Tour of Mayflower II, 2011

Mayflower is a story of immigrants and many people in this country have come here across the ocean to a place that they are not sure where they are going to a life that they are not sure what it will be like and that is the story of the Mayflower and it moves many people around the world. The Mayflower: An authentic 1950s replica of the original Pilgrim ship was in dry dock in January

2011

. It was at the Fairhaven shipyard for routine inspection, maintenance and some restoration work on this frigid January day. Mayor Scott Lang visited the ship and received a personal

tour

from Peter Aaron.

A manager at Plymouth Plantation tells us how he equipped them to make sure she could get from England to the new land and not be in danger. For many of the passengers, even seeing the ocean, it was a new experience for them, something they couldn't have experienced and didn't really understand what they were undertaking to cross the ocean, as you said, at a very difficult time of year and with resources very limited equipment they brought with them and the Mayflower was a high-tech object for its time, in the same way that states face capitols now. A ship in the 17th century was a very complex machine that required trained operators, sailors and captains to navigate safely across the ocean.

How big was it in a fire pit? Mayflower in that period was known as a 180 ton ship now a ton is the size of a barrel it is about four or five feet high and carries 250 five gallons per ton so the Mayflower was a ship that could hold one hundred and eighty of those tons, but in dimensions in feet, the Mayflower is about one hundred and six feet long, 25 feet wide and has a draft or draws about 13 feet of water actually in all sails, that's how it was powered, right Yes, she was a fully rigged ship of the period, six sails in the mall except the mizzen which is a foreign half sale and a complex network of rigging to control all sales.

What's interesting and no, I don't know if I realized this before, but the Mayflower was a cargo ship, yes, that's right, the Mayflower is a lifetime, it was a merchant ship built and it transported goods from one place to another in England and up to Europe, and only later in his life, near the end of his life, did he transport passengers at one point from England to the new world yes, there were no passenger ships per se at the time the pilgrims were emigrating to the new world, they had to find a way to get there, obviously, and the obvious choice was a merchant ship.

A merchant ship could carry goods on its cargo deck and the passengers were the goods the ship was carrying at that particular time, just as they packed barrels or bundles on the ship, they packed passengers on the Mayflower. I see how to make cabins as best as they could and placing them in the spaces as best as they could so that you didn't have the option of the carnival cruise, there is almost no right, so let's talk about this deck, as I understand it, right now we are in the middle cover. that's right, I'm far away, yeah, tell us about this particular space, so this is essentially the cargo deck of the Mayflower 2.

It's essentially an open space that the one hundred and two passengers would have lived in during the crossing, as you know by now. was. Two ships intended for that were designed to reach the new world, the Mayflower and the Speed ​​Well, the speed wall proved unseaworthy and they put many other Speedwell planners on the Mayflower, making conditions unsafe. even more crowded along with all their products, etc. the 102 who remained on the Mayflower found the room where they could. This space we're in, as you mentioned, is the weapons room. It is a space where probably the gunner who was part of the crew and the gunner's companion could have lived together with the weapons. who used fire in the stern as a merchant ship, were very concerned about piracy in the 17th century and had guns on the Mayflower for protection.

Now weapons, you mean Canon cannons and what was the range of that type of cannon, well, a cannon like that. that we have on Mayflower we could probably shoot a mile or two under the right conditions, so what you would do is detect a ship that you thought was not a friendly ship, you would turn and start moving away from the ship and at the same time you would have the ability to repel the ship by firing your cannons, that was a merchant ship's first option was to get away from those piratical pirates who could usually overpower a merchant ship, so the merchant ship would try to flee and shoot its stern pursuers.

The guns came out the gun doors, the aft gun doors and they kept that pirate ship at bay I see and then the other one, and a lot of this had to do with the range of the cartridge, but fortunately for the crossing of Mayflower, piracy was not there. There were no problems with piracy for this Mayflower crossing, one reason we believe is that they took a northerly route, going from England north through Iceland, Greenland and down through New Zealand to America to stay away from the pirates who were usually around. in the southern part of the country. a little colder, take a little cold or else and obviously a very stormy crossing, as indicated by what little we know and Bradford mentions that there was only about a week of good weather, then there was storm after storm, how long did it take them ?

