Hatch Farms

[Jon Paul]

How do you dog the modern hatch clamps on todays hatches? By hand with a wrench or with a power tool?

There are a variety of different types of hatch clamps out there. The one's I have worked with the most were closed with a wrench that pushed down on the clamp and it rotated or snapped if you will into a closed position. On the wrench itself was a hex head opening that could be used to tighten or loosen the bolt that put tension on the clamp.

[rocky]

How do you dog the modern hatch clamps on todays hatches? By hand with a wrench or with a power tool?

[Guest]

Not to minimize the amount of work and pain involved in securing hatches on a "Hatch Farm", but one-piece hatches wern't always a joy either. Sure the "Iron Deckhand" made positioning and taking on or putting on the hatches easy. But then you had to deal with clamping or unclamping all those hatch clamps. After you had done about 1000, your back as screaming for mercy. Not to mention the fun of working with clamps & hatches that were iced up.

[Jon Paul]

Again I want to thank all of you have who have continued to add to my original post, it has been a good sharing of experiences.
A friend of mine did sail on one of the Wyandotte boats that had wood hatch covers. He related to me that his biggest concern was that because the hatch covers weren't attached to each other or anything else for that matter, that they could sometimes be dropped into the cargo hold which brought about a lot of screaming and cussing form the bosun and mates. His explanation was that one man would stand fore and one aft of the hatch and walk them sideways into place. It was actually faster and easier than the Mulholland hatch covers which replaced them, but they obviously had their drawbacks. Tarped or not a wood hatch cover is a weak point with a solid sea coming over the deck.

[Guest]

Jon Paul, good thread - thanks for sparking some long buried memories. Are you familiar with or related to a Marty Paul who I saw had left some posts here at Boatnerds in the past. The reason I ask is that I was searching the site for one of my former 1st mates (John Vondran ?, Callaway '71-'72). Anyway, in one of Matry's posts he mentioned that John Vondran was his uncle, are you related? If you wish I can be contacted at -- J_Stanbrook-at- ameritech-dot-net

TIA, John

My last name is Michaels and no I am not related to anyone you mentioned. my email is:
greybearddotmatgmaildotcom
drop me a line I would be happy to chat with you.

[ML]

By June our captain, (R.G. Carr ?) retired

Great story John. You and I and some others on here lived it. It was just a very tough job back then(and it still is in many ways for the fellas out there now). Just being away from loved one's is tough enough. My dad was gone 8 mos. of the year 'til I sailed myself, very difficult for families.

You brought up Capt. Carr, dad's best friend. Great guy, fairly quiet. He didn't retire with you though. I had him on the Johnson in '74. He came on mid season when our skipper went home ill. They'd move around these skippers quite a bit be it retirements, sickness, timeoff, etc. I had some doozies for skippers as well as shipmates along the way, but that's another thread. Have a good one 'duffer!

PS, You must've thought you'd been sentenced to prison with hard labor after being on the Callaway! After being on the Hulst in '71 and getting the Ziesing in '72, that's how I felt. And we had George Janda, the worst cook in the fleet. I actually Lost weight!

[Guest]

Any of you guys ever work a wooden hatch cover hatch farm? Now that was real fun!

Black River And Joesph medill Paterson. Oh those stroghbacks!

[ole deckhand]

Any of you guys ever work a wooden hatch cover hatch farm? Now that was real fun!

[standuffer]

Jon Paul, good thread - thanks for sparking some long buried memories. Are you familiar with or related to a Marty Paul who I saw had left some posts here at Boatnerds in the past. The reason I ask is that I was searching the site for one of my former 1st mates (John Vondran ?, Callaway '71-'72). Anyway, in one of Matry's posts he mentioned that John Vondran was his uncle, are you related? If you wish I can be contacted at -- J_Stanbrook-at- ameritech-dot-net

TIA, John

[standuffer]

Standuffer. I know you came on the Ziesing the year after I did. We should have left the boat in good order for you. We layed her up in Sturgeon Bay, I believe rafted to the Clemson. Do you remember who your bosun was? Mine always called them fern(ferring) strips. Never heard them called batons. you must've had an educated bosun on your hatchfarm ride. Ahh, the good ole days, manual labor at it's finest.

ML, as best I can remember the Ziesing was in pretty good shape when I arrived in Sturgeon Bay to fit her out on April 1, 1973. I believe the boatswain was a guy named Paul who was slender, in his mid to late 20’s, and loved to hang out, farting around with his deckhands, down in their cabin. Paul was the union representative onboard and by mid June he left the Ziesing to pursue what I think, was a job with the Steelworkers Union, Local 5000.

The first few days aboard the Ziesing I experienced a very strong feeling of ‘culture shock’. The Ziesing was my 2nd boat and what an eye opening experience she was when you consider my 1st boat (6/71 – 2/72, + 4/72 – 6/72) was The Callaway. I went from the comfort of being the 4-8 deckwatch on the Callaway to a deckhand on the Zeising. What a change and an awakening for me. On the Callaway we had 2-man rooms with our own head, sink, and shower plus the connivance of AC power throughout the boat. It was like a hotel compared to the Ziesing with its 3 deckhands to a cabin off the dunnage room. The head and showers were on the other side of the dunnage room. Luckily for me and along the lines of what John Dunlap mentioned earlier, we had a rather large turnover of personnel that April and by mid-May I was once again standing watches as the 4-8 deckwatch. By far an easier job than deckhand but I still had my fair share of exposure to the tarps and wedges.

