Video
Captain Tiffany Krihwan Ernestina-Morrissey Interview
Transcript
00:00:04:03 - 00:00:36:19
Speaker 1
I am Tiffany Krihwan and I am the master and director for Ernestina-Morrissey. I came to be on board the boat in the fall of 2020. I was furloughed from my previous position as captain of another state flagship vessel. And they posted this position and I had heard about the restoration. I had met the individual, Craig Dalton, who had been overseeing the project for the academy the last several years, and they were at the point where they were ready to bring on a full-time captain.
00:00:36:19 - 00:01:07:28
Speaker 1
So having been furloughed, it was kind of serendipitous that I applied for that position right after the new year, after the whole selection process was offered the position, and then moved out here at the very end of February of 21. And here I am. I've been a captain, a licensed captain, now 26 years, I think maybe 27 years, and working on tall ships, either 25 years or 26 years, I've kind of lost count.
00:01:08:00 - 00:01:29:19
Speaker 1
My specialty is tall ships, although I have worked on other power vessels in other sailing vessels. But tall ships is kind of the thing that keeps me going in this career. I started out sailing little boats when I was little. My grandfather had a boat at the yacht club, and he wanted all of us grandkids to have a lot of boating knowledge, boating safety knowledge specifically.
00:01:29:19 - 00:01:52:10
Speaker 1
And so we all took sailing lessons at the yacht club, and it was more than just a camp, it was more of a school. It was five days a week all summer long. So just like a school would be. And I just excelled at it. Really loved it. My siblings and cousins, they liked it enough, but for me it was just that one thing that I just really took hold of and just excelled.
00:01:52:10 - 00:02:10:29
Speaker 1
I used to be a competitive racer in my junior years and then my young adult years as well. Competitive racer in the lightning fleet made it to nationals at the women's level. And then I got on my first tall ship 20 some odd years ago, and I didn't even realize it was a possibility to work on a boat like this.
00:02:11:01 - 00:02:33:03
Speaker 1
I was on vacation with my older sister. We were in Key West spring break. We're both in college and that's when I was on my first schooner just as a passenger, Appledore II. And they started getting me thinking. And then I got my license. And the very next year I started working on two ships. So that's how it started.
00:02:33:06 - 00:02:54:07
Speaker 1
When I joined the vessel the very first time I got to see her since 2003 or 4, she was in Booth Bay, Maine. going in an extensive restoration. She was several years into it. Like everything else, the pandemic slowed it down. I was supposed to have been done sooner, but first, the shutdown and then shortage of people and supply chain issues.
00:02:54:07 - 00:03:14:13
Speaker 1
So she was behind schedule. And when I saw her in mid-March of 21, she was still fairly empty. On the inside. The watertight bulkheads were in place, and that was it for structure. There wasn't even what we call the sole board, which are your floorboards, they weren't even in yet, which is still just beams. That's how open she was.
00:03:14:13 - 00:03:39:07
Speaker 1
No furniture. The main engines weren't in yet. She was quite open. And from that point on I oversaw with the state rep, the person that was managing the project at the state level, not the academy level. Hannah Gray. We worked hand in hand to get this boat to where it is now, and she did a lot of the system designs or hired out the people to do the system designs, but she has a really good head for systems.
00:03:39:07 - 00:04:00:01
Speaker 1
In fact, I just spoke with her the other day about some systems that I'm having some not issues with, but just need some more understanding where they came to be in the thought process. She's very knowledgeable and from there the boat launched in August, the very end of August of last year, so it's hard to believe it has even been a year and she's come this far.
00:04:00:01 - 00:04:23:13
Speaker 1
The masks were put in just before we launched, and then we finished uprigging her with the shipyard, stepping the mast with us, and us doing a lot of the rest of the rigging where they were finishing the interior and the mechanical side of the ship. We did a couple of sea trials up in Booth Bay just to commission her engine and her generator and her drive shaft with the technicians that were involved.
00:04:23:13 - 00:04:45:22
Speaker 1
So Hundested for the variable pitch prop, technicians were on board Twin Disc, which is our transmission. They were on board and then Cummings were on board just to certify that everything was installed properly, that they should work according to plan, shouldn't have any surprises. So we did a couple of those sea trials up there. So that was our first.