To make your cross right, the voyage itself was 66 days, but many of the passengers came on board and left in early September, but many passengers arrived on the ship in London and Martin, excuse me, in July went to Southampton where they met. that second ship, the Speedwell, both ships left as I mentioned, there was trouble with the Speedwell twice, they arrived once at Dartmouth and then again at Plymouth, England, and finally left England in September 1620. The Mayflower landed at Provincetown in November , but then it took a month to search. She was looking for a place to settle and did not arrive in Plymouth until December 1620.

So many passengers lived on board for over six months eating ice cream and then spent the entire winter on the Mayflower. What was a typical day like for a passenger? You weren't a crew member, what was your day? It was a long day and probably tedious because there were so many people because there were so many things on board. People probably didn't wander around much. They were not on deck. Largely because it was a very stormy voyage, probably, and many of them probably didn't feel very well for much of the trip because they found it very strange to see life, so they spent a lot of their time. maybe reading if they could read singing songs in their sleep, so Peter, I know above you you told me about the helm and we'll look at it again in a few minutes, but what do we have here?

What is it? What is this mechanism? Well, this is it. the steering gear this is how the ship was controlled and steered the bottom half as you mentioned is the Whipstaff the top half is up in the steerage cabin the bottom half here of the stick helps move the rudder forward and backwards is very simple but an effective method of steering one of the drawbacks is that the higher you go, the further you have to pull that lever to make the boat turn, so they try to keep the Whipstaff short on the deck just above, but by doing so you know that you are I can't see ahead very well, so you have to rely on the orders of the master on the next deck.

There is no power in the replica. Maybe not, we have a generator to run the lights and our electric pumps and things like that. but there is no mechanical propulsion of the Mayflower. Our tugboat tows us out of the port. We have used Jaguar here in Fair Haven for years and years and Charlie Mitchell comes to Plymouth and tells us to go to Cape Cod and Open Water Boating and when we know the Mitchell is very good, it is a great job and a great towing company , these are locking tackle here, that is, I understand that it provides some additional force if necessary, if you need to move the rudder.

We call these relief rigs because they help relieve the strain on the helmsman in holding the Whipstaff alone in a stormy situation, particularly with the following sea, that rudder is going to be knocked back and forth and is called more Oh, wait with just that, so you have these rigging that sailors can help control the movement of the rudder that I see and they would basically use their own arm strength to hold the rudder exactly, Peter Tong, what am I standing on right now? They are what we call cabins, not like the Carnival Line cabins from cruise ships that we all know today, but this is a small space that provides a little bit of privacy, there was probably a straw bed, you know, in canvas, pillows, blankets and things, but it's basically a place to sleep, probably a curtain to have a little privacy and keep warm and this would be mine, if I had booked it right you'd probably have to do it yourself or ask the ship's carpenter to do it. make it for you, like we said, this was an open cargo deck and these cabins were not part of this Mayflower.

I sleep here with my wife, my family, of course, yes, as we talked, the Mayflower was a very busy ship during that crossing and people were sleeping everywhere, which makes me know that we have heard of Jamestown, we have heard of others settlements, but what makes Plymouth different from those earlier settlements. Yes, the summit has been fortunate for many reasons, one of which is the nature of the trip, the nature. of the plantation colonization, it was designed to be a new colony, a new location, farming families, a permanent settlement unlike Jamestown which was more of a business, single men and gentlemen went with their servants and we are going to extract goods from the land resources of the soil and making money from the land, while in Plymouth there was a permanent settlement now, what is this?

