when the sea decided to get up there it wouldn't get inside.
Is that the US spelling of "hull"?
@@simonw3872, never seen “hull” spelled “haul”. I do not believe it is the writer misspelling his pronunciation, either. Must be a colloquial name for a type of craft I am not familiar with.
@@simonw3872 “haul the hull” inside family joke for a few generations and I accidentally wrote haul instead of hull. Family joke was from great great grandpas brother that tied off to railings to haul a boat to harbor since that ship was dead at sea no one noticed how it was tied off and didn’t take too long before the railings where ripped off and that Capt was upset and well was yelling “haul the hull” when my relative came back to retie. Think my cousin has that log book and that relative wrote what happened and only time he wrote in capital letters was HAUL THE HULL. Apparently it was a story he enjoyed telling about his sailing days. And been hearing that forever you can say after no one ever made that mistake so yeah accidentally wrote haul instead of hull.
Dressed in full period costume and wearing a Rode wireless mic. Quite evocative of the olden days.
This reminds me of the old wooden sailboat my dad bought and fixed up. So many years ago. I remember scraping the barnacles off the hull while dry docked. Doing what you were doing. Stuffing 'caulking' into the seams. Painting. Sacrificial anodes in front of the brass fittings underwater. I was just a kid. 1968
Still in use today on wooden boats and teak decks. They don't use real tar anymore so it's temporary stable
Pine tar is what is used, and it does have a lovely smell.
Just don't get pine tar on your facial hair, it gets kinda annoying.
Ive seen people use black caulking, rubber and number 2 marine glue in the past 5 years
Still used on Metal ships for damage control
@@irohaboat on metal ships or boats?
@Just_a_brigentine_bilge-rat military ships for damage control, it's not used for waterproofing just slowing leaks until it can be isolated and repaired.
Ever since I first visited HMS Victory when I was a child, I’d always wondered how the water didn’t seep in through the gaps between the planks. Finally I know. Thank you so much for sharing this
forgot to mention the rope is invariably hemp, and that during WWII the US government decreed that nearly every farmer grow it, handing out several million tonne of seed...
and hemp rope is STILL used in fire extinguisher plumbing...
Pre-industrial ship building has always blown my mind
And thats how the line of the worlds best welders started.
Came here for this. If I hadnt found ya I would've commented similarly 😂
@OVERKILL_SS
I’m glad I saw your comment! The twists of the oakem (sp?) reminded me of welding beads and I was wondering if that’s where the inspiration came from. I know very little about welding, I only took it in high school over 15 years ago. Being the only girl in there, the teacher was inappropriate towards me and I opted out pretty quickly. So I didn’t get to learn very much unfortunately.
@@dalerimoller272 I was just picking, I don't think there is any relation between this and welding lol but it does look like welding dimes, I'm sorry to hear about what happened when you were in high school though, I can't stand people like him.
@OVERKILL_SS
Bahaha, oops! I misunderstood 🤦🏻♀️ that’s embarrassing… But I truly appreciate that you were still so nice to me in your response rather than just calling me a dumbass 😜Thank you for the kind words in regards to the pervy teacher, too! It wasn’t a big deal- I was just trying to make it known that I wasn’t trying to claim to be some professional in the trade, lol.
Stay kind, it’s refreshing to see that on here!
I always wondered how they kept water from going between the slats of wood on old ships! Never looked it up, but very cool to see how it was done!
I knew they used hot tar to seal the wood, I did not know about the rope. Makes sense, though. The tar would just ooze through without the fiber to give it structure to soak into.
It's always incredible to me to see the amount of labor they must have gone into just about everything before modern materials. Just amazing.
Back in the 70s I worked in a shipyard in Washington State and did a lot of caulking boats. Tough work and still used the traditional tools. Gave you really tough hands.
Were you up by Bremerton or Everett?
I was going to compliment you for your avatar, but you lost the opportunity when you had a playlist comprised of learning a fake Mongol dialect instead of a real language like Ukrainian.
@@VicariousRealityMongolian is an older language than Ukrainian
@@YoghTato Ukrainian is an older, real language than the fake Mongol dialect to the East that has always stolen from Ukrainian.
@@VicariousRealityThis is the most unnecessary cringe I've read in a while. Why are you like this?
My god, every plank and seam of those old wooden tall ships was truly a labor of love, a work of art.
Labor of love done by prisoners, slaves, and "freed" slaves.
@@jeffparry2426Slaves didn’t build ships. Maybe prisoners, but I’ve never read anything to indicate it. Don’t make things up just because it suits your narrative, okay?
@landrypierce9942 I made the comment based on 2 books I read a long time ago. I couldn't remember the names of the books, so I did a Google search, and wow, are you stupid. At first, I thought your comment was just statistically unsound. Consider that every group of human on earth has been enslaved by another group of humans at some point in history, makes the odds of someone enslaved somewhere being forced into such a tedious job really high. It's like proving a negative. Ask your mom what that means or Google it. In fact, from now on, you should start by asking your mom just to broaden your search catalog beyond your own experience, then do a quick little search on Google before mouthing off. Ok, sweetheart?
