At Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, in a corner of a building devoted to small-boat woodworking, is a station where the crafts and traditions of ships’ carving are kept alive and passed on from the hands of master carvers.
I’m always fascinated by these long-standing traditions that produce not only purely decorative trims and figureheads, but also small structural items that go into the making of wooden ships.
The Seaport at Mystic isn’t just a static museum; it maintains ships and even builds them, and these crafts are not all destined for displays.
