Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Ship in My Header

My colleague Chris Graham asked me this morning about the ship drawing I put on the blog header. I guess I could offer some explanation, so here goes:

USS Daylight
The ship was a screw steamer (also rigged for sail as you can see in the drawing) and was built in New York in 1859. She was 170' long, 30'6" wide, and drafted 13'. Her crew complement was 57 officers and men, and she mounted four 32-pounders. The US Navy purchased and commissioned her in early summer 1861 and she served with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She was decommissioned and sold immediately after the war.

The reason I put her up there is that she is one of the ships our living history unit portrays at some of our programs. She was involved in a number of engagements in coastal NC, including the Battle of Fort Macon in April 1862 and some smaller operations in coastal waters. I think she is a good looking ship that is very representative of the types of ships operating in coastal waters. So there you have it. I have drawings of other ships we portray as a unit and will change them up from time to time so keep a lookout on that header!

2 comments:

DW@CWBA said...

Looks like you took advantage of the new header widget as well! I found that if you make the picture 710 pixels wide it will make the border width uniform on both sides.

Andrew Duppstadt said...

Thanks for the tip. I will try that on the next photo I rotate in. I have a photo editor on my new computer that I haven't quite figured out how to use, so that's part of the problem. One of these days I'll get it straight!