This is a piece of machinery, it is a kind of wood, it is not an important part of the Mayflower machinery, it is called capstan boats. Over the centuries there have been different types of lids, this one actually extends to the platform above and can be used on that platform or on this platform or both bars would slide through these square holes and others can walk through and Do the Captain, turn from this deck, you could put a rope around and pass it over the stern and maybe pull the boat back along a dock or two to an anchor or something from the deck above that is used for help increase sales. the load out of the hole, so this is a pulley system, a kind of winch, yes, now with exactly and what this does is provide the torque, that is equal to the line, yes, exactly, so now I I'm moving towards the bow. of the middeck and again, this is the living space for our one hundred and two right people on the ship, the right passengers, as I mentioned, we live anywhere they can, this staircase that we have here is of course a modern convenience for our Visitors who come to see us all during the season and later, like a windlass, the 17th century windlass was used to raise anchor on the Mayflower and also later in the 17th century, it is probably where the animals lived , there was a space called a manger. which is a series of boards used to collect debris that comes with the anchor and was probably the space where the goats or pigs and chickens lived.

No, Peter, we are below deck and this is the lower deck, from time to time we can tell us what the purpose of this deck was and then I also know that you indicated that this particular thing here is extremely important to the show. Yes, this is the hole on the lower platform of Mayflower and of course if we were in the water. It would be underwater right now and this is the space where all the supplies for the ship are kept, all the food for the crew, extra sails, maybe rigging, water, beer, whatever the supplies would have been in this space. , probably no one lived down here, it was probably full. -a block full of barrels and boxes and everything, along with some goods that the passengers needed to start their colony in Plymouth, so if we had a problem at sea we won't call anyone, we need to take care of ourselves or So in essence, all the different equipment we would need would have to be sent to the carpenters, that's right, to repair our vest, that's right, the ship had to be able to take care of itself for at least a year, they had supplies and provisions that they knew they had.

They were going to sail there and back and probably had a year's worth of food, material and supplies to make that cross completely self-sufficient as much as possible. If they fished, they probably didn't, for a couple of reasons. It was a very stormy crossing so it wasn't very safe to be on deck and also in deep water they probably weren't fishing and it didn't have the sophistication that we have today. this is the bottom of the ship this is the bilge where water accumulates and is pumped over the side similar to the 17th century wherethey would have log pumps that would fit into the bottom of the boat and the carpenter and his crew would keep track of how much water was leaking into the boat each day and try to keep it pumped and they would have a deflector.

That's it, a kind of leather fin and inside there was a lifting mechanism that lifted the water up through the pipe and poured it over the side, so the other thing here is that you have the plate to cover the mast currently our mass The main mast is outside the boat, that's how we are repairing it, but the space it goes into is in the center cage, there the main mast is about 55 feet long from keel to top and there is another mass on top, the wood is Douglas fir about two feet in diameter and I'm about 55 feet tall so five stories now the otherThe interesting thing is that I see that there are outlines for the barrels so they actually stored the barrels horizontally, yes barrels were stacked under barrels it was a common way to store both wet and dry goods of course beer and water would have been stored in barrels but things you wanted to keep dry could also be stored in a barrel to prevent water from falling on them.

This is a boat, a sailboat votes and for some reason we have not filled it with rocks and you explained that writing rocks well is a question of balance and buoyancy. The Mayflower is a very big ship, 256 tons, but 133 of those tons are ballast and all she does is keep the ship upright in the water if you go out and look at the ship from the side and look down. great mass and think about the sails and the wind pushing that boat, you have this subtle thing on the other end to prevent it from turning to the right and in education with cobblestones, right, that's a modern thing, the cobblestones for our reproduction of the boat in the 17th century. century there was probably a lot of sand or shale stones, interestingly in the Mayflower inventory in 1620 for some of the things that were noted with shovels and you wouldn't think that shovels on a ship don't make much sense until you start. thinking about ballast and when they are loading cargo, they may have more cargo on one side or higher or lower, they have to shovel that ballast to different parts of the boat to keep it balanced and keep it exactly on a uniform keel. which is very interesting and the idea is that before you set sail, while your boat is in the water, you want a level keel, you want it, you want it to be perpendicular to the water at that moment when you start to gain speed.

