Visit to the Maine State Museum and Loft Board Painting

Maine State Museum

Today the media crew went to the Maine State Museum. We took lots

Film Crew in Front of Museum

of pictures of the Popham Colony exhibit. They are to go on the Maine Memory Network when we are done.  It was a challenge to try to take good pictures of the artifacts because they were behind glass, but it was a good learning experience. The others that were back at the shop worked on making more bows. Also, some of them were working cutting the keel to size and painting the lofting floor. It was a very nice day to be working even though the sun wasn’t out.   It’s so much cooler than the past few days.

Shaping the Keel

Our lesson at the beginning of the day was about the different parts of the boat the keel, rudder, tiller, frames and more. The part that I took out of it the most was a part that is a bit of vocabulary and a bit of history. It’s the words for left, right, front and back. They are port for left, starboard for right, bow for front and stern for back.

Paint the Loft Board and Each Other

The starboard side got it’s name from long ago when the rudders were on the side of the boat and people would call it the steer board  side and it just developed from there to starboard. The port came form having the rudder on the right side of the boat and having to dock on the left side so they didn’t damage the rudder.  They called it the port side. So that’s the piece of history for today.

Blog Post by Kelsey Brick