00:04:45:22 - 00:05:16:28
Speaker 1
But they weren't very far. Just an hour or two for the most part. And then her first big voyage was bringing her to the Academy. And it was just before Thanksgiving, so it was quite cold. We did it in 16 hours. I forget how many nautical miles it was, being a new vessel and being very cautious. We had an escort vessel the entire way, so if we were to have some type of mechanical failure or whatever, this vessel would have been able to tow us into port.
00:05:17:00 - 00:05:44:22
Speaker 1
Should we come to that? But nope. She performed beautifully, got her into the Academy more than 12 hours earlier than we anticipated, and we were at the Academy for about a week and then actually a couple weeks. And then we brought her to New Bedford, not a lot of pomp and fanfare for it. We did it to surprise people, but I didn't want to do the first time bringing her into this dock, which is not an easy dock with a whole audience to watch me bump things which did not happen.
00:05:44:22 - 00:06:04:01
Speaker 1
They said we snuck into New Bedford, and there's a little bit of truth to that, because again, we have to bring this boat, which is almost 26 feet wide, into a space, where I only have about six feet either side of it and a brand new boat. I don't know how she handles very well yet, so that's what we did.
00:06:04:03 - 00:06:29:16
Speaker 1
And now we've been in and out lots of times. In modern day sail, something like Ernestina-Morrissey. We can expect a long life provided she gets the proper maintenance and it's all preventative maintenance. Of course things break and they need to be addressed, but as long as you're staying on top of that preventative maintenance meaning keeping her painted, kind of like what's happening right now, just keeping all these things to keep the things that deteriorate.
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:51:29
Speaker 1
A boat at bay that helps keep them going forever. Now it's an older boat. You know, there's internal issues. It may not see until you're in depth into a restoration. And that was part of the case with this restoration. But wooden vessels like this, there's so many more modern resources, synthetic things that can help in the maintenance of the vessel, such as epoxy.
00:06:52:01 - 00:07:10:27
Speaker 1
We can use epoxy now where we're not having to take old growth lumber to build or to restore a vessel like this. We can take younger trees and use this epoxy and glue them up, and we can actually glue them up in a pattern that makes it stronger than if it were just a solid lumber. So that helps out quite a bit.
00:07:10:27 - 00:07:35:26
Speaker 1
And then like our sails, they're also synthetic so they won't deteriorate nearly as fast as a canvas sail. And now that this is second generation of this type of material called Oceanus. And there's better UV protectant in it. So the sun was like everything else, plastic. The sun is very hard on plastic. And so now we have additional UV in this new generation of Oceanus that will help that.
00:07:35:26 - 00:07:56:09
Speaker 1
So here's something else that the sail should last for a decade or more. This is the start of a really great next chapter, and I think it's going to be a nice long chapter working with the cadets at the Academy. But she's still doing and we'll be doing a lot of what she did before the Academy took over, where she'll be doing outreach.
00:07:56:09 - 00:08:26:15
Speaker 1
K through 12 programs on all different aspects of marine science, cultural awareness, oceanography, history, living history, sea history and nautical sciences. Still going to tall ship events so that people can come and see her tour on board. The amount of stories I've heard in my just over two years of being on board is astronomical. I had no idea so many people have a connection with this vessel all the way down to Galveston.
00:08:26:15 - 00:08:54:17
Speaker 1
We met one of the more sea granddaughters. So it's funny, from Gloucester, Massachusetts, settled in Galveston. Her grandfather was in, great grandfather were captains of the vessel, so she had to come and see the vessel. I love that she served in World War II. If you think about it, during World War II, the US government was enlisting several tall ships because of the wood nature of it, the U-boats, they were harder to find.
00:08:54:17 - 00:09:20:14
Speaker 1
The wood vessels and then also the mines, because the the mines were attracted to metal. And then also if they were sailing, the submarines didn't hear the engine so they could kind of sneak by. And so a lot of our coast was patrolled by tall ships, but what we now call tall ships, but schooners. And so she was also part of that fleet going up to Greenland and Iceland and surveying to find out where the U.S. should put some airbases.
00:09:20:14 - 00:09:45:16
Speaker 1
That was a secret mission that she did, and then taking supplies up there as well, had lots of Cape Verde individuals. Just last night, another individual whose family came over on this vessel back in the late 50s, early 60s. So, you know, she has a great history ahead of her and with this restoration that is just finishing up, there's no reason that she won't be around for another 100 years.
