4Culture has become the recent, and VERY proud, recipient of a wooden ship’s knee from the 1897 schooner Wawona. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, come upstairs and take a gander …
Northwest Seaport and Seattle Parks and Recreation are currently working on documenting the underbody of the historic vessel, and identifying salvageable components for re-distribution to local heritage organizations and other interested groups. If you are one of these, contact Shannon Fitzgerald at Northwest Seaport for more information on this project.
Ship’s knee from Wawona at 4Culture offices, 2009
3 comments
Laura Bowker says:
Jan 7, 2010
I believe you have a typo in your article. I am guessing that you have a wooden keel. A keel is the backbone of a ship, which gives strength to a ship. There are different layers to a keel. The false keel is a smaller keel which is attached to the bottom of the keel to protect the main keel if damaged in shallow water. The ribs of the ship are attached to the Keel. The keelson is attached to the top of the ribs and bolts go through the keelson, the ribs and the keel. This is what attaches the ribs to the ship. In prior years, I was a Shipwright and spent many years working in the shipyards. For those of you who do not know, a Shipwright is a marine carpenter. I hope to be able to come down to see what you have.
Thanks,
Laura B.
Sara Edwards says:
Jan 7, 2010
Thanks Laura. We were told it’s a knee… but we will do some more research and update this post when we have more info. In the meantime, please come by and check it out and let us know what you think.
Brandi Link says:
Jan 8, 2010
Hi Laura – The perspective of the photo is a bit misleading, makes it appear that it is part of the keel assembly. But our experts have confirmed, it is a knee.
For those of you (like me) that are a little fuzzy on the difference – a knee is an angle bracket that holds up the deck beams. A keel is the long, deep, straight part of the bottom of the hull that helps the boat go on a straight course. Learn something new everyday.
Thanks to Shannon Fitzgerald and Diana Hennick from Northwest Seaport for the clarification!