What Does A Fishing Schooner Have To Do With STEM Education?
What Does A Fishing Schooner Have To Do With STEM Education?
What Does A Fishing Schooner Have To Do With STEM Education?
We’ll board her by using the gangway, an Inclined 2) Compound Machines: Can You Put Simple Machines
Plane. Her hull acts as a Wedge when she’s moving Together To Perform More Complicated Tasks?
through the water. Systems of wheels and ropes called In a wall-mounted case, a fanciful Rube Goldberg type
block and tackle act as Pulleys to raise and lower sails apparatus fascinates the student who dares to turn the handle.
and small, open boats called dories. The helm utilizes How many simple machines can you identify? Can you see
a Wheel and Axle system to turn the rudder. When how a simple machine can change the direction of force?
fitted with an engine, the propeller was a Screw. The Can you see how the output force of one machine becomes
dories were used for fishing and every time a fisherman the input force of another? Photo credit: Mystic Seaport
in a dory pulls an oar through the oarlock, he is using a “Force in Motion at Sea” Exhibit in the Discovery Barn at Mystic Seaport
Lever. Each of these simple machines makes our work 3) Wind Table: How Does a Boat Sail?
6) Degrees of List: How Important is Proper Cargo Loading?
or the work of the boat easier, faster, and safer. The wind blows where it will; we cannot control its direction
A boat floats because the weight of the boat is equal to the weight
or strength, but sailors know how to use it. Our wind table
of the water it displaces, or pushes aside. Gravity pulls the boat
Once you know what you’re looking for, Mystic uses a fan to simulate the wind and its directional force. A
down into the water, but the water pushes back up, creating buoy-
Seaport is a treasure trove of simple and compound student chooses a small boat and affixes a sail of varying
ancy. When a vessel is perfectly level, its center of gravity and
machines and can help you readily make connections shape. On the slick table surface, it is easy to sail away from
center of buoyancy are in line and the vessel appears vertical in the
between technology today and that of the past. By the “wind” (“downwind”). But now, try sailing “upwind”:
water. That is, until we start loading on cargo! Students can try
way of introduction, and to make that connection how can you do this? A knowledge of physics is most
their hand at cargo handling. Can they avoid capsizing the vessel?
immediately accessible to our visitors, Mystic Seaport helpful for a sailor, for he or she must angle or point his or
Think of all those forces at work.
has recently opened an exciting new exhibit in the her boat and its sails to maximize their curvature, and must
Discovery Barn called “Force in Motion at Sea”. Here, change his or her direction by “tacking”. How important is
7) Pitch, Yaw and Roll: More Forces to Contend With?
a wide range of hands-on activities invite inquiry-based maneuverability to a vessel at sea?
A sturdy, wall-mounted hull gives students the opportunity to
exploration of key concepts in physics and tie these in explore three more ways that ocean forces affect the movement
with challenges faced by sailors at sea, especially those of a vessel. Pitch is the up and down movement as a boat moves
fisherman once aboard the schooner L.A. Dunton. forward in heavy seas. Yaw is the rotation of a vessel around its
vertical axis. Roll is the side-to-side rotation of a vessel around
Find out how your students can experience Mystic Seaport here: its longitudinal axis. Can good boat design and construction mini-
mize the effect of these movements? Which one(s) will make you
http://www.mysticseaport.org/learn/k-12-programs/field-trip/ seasick?
Geography is Destiny
Geography is Destiny One Man’s Dream
The fishing schooner L. A. Dunton has two stories. One is the vessel herself, Felix J. Hogan was born in 1872 in Newfoundland, Canada, and like many
built almost a century ago and now an integral part of the Mystic Seaport’s young men of his time and place, he grew up fishing for cod in the coastal
collection of historic vessels. But the schooner’s other story began about waters near his home. As a teenager, he came south to Massachusetts to
12,000 years ago, when the last great North American ice sheet began to work on fishing schooners leaving from the ports of Gloucester and Boston
recede, leaving behind vast piles of rocky debris (terminal moraine) which and sailing the 100 miles to the Georges Bank or the 800 miles to the Grand
we know now as Cape Cod, Long Island and the islands between them. Banks (off Newfoundland). A hard worker, he rose from dory fisherman to Photo credit: Mystic Seaport
Beyond, to the east, on the continental shelf, we find broad plateaus. spare skipper to captain, and by 1920 he was ready to have his own boat. He
When the ice sheet melted, the sea rose and submerged the plateaus, but wanted the very best; a deep-draft schooner with plenty of cargo space for fish,
Too Much Success?