00:09:45:19 - 00:10:08:13
Speaker 1
We participate in the tall ship event of the Gulf Coast this year, and we were uprigging this boat with three inches of snow on board and then, no joke, two weeks later, we're down in 80 degrees. I was really surprised how fast we made it down there. I was a little concerned whether or not we would make it in time, and we got there two days early, so that really surprised me.
00:10:08:16 - 00:10:32:27
Speaker 1
We had our main sail up finally, that main sail, just give you an idea, is as big as a basketball court. If you want to stretch it out. And so I haven't had enough crew to set that main sail. And we finally got to set the main sail just a couple weeks ago, a bunch of volunteers, staff from the academy and former crew came out and we got that sail set, got some really great photographs of her finally under sail.
00:10:33:04 - 00:11:00:27
Speaker 1
That's one of the things people always ask for. And she sailed beautifully. I think I had about maybe 12 knots of wind and we were doing 8.4 knots. So if you think about we are turning two thirds of that energy, wind energy, into movement of a vessel that weighs over 400,000 pounds. So our crew number when we're doing long trips should be about 10 to 12, and we'll be able to take on overnight trips.
00:11:00:29 - 00:11:30:13
Speaker 1
Cadets or trainees, and we'll be able to take 20 to 22 of them. And when we start doing public day sails, we'll be able to take more than 50 people in a public sale. So in the maritime industry, Mariner training back in the day, we're always done on auxiliary sailing vessel. So a sailing vessel that also had an engine so they can utilize, you know, both sailing and, you know, 100 years ago, if you can believe it was just 100 years ago, marine engines weren't that reliable still.
00:11:30:13 - 00:11:50:26
Speaker 1
And they use a lot of fuel. So it's kind of funny how we've come full circle. We're trying to get boats more efficient. There's some larger boats out there that use some giant best way to describe it. Kites to help them in the trade winds. So full circle regarding that, there's another academy. Maine Maritime has a vessel called Bowdoin.
00:11:50:29 - 00:12:15:02
Speaker 1
And so now Mass Maritime has Ernestina-Morrissey. I'm hoping maybe some of the other academies will start bringing tall ships online, because it lays down the best foundation, in my opinion, for a maritime career, especially a very successful maritime career. Because you're out in the elements, you're not inside a wheelhouse looking at monitors, you're out, you're steering the vessel, you're looking at the compass.
00:12:15:02 - 00:12:35:29
Speaker 1
We still use a compass for our headings in that, and we're still watching the weather approach us and old world technologies like watching the barometer. It's a great indicator of weather coming, watching our cloud types. And we record all these things every hour. So it just helps build that situational awareness. You have to learn your knots. A lot of mariners
00:12:35:29 - 00:12:57:14
Speaker 1
they learn their knots long enough to pass the exam. And then they only have a couple where here we use so many different knots on a regular basis. You get very good at knot tying in the proper application for the knot that you're tying. If there's a tall ship in your area, I would just reach out to them, see if they have a volunteer program.
00:12:57:14 - 00:13:18:13
Speaker 1
Most of them do, and find out what it takes to get involved in it. Sometimes some ships will have a requirement. You have to do so many hours of maintenance before you get to sail the vessel. There's other vessels where you have to guarantee that you're going to be there for a week straight to help out, so there's some kind of back and forth give and take of that.
00:13:18:16 - 00:13:29:22
Speaker 1
We are still developing our volunteer program. We're right now just trying to get the boat finished with her certifications. And so then maybe next year we'll start developing that volunteer program.
Descriptive Transcript
The video begins with a black background. It then transitions to another black background with all text centered on the screen. The white text at the top reads: "Tiffany Krihwan" Below it, a green horizontal line divides the text. The bottom line reads: "Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey" in white. The title page text shrinks to a smaller size and moves to the top left corner. The black background remains, and white closed captioned text appears in the center of the screen, double-lined in a large font size.
Description
Join Tiffany Krihwan, master of the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey, as she shares her journey to becoming its captain. She discusses the ship's extensive restoration, her maritime background, and the vessel's storied past, including its role in WWII. Learn about the challenges faced during restoration and future plans for cadet training and public sails. This video highlights the dedication and passion involved in preserving and sailing this iconic schooner.
Duration
13 minutes, 30 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
Date Created
06/04/2024
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