This 1965-built 5.5 metre Olympic-class racing yacht constructed in Norway by Bjarne Aas is being restored by a small team of apprentices at the Apprenticeshop at Rockland in Maine.
Lyric was donated to the Apprenticeshop in 2007, and apprentices and instructors have raced her at WoodenBoat magazine’s classic Eggemoggin Reach Regatta each summer since 2009; she came second out of 20 in her class in both 2009 and 2011, so she’s clearly a quick and well-sailed boat.
Apprentice Skyler Shepard has been in touch to say that she is now being fitted with a laminated backbone in mahogany, and she is having new steam-bent ash frames, some new mahogany planking, and a new spruce and plywood deck structure. The plan is to return her to her original styling as much as possible – click here and then on the link ‘What is this?’ at the bottom of the screen to see some older photos of Lyric.
There’s a still webcam on a 10-minute time delay here – Skyler warns that it can be a bit dull during the weekend and overnight, but is likely to be more interesting from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8am and 5pm USA Eastern time. In the UK, I think that means the excitement starts at about the same time most of us sit down for lunch…
There are other projects currently underway as well, including one to build a Perkin’s Island lighthouse tender and another to construct a 10ft Columbia dinghy designed by Nat Herreshoff. See them here.
15 days to go … and looks like all planking done – and fairing the hull