Like to pick up the wind, you're going to position both sides correctly, but the ballast will help you keep going a lot now that we're over the covers, but we're also in a closed area. What is this space? Well, this is actually one of the nicest ones. cabins on Mayflower is called the big cabin, it's where the huge Jones would have lived. Master Jones was the fourth owner of the ship and he was also in charge of the ship, the captain of the ship, so he had the nicest cabin that he probably lived here alone and could have shared. with one of the companions or two of the companions, we do not know, but this was his space where he lived and this is a large, bright, pleasant space, it follows the classic hierarchy structure at sea, the master lives after the ship. and the common sailors live in the bow, all grouped in a small dark, smelly, smoky space.

The back of the boat is generally a safer place to be. The front of the boat always goes up and down and breaks the waves, while the back. part of the boat takes advantage of that softness of the water now that I have in my hands here on the Whipstaff and we have just seen the mechanism below me on the center deck, but it explains exactly what is certain, this is the way the boat is steered, it is essentially an extension of the rudder and allows the helmsman who is standing in the third cockpit to move the rudder back and forth while standing in a relatively safe place.

The helmsman has been cooling a wooden box with some compasses in which he can look to steer and there is also a hatch here that the captain who is standing or a navigator perhaps standing on this deck above would call and tell them to steer in one direction or another or give them a compass bearing, but it is the mechanism by which this console is here, there is a wooden box and the two doors that have compasses, okay and what are we on, its high-tech navigation, so what you will navigate is part of the navigation. In the process there is a crosshair which is a simple device used to measure the angle of the object above the horizon from which you can get your latitude where you are north and south.

Another navigation tool is a chip log that is used to determine the speed at which you are traveling and of course the compass will give you your heading, so the three things, a location of course at a speed, They will help you determine where you are. This is a hatch in front that the crew or passengers would use to get on or off. As we mentioned to the guy, the ladder we have is a modern convenience for our passengers, for our visitors, so the helmsman knows who is coming and who is going, and this is a cabin that people live in.

This is a third class cabin in which some mid-level officers. I would be living there, there would probably be beds on both sides here, small cabin types, so this is an active cabin, people were coming and going all the time I see and also the ship is sailing 24 hours so that there is always someone available. always leave someone at the helm yes, very good, so we have inserted the wooden lever into the winch which, as you explained before, Peters, is the equivalent of a winch, right? and how many crew members would be involved in turning, well there are two sets of sail bars going forward so there will be at least one on each side here and one on each side there so it's four and it could there are four underneath, but then you could double any of them to have sixteen very good sixteen. people would push and then the lines would be driven from the Knights head back here to here, either a halyard that would hoist a sail or a yard or a loading tackle to take the goods out of the hold.

Very interesting and again, all through simple Manto manipulation. that the caps were on the deck, now I really understand why, despite the cold below, the pilgrims would have wanted to stay below because it is not very hot here, even with the sun, no, it is not. very nice and you can imagine yourself in the middle of the ocean very cold always wet what is waiting to be washed on board also not very safe if you can't see it could be swept away easily safely there is the story of John Howland who was thrown over the side of the ship during a storm only saved himself by holding on to a line that was behind him he is very lucky, very lucky, he is one in a million, right, very easily he could have been lost and they hauled him back up, yes, they brought him back on board he held the halyard in his hand and used a boat hook they say they hook them and bring them back tell us what this is sure what it was for this is the forward cabin of the ship or the forecastle is a place where ordinary sailors lived during the crossing of 1620, as I mentioned , there are 25 or 30 crew in total, but not all of them were ordinary sailors, some of our officers and they lived in the third class cabin or Master Jones in the large cabin, but he probably could have done so.

There were about 15 men living in this cabin, quite a small space, but it was typical for an ordinary sailor to have quite uncomfortable conditions, yes, and what else happened and it is also the galley room, it is the place where the food was prepared. for the crew and probably also for the passengers, the hearth we have there is a copy of one that was on the Mary Rose that sank in the 16th century, recovered in the 1970s and we have some archaeological architectural drawings to help us design that boat. ice Marth and basically what it was was a brick oven, yes there was a brass kettle on top so you could boil water for a lot of food.

