Photo By James Cleveland | KITTERY, Maine (July 30, 2015) - Building 7 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has long...... read more read more
Building 7 is one of the oldest buildings still in existence at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY), and its role has changed since the age of sail. Erected in 1837, during a major period of expansion and modernization, it was built with locally quarried gray granite.
The primary use of the building was for wooden mast construction and repair. Additionally, it housed a small boat shop, a mold loft, and a rigging loft. Building 7 was constructed along the western bank of a narrow inlet called Jenkins Gut, a waterway that once separated Dennett Island and Seavey’s Island.
Originally the foundation extended into this waterway, designed to allow long timbers to be floated beneath the building and brought inside through a hatchway in the floor. The dock beneath the building could accommodate timbers for mast construction up to 135 feet long. Building 7 became landlocked in the early days of the 20th century during the construction of the shipyard’s first permanent dry dock now known as Dry Dock 2.
Today, the first floor of Building 7 houses an assortment of services including an upholstery shop, engraving and inspection center,gear-testing hub, and a line-splicing wire rope area for the Lifting andHandling Department. These services play an important role in supporting
the shipyard’s mission to overhaul, repair, and modernize U.S. Navy attack submarines. Every submarine that comes to PNSY for maintenance receives its own set of wire rope, dock lines, nets, containment buoys, and other lifting and handling gear as needed for the project. Riggers still use the same practices and techniques to splice dock lines and build containment buoys that were common during the early days of wooden sailing vessels. These handcrafted practices still require the same basic tools that were common throughout the 19th century. A marlinspike, a sailor’s palm, metal fids, and sailmaker needles look and feel the same as they did centuries ago.
The second floor has spacious oak flooring and nine-foot ceilings that span the entire length of the building. This space was used for sail making, overhaul, and repair. Today, the sail loft remains on the second floor but the tasks have changed dramatically. Instead of making sails from sailcloth, workers construct containment shelters, outdoor covers, industrial curtains, and many other mission-supporting products from a flexible high-tensile strength fabric called Herculite, which is fire resistant, waterproof, and rot resistant.
The third floor, known as the attic or third deck, has not changed since 1837. The pulley system with wooden drums, wheels, and iron gear used to raise and lower timbers in the building still hangs along the trusses and crossbeams. Winches are located at each end of the floor, mounted in large cradles once used for stretching rope and splicing wire for use in rigging.
The need for rigging declined with the departure of wooden sailing vessels, but the need for rope and items fashioned from rope is still in high demand on the shipyard today. The duties of sail makers and riggers, along with many of the oldest PNSY trades, have transitioned over time. The traditional work and skillsets have evolved to meet the mission of today’s Navy.
| Date Taken: | 07.17.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.17.2024 13:52 |
| Story ID: | 486618 |
| Location: | KITTERY, MAINE, US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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