Historical shipbuilding winch placed at Lawson Creek Park.
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| Bryan Caton, left, assists Marty Williams in setting up a draw winch for display at Lawson Creek Park Wednesday morning. The display is expected to finished by Monday. |
A bit of New Bern’s shipbuilding history will soon be on display at Lawson Creek Park.
A draw winch assembly of the type that the Barbour boat company used to haul boats into dry dock for repair is being placed on a concrete pedestal by the side of the first boat launch in the city park.
Williams Service Company — the same company that mounted the Blue Angels jet near the park entrance in 2012 — began installation of the display Thursday morning. Marty Williams, who is supervising the construction, said he expects the work to be completed by Monday.
Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation Director Susan Moffat-Thomas, who has overseen the overall project, said that a ceremony will be held in a few months, once a storyboard telling the winch’s story is completed.
The winch, which is about 8 feet in circumference and weighs in at three or four tons, had originally been purchased by the Barbour boat works, second hand, from another company, according to Robert Chiles of Robert M. Chiles Engineers and Consultants. Chiles, who in the 1960s, was also employed by Barbour.
The winch was part of a system used to pull boats into dry dock for repairs. He estimated that this winch could have pulled boats as large as 300 tons. The winch was built by the Crandall dry dock company, which built dry docks around the world, especially during World War II. While “Crandall started building these things all the way back in the year ‘one,” Chiles said, he estimated this particular winch was probably built around the 1930s.
While Barbour already had winches at its main location (where the N.C. History Center now stands), this winch was purchased with the plan to use it along the Neuse River at a second yard that is currently Maola Milk property.
The planned dry dock could not be built, however, because the channel was too close to shore, so the wheel remained lying on the property until it became overgrown with weeds and forgotten.
Moffat-Thomas said she first became aware of the gear when she was chairing New Bern’s 300 Committee in 2010.
“Tom McGraw, Harry Goodman and Dick Lore had found the artifact while they were out walking and wondered if I thought it would fit in with the theme,” she said. “I went out and looked at the machine and was very excited about it.”
Moffat-Thomas approached the Maola Company, which donated the winch to Swiss Bear.
“The city disassembled it and stored it behind some buildings at Glenburnie Park,” she said, while funds were sought to restore and display it.
For some time, the winch set idle, as the economy “tanked,” she said. But, “I never gave up on wanting that artifact restored because it is the only remnant or historic artifact that relates back to New Bern’s boat building industry.”
Barbour, founded by Herbert W. Barbour in 1933, built a wide variety of ships, including minesweepers and rescue ships during World War II and other military ships during the Vietnam era. It also constructed fishing vessels, barges, ferry boats and harbor tugs before it closed its doors in 2001.
Swiss Bear finally received $21,000 from Mary Ann Harrison. The money was used to sandblast and prepare the machine, as well as to cover the cost of a storyboard.
Moffat-Thomas obtained permission from the New Bern Board of Aldermen to have the winch set up in Lawson Creek Park and said ownership will be taken over by the city once it is complete.
“This has been on Swiss Bear’s radar for a long time,” she said. “I’m thrilled to death that this is coming to completion.”
Sun Journal article - January 11, 2014
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