Fit out was hard work, as it is on any boat I suppose. Sunday was spent working on deck, bringing in and storing the dead wires and singleing up on the deck lines. After lunch we spent the afternoon removing the pilothouse shutters and carrying them down to the dunnage room for storage. No way were you leaving that dunnage room empty handed though, on our way back up we struggled to get tarps up to the spar deck. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent on a raft or sitting on a scaffold that was hanging over the side of the ship. We were painting the entire shipside, rolling that hull red on as fast and thick as possible. The most fun I had those 3 days was hanging over the end fantail, sitting on a scaffold, trying to reach the curved underside of her classic “counter’ stern to roll on yet one more coat of paint. Thursday was spent getting the deck ready for day-to-day operations. That was my introduction to tarps, proper tarp handling techniques, battons, wedges, small sledgehammers, strong backs, ‘J’ shaped butterfly clamps, and all of the steps necessary to Safely secure the deck. Friday we finished securing the deck, cast off, got under way, and had the ‘life line' up by lunchtime.

We had a good and stable crew on the Ziesing that season. By June our captain, (R.G. Carr ?) retired and our 1st mate, Roy Henze (from Two Harbors) was given his fist fulltime boat. Al Nelson (who looked a lot like the actor Conrad Janis, the father on Mork & Mindy) moved up to 1st mate and 20 years later captained ‘the footers ‘ Gott and Spear. We had a set of twins who were wheelmen and roommates (I always thought that was pretty cool). One of the watchmen took the boatswain job after Paul (the union guy) left and beside me having to get off/on the boat a number of times to take care of a legal problem, our crew was stable for the remainder of the season. The crewmembers that I can remember are, John B. from MN., he was a watchman who liked listening to and playing (guitar & harmonica) music, he also weaved nylon hammocks for fun and profit. My watchman, Mac was a crazy little guy from ME who had lots of saltwater sailing experience and came to the lakes to “take it easy” and be closer to home. He was an experienced and talented AB who taught me a lot. Mac called everyone “pard” (partner) and couldn’t wait to get off the boat to go up-town. He was regularly the first one off and the last one back aboard. Little Kevin E., also from Two Harbors, was the last deckhand to join the crew that season. As I recall Kevin came aboard mid-summer and like the rest of the crew, stayed aboard until we laid-up, in the graving dock, at Fraser. To my surprise, I saw Kevin E. again in the mid-90’s as I was checking in with security before being allowed to enter a customer site, the guy behind the security desk looks at my name on the sign-in sheet and asks “were you on the Ziesing”? As it turns out, Kevin was now living in Cleveland just a few miles away from me. What a small world.

[Mike D]

Yes all those memories of the hatch farm experience. I sailed the Sylvania, Hennepin, G.A. Tomlinson, Boland, Mather(24's) and did some tarping on short runs. The deckwatches were a big help as extra help. We actually closed all the sliders on the Sylvania once going from Monroe to Toledo in July! The Captain was a nervious type and it got windy. Handling those hatches and cables along with the winches was dangerous. We had a deckhand on the Young while dragging the bridles behind him got one of the hooks stuck on his belt when the hatch winch got a backlash. He got a ride into one of the stanchions and broke his back. They took him off on a Helicopter. The boats with the deck winches amidships were the easier type. the ones with the deck winches forward and you were on the last hatch aft were challenging. Took team work and careful handling. The tarps were a Pita period.

[TedC]

Yep, battens, not batons and the vernacular fern/furrin/furn strips represents firring strips.

No thanks on tarp work, but mega props to the guys who did it back in the day (and the fellas in the back of the boat too).

[Jon Paul]

I want to thank everyone who stayed on topic. I will post some photos in the News Photo Gallery of the ships mentioned in this thread.

[Guest]

Hey, you're a poet and don't know it. When in doubt, you can scream and shout, but when it comes down to it, and I can prove it, you must come to grips, the last say on the ship, comes from the Skip! Not the Chief, big guy!

[Brent]

Reminds me of a poem: When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout. If you find you won't go clear, blame it on the engineer.

[Brent]

I have never heard of an engineer that ran a boat aground or in to another boat. After you get the tarps on and had a nice dinner that hot water in the shower was provided buy those guy in the back of the boat, as was the dinner.

[Guest]

After reading all the above it shows why the guys with all the brains worked in the back end of the boat.

Yea, your right, it is always better to look up at the water instead of down into it, to have to be told where you've been over the galley dinner table instead of seeing it yourself, and always the first to go down with the ship.

[Randy S]

Lets not forget about the wonderful physical aspects of working on a hatch farm in tarp season ... Spend so much time on your knees on wet and icy decks, in half-frozen coveralls that your knees chapped so bad that they bled, semi-skinned knuckles from the clamp wrench slipping off the butterfly nuts, hands so chapped and beat up that it hurt to open them when you first got up in the morning, etc etc. Then there was always the danger of flying if you were handling tarps in the wind and didn't let go quick enough when a gust hit. Ah yes .. the "good ol' days". Glad I experienced it, but would Never want to do it again.

[Guest]

Yeah, you're sure right about that. Those cooks and porters sure had it together, kept us hard workers fed and happy(hopefully). Oh, you weren't speaking about the gearheads back there were you?

[Brent]

After reading all the above it shows why the guys with all the brains worked in the back end of the boat.