their highest points, known as the Banks, are only 100 to 600 feet below that would be very seaworthy, very maneuverable and very fast. He wanted
the kind of two-masted schooner called a semi-knockabout that had been By the 1930’s, technology had taken its toll on the fishing industry. Two-masted
sea level. Around the Banks flow two distinct ocean currents. One is
designed by a famous naval architect named McManus. It had an elongated schooners like the L. A. Dunton were obsolete, even those with auxiliary engines. They
the Gulf Stream carrying its warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico north-
bow and a shortened bowsprit so that it was safer for the fishermen to reef were replaced with trawlers powered by engines fueled with heavy crude-oil. The
northeast along the Banks’ eastern edge. Nearer to land, the Labrador
and furl the headsails in bad weather. He went to the famous shipyard owned trawlers dragged a conical net called an otter-trawl across the sea’s bottom, raking in
Current brings cold water south. Over the shallow Banks, where sunlight
by Arthur D. Story in Essex, Massachusetts, and in six months, Mr. Story’s crew great quantities of fish. By the 1960’s eastern-rig draggers were introduced and further
can reach the bottom, the warm and cold currents mix and create an
built his schooner from oak and pine. Lewis A. Dunton, a Maine sailmaker depleted the fishing stock. Overfishing had its consequences; in the 1990’s the Georges
environment in which an abundance of marine organisms flourish. Schools
who held a financial interest in the vessel, offered to make a set of sails for Bank and Grand Banks were closed to most commercial fishing in the hopes that one
of fish are attracted to the plentiful food supply.
free if Captain Hogan would name his schooner after him. Captain Hogan day the Banks will recover and once again be rich with fish.
Where There Are Fish, There Are Fishermen
agreed, and on March of 1921, the L.A. Dunton was launched. The eight sails
Since the 1500’s men have found their way to the Banks. First Europeans,
were very large, about 8,000 square feet in area. The old-timers on shore told The L. A. Dunton Today
and later the settlers of North America fished the rich waters. Grand Banks,
Captain Hogan that his vessel would never be able to carry such a big mainsail. In 1963, Mystic Seaport acquired the L. A. Dunton. She is now a National Historic
off the coast of Newfoundland, Western Bank, off the coast of Nova Scotia,
According to one witness, Captain Hogan retorted, “Well, if she won’t carry it, Landmark and is a tangible reminder of a bygone era in fishing history. Her design
and Georges Bank, just 100 miles off of Cape Cod were key destinations.
she’ll drag it.” served her well: she was seaworthy, fast and agile and got her fishermen to the
For 300 years, fish were caught with handlines, one fish at a time. On
board the fishing boat, fish were headed, gutted, split and salted to fishing grounds and safely home again in record time. Don’t you think she is a worthy
preserve them until the boat could return home with the catch. What kind From 1921 until 1932, the L. A. Dunton served him well. Captain Hogan and inspiration for our new exhibit?
C
of fish were they catching? Cod. Migrating fish with voracious appetites, his crew fished the Georges Bank and the Grand Banks, making up to eight
often weighing 20 pounds or more, cod were easy to catch and easy to trips a year, each lasting approximately one month. In her first year of fishing, Literature, Art & Science
preserve. (Fun Fact: In 1602 Cape Cod was named by English Explorer
Bartholomew Gosnold because of the plentiful cod fish he found off its
shores.)
The L. A. Dunton brought back 268,000 pounds of fish. How many tons is
that? Each time she returned to port, the catch was sold and each of the 20
fishermen was paid a share of the gross receipts. The amount paid was highly
onnections
The More Fish, the Better dependent on the market price and the species of fish caught (halibut was
Force in Motion
highly desirable, and brought ten times the price of cod). In 1923, a man who We even have them for homeschoolers!
The demand for fish increased, and New England fishermen adopted
went on all eight of the L. A. Dunton’s trips for halibut made $876 – enough to www.mysticseaport.org/sailing
a more efficient way of fishing. Large sailing vessels called schooners Would you and your students enjoy a
buy a Ford motorcar.
could travel quickly from port to the Banks, each carrying up to ten small, Treasure Hunt? Mystic Seaport abounds
flat-bottomed boats called dories stacked on her deck. A good schooner
“Leaping, and plunging bows under” Illustration by Milton J. Burns
with simple and compound machines, Navigation
many of them in use every day by staff. It’s a whole wide world out there. Try
captain could locate the best fishing area by sampling the sand, clay and
You can watch a cooper shaping staves out tools of navigation in our Nautical
rock of the bottom, using a lead line (a weighted tube filled with tallow to
to make a bucket or a shipsmith turning Instruments Shop or simply sit back,
which bottom material could stick) and choose where to lower the dories
a hook. You can join our Demonstration relax and watch a planetarium show.
for fishing. Two men to a boat, the so-called “dorymates” would bait 300
squad and perhaps turn a rope jack or
to 500 hooks on small lines called gangings which hung from a heavy Thank you to Mystic Seaport colleagues
capstan. Tour on you own, or book one
trawl line 1800 feet long. Each dory would be lowered over the side of
of our special Force and Motion Tours. Andy German, Fran Muller, Erik
the schooner and the mates would row away from the schooner, playing http://www.mysticseaport.org/learn/k-12- Ingmundson and Barbara Jarnagin for
out the heavy trawl line until it settled near the bottom. Here, the bait programs/field-trip/guided-tours/ research and documents used as reference
(usually a greasy little fish called capelin) would attract cod, haddock, hake materials for this article. Thanks also
and halibut. These were hauled in by the dorymen, rowed back to the Sailing to Maribeth Bielinski, Dan McFadden,
schooner, then processed and salted or put on ice until the schooner could Perhaps you have an interest in learning Andy Price and Suki Williams for their
return to market. to sail. Check out our sailing classes. assistance.
Photo credit: Mystic Seaport