Oh, a common meal was porridge, boiled oats or rice with betta fish, meat or peas, everything. All in all, Peter, we are now well above the waterline and where we are in the ship. This is called the command deck or half deck. It is the deck that the officers would use to control the ship, command the ship, the captain or the navigator. You could stand to have this be the hatch the Whipstaff is under so you can communicate with the helmsman from here and the captain or officer of the watch can see everything going on in the ship from this location if this is a great viewing point. view.

Now what is this abyss? You know, this is the last cabin in the stern called the Roundhouse, so it's kind of an office, essentially, the best way to think of it is a place where they carried out their navigation, they could use the transverse staff to get there. a solution and then they would find out where they were on a map in the Roundhouse, probably because it was so full in 1620 that some of the companions could have been living there in that space. Now let's talk about the passengers and sellers of a better life became many of them.

One of the misconceptions people have is that all the passengers were religious fanatics who came to the new world to practice their religion for religious freedom. That is not essentially true. A percentage of the passengers came. to separate from the Church of England and be able to practice their religion the way they wanted, but many of the passengers came looking for economic opportunities, there was unlimited land here, there were unlimited opportunities for people who could work hard and make something of their lives. . life and that sparked an interest in people regardless of their religious background and then they received an enormous amount of help from the Native Americans that were here.

Can you explain how all of that ensured that in southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, in particular, there had been prior contact? with the Europeans the natives had previous contact and many times it was not a positive interaction there were examples of European kidnappings they robbed and kidnapped natives taking them back to the ink there were plagues brought to the new world unintentionally by the Europeans and entire settlements by For example, Pawtuxet, the English, the native settlement that is now Plymouth, was completely wiped out by a plague brought by the Europeans, so the reaction and interaction with the natives in English was mixed at best, so that when the English arrived in 1620, they quickly realized that they needed the help of the natives and the natives realized the advantage of having English friends as friends with their gunpowder and their weapons to protect them from other warring native tribes, so very quickly the English and the natives realized that they could use each other.

They helped each other and for several years coexisted for mutual benefit. It's a healthy, positive, optimistic story about people working together and coexistence can be, and as you mentioned, the first part of that relationship was the most profitable aspect, the most cooperative. Of their relationship, they were certainly beneficial to each other for many years from the beginning until later when the Preston land and other pressures caused the difficulties between the two parties, how long before that? I mean in the 1670s. 50 years or so and then you started this push where we raped the natives and the native lands and the different traditions, which is not a Hank Phillips War and is not a happy spoiler or positive nor an important story to learn as we should. learn from everything, all our past, all our mistakes and then hopefully do better in the future and no visit to any ship would be complete without going to the after deck, at all, so let's go, sure, okay, Peter, we're here now. on the aft deck and we're obviously way above the main deck and the boat actually looks like in proportion to the forecastle deck it's almost like a sleigh ride down, that's, well, that's one of The unique features of a 17th century ship, this very high fancastle and a much lower forecastle make the ship act like a weather vane when there are no sails on the ship, the ship will naturally point into the wind which is one of the safest ways to sail when it arrived in 1957, they went through a storm off Bermuda and removed all sails and crew and Alan Villiers, the captain, quickly realized the ingenuity of having a design like this with that stern high and the boat pointing naturally upwards. the wind and then the boat will sail safely up and down the waves.

Actually, now the other thing that's interesting is how high above the waterline we are. We're probably about 25 feet from the water right now where we are and it's this. a great vantage point in the 17th century, the navigator could come here with his cross staff and clearly see the horizon without sales or rigging in the way and determine the location of it, no, and he would still have ahigher vantage point if you wanted to go up to the masthead right at the working top, that is of course much higher, but the sails are in front of them many times, so it is a limited view, very good, so we really appreciate you showing us the Mayflower and I can tell you that, uh, this.

It will be every boy or girl in our city, the imagination will be captured only by the sun, this tremendous tremendous trip that was carried out against all odds, really, but I want to thank you much more than my job, happy to do it for you.