Remember your mom, and I know you can do better if you would just apply yourself. Okay?
@@jeffparry2426 categorically untrue, please find your nearest home depot/lowes.
@@jeffparry2426 Freed slaves weren't slaves, they were men. Once ships became prominently built with cast metal, the job changed significantly from tedious...to dangerous.
damn, the hand brace really tells how much dedication this artisan has... they've done so much to get where they are and do so much more just to keep doing it. wild
"Picking oakum" was picking apart that rope. Virtual torture.
Bro they probably just used the straight hemp fiber, why go though the trouble of making rope then un-twining it
@@bigbelixBecause the Victorian era was all about doing pointless, agonising work for absolutely no positive benefit whatsoever.
Being forced to unpick rope was basically just a punishment for being poor.
@@bigbelixthey were using old or worn out ropes to make oakam
@@justanothercommenter5835 Nonsense...
@@bigbelix recycling it seems, they wouldnt use new rope for it, just needed something puffy to mix with the tar, so, old rope, which ships had a lot of
I've done old-school cast iron pipe joints, and oiled oakum is used to pack the made joint, them lead is poured over it.
Only AFTER the lead cools, you pack it with an iron.
I've seen those caulking chisels misused as wood chisels.
They didn't have a clue what they were using....
It's why caulker's mates were so incredibly important on wooden sailing vessels.
Wooden ships are the biggest pre-industrial apparatus humanity has ever made. They are an magnificent concert of so many different parts all constructed by intensive physical Labor and Know-how. From the tiniest hinge to the biggest Sail.
Their complexity and the amount of time and effort put into to their construction , operation and maintenance are just mindblowing.
So much information shared in such a concise and illustrative way! I learned something.
Totally! Idk why I love this kind of stuff. I miss the days when the History channel had content like this
@@LightBeingUltralightBeam this became less profitable as the media machine ramped up.
"Ok we need to weave some rope!"
"What are we going to use it for?"
"We're going to unravel it and use it to waterproof our ships!"
"Can't we just skip the first step then?"
"Silence! Get to work!"
From my understanding old rope that was fraying is normally aways abundant on ships. Thats why ships had rope lockers to replace them as they get damaged. Just good old recycling in action before its time.
@@tychos872 Yeah i actually figured that, but it was a funny image to think they would weave new rope then unravel it to use for waterproofing lol.
@@Death_Lord_Eleressai agreed
I have ALWAYS wondered this! Very cool. I could watch videos like this one and be completely captivated for hours. I need more of this content!
The same was used used to connect plumbing pipes. You put the oak room in there and then pour Lead in the joint. It’s still used today, however not nearly as much.
I still use that for waterproofing threaded pipes around the house. Works amazing and imo its easier to use than teflon tape.
I was a member of the Tall Ship Society in the St Petersburg Florida area. We did a lot of work on the Bounty. Same process (except the tar was in a caulking can). Hot and grubby work.
And now I know where the "caulk" in Decorators Caulk comes from. Every day's a schoolday.
I've always been fascinated by these old sailing ships from building to sailing to navigating and so on. Waterproofing must have been tedious and never ending. In the middle of the ocean with closest land being several miles away, straight down. Ancient mariners would have been very appreciative of the hours these people put in.
Children were in those work houses, and the poor. They worked till their fingers were bleeding. Can you imagine the torture of working like that?
cope, better working then not.
Historians research is pure gold.
Those who does not study history are condemned to repeat it.
Please explain that in the context of this video. Those who don't study the methods of caulking a ship are condemned to repeat what exactly?
@@xYANKEESxMAN13x Drowning on a badly constructed ship in the middle of the ocean in 1643, obviously
@@xYANKEESxMAN13x building bad ships
The mentality of this thread is damn sure why we're repeating history now in the US 🤦🏼♂️ children arguing and taking everything as a joke while missing the point entirely, meanwhile fascists are taking over 🙄
Love learning traditional things.
My friend lives in a boat, it's currently dry docked and was made before WWII, i know from him that hemp and flax were used ro caulk boats.
Caulking is something I actually got taught when I spent 20 years at sea and worked on some of he last wooden fishing vessels as most are made of fibreglass now sadly . Side note I preferred going to ses in wooden boats as they take the sea better
Very interesting. I love the word caulking here, because the old Boiler makers also do caulking to seal the boiler to make it steam tight.
Wow! That was so cool to learn something I never thought about!! Love Learning about the ancient ships, but never thought about this!!!
My grandfather used to do this and I still have his tools that he used. It’s not that long ago they still used this method
😮💘
This is a method we still practice using lampwick to stop seam leaks on wood water tanks.
"Smoke and Oakum." Was a quick quip I overheard in the film Master and Commander. For years I had been confused as to what Oakum was.
Wow....ppl back then rly hard working ,no joke