The sheer strakes are all on, bunged, and sanded. The covering boards are going on, the king planks are on, the decking continues. The Erie High School Maritime Program students are assisting in construction projects on the vessel as one part of their high school day. The hull has been fortified in the sixteen locations where large bolts penetrate the hull to fasten the chainplates. The battery box has been sealed, painted and installed. Old growth (pre-1908) reclaimed, vertical grained, long leaf yellow pine has been milled for sheer strakes, wale strakes, davits, cat-heads, decking, and more. The project remains in compliance with the US Coast Guard Marine Safety Center inspectors and is forging ahead.

Big Ideas Learning, a subsidiary of Millcreek Township-based Larson Texts Inc., has pledged $100,000 over the next six years to help the Bayfront Maritime Center complete construction of its Porcupine schooner project and to provide maritime-themed math curriculum for onboard programming.

Rich Eisenberg, executive director of the Maritime Center, and Larson Texts CEO Matthew Totzke announced the partnership Friday morning during a news conference inside the Maritime Center’s boat room at 40 Holland St., where work on the Porcupine is ongoing.

When completed, the Porcupine, a historical representation of a War of 1812 square topsail schooner, will be known as The School Ship for Presque Isle Bay.′

Big Ideas Learning presented Eisenberg with a $25,000 check. Totzke said his company will donate an additional $25,000 to the Maritime Center in 2018, and continue its support with yearly donations of $10,000 from 2019 through 2023.

“In addition to the financial support, one of the things that was important to us was also to help with developing the curriculum because that’s our expertise and something we thought we could bring,″ Totzke said. “A lot of people can write the check, but not everyone can help make the programming as high quality as Rich wants it to be.″

Eisenberg said Maritime Center officials have raised more than $400,000 for the project but need additional funding to cover the project’s estimated $810,000 cost.

“This donation helps us a lot,″ Eisenberg said. “We’re still fundraising, we still need more to finish this. We’d like to be sailing in the spring of 2018. That’s an aggressive schedule, and I’m making no promises, but that’s what we’re shooting for. If we can raise enough money, that can happen. It’s aggressive.″

Staff and veteran shipwrights have been working since the spring of 2015 to transform a donated 40-foot fiberglass hull into the Porcupine’s envisioned primary role as a regional science, technology, engineering and math classroom for area students.

That science and technology vision is incorporated into its composition: fiberglass hull, steel keel and a wooden deck, wooden masts and mostly wooden interior.

“Rich and I probably started talking at the beginning of the year, and from the beginning we realized we have similar missions, where we’re really focused on the student, every student can learn, and they can learn through applying their knowledge through real world skills,″ Totzke said.

Larson Texts and Big Ideas Learning have produced math textbooks for students in sixth grade through college calculus for nearly four decades. They are used each year by about 5 million students.

The company was founded in 1978 by then-Penn State Behrend math professor Ron Larson and has been based since 2000 at its two-story, 25,000-square-foot facility, the former Belle Valley Elementary School, at 1762 Norcross Road.

Construction started in June on a $5 million project that will add a new four-story addition and additional 32,000 square feet to Larson Texts’ existing structure.

“In talking with Rich, I got really excited about the possibility of us being involved in a very real way in the Erie community with our expertise in education and with a partner that shares a lot of our ideas,″ Totzke said. “It was a no-brainer.″

Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of a recent $5,000 donation to the Maritime Center from the PNC Foundation to support construction.

Besides its primary function as a floating classroom offering half-day or full-day sails for schoolchildren, the Porcupine also will conduct overnight programs, public sails, private charters and special programming.

The twin-masted Porcupine will be 43 feet in length on its deck and a maximum 15 feet 2 inches wide. Its sparred length, from the bowsprit to the back of its main boom, is 62 feet. The vessel’s draft is 5 feet 4 inches.

A 7,800-pound keel was welded to the hull in the past year.

Shipwrights have changed the shape of the Porcupine’s bow, stem and transom, installed a rudder, and have raised the freeboard, giving the vessel more height above the waterline as well as additional internal room and more deck space.

The original gunboat Porcupine was built under the direction of Daniel Dobbins in the spring of 1813 near the foot of present-day Sassafras Street. The Porcupine fought in the Battle of Lake Erie near Put-in-Bay, Ohio, in September 1813.

Kathy Palmerton, of Ravenna, Ohio, and her now late husband, Keith Palmerton, donated the Porcupine’s 40-foot fiberglass hull in September 2014 after learning about the center and its work with inner-city and underserved children.

Ron Leonardi   ron.leonardi@timesnews.com

L-R: Rich Eisenberg-BMC Director, Dennis Williams-BMC Board Secretary, Ken Phillips-Porcupine Volunteer, Matt Totzke- CEO at Larson Texts, Sue Dombrowski- VP Finance and HR Larson Texts, Doug Boucher-BMC Board President

Join us for food and fun at an open house in the BMC boatshop, Thursday the 14th of July from 5 to 7 pm. See the construction progress on Schooner Porcupine. Learn more about the Schoolship for Presque Isle Bay and the other summer programming underway at BMC.

At roughly 42 by 15 feet, Porcupine inhabits a rather large section of both the BMC boatshop and our current organizational focus. She is by no means, however, the only vessel our students and staff are working on. In fact, BMC’s 92nd boat — our second St. Ayles Skiff — will launch this afternoon. Students from the Bayfront Alternative Education Program, apprentices from Project Sail and Project Voyage, and BMC volunteers all contributed to the skiff’s construction under the watchful instruction of our aptly named boatbuilder, Jodi Carpenter. Their labors will come to fruition as the sleek, double-ended hull of Blue Pike floats center stage later today.

Boatbuilder Jodi Carpenter standing alongside Blue Pike. In the background, Porcupine, eagerly awaits her launch exactly 11 months from today.

Created in 2009 to replicate the Scottish Fair Isle Skiff, over 65 St. Ayles Skiffs have been launched worldwide. Once afloat, Blue Pike will join her twin, Mighty Oak, to double the capacity of BMC’s Community Rowing Program. As evidenced by their worldwide popularity, the St. Ayles are nearly perfect for such a public program—lap-straked elegance makes them both eye catching and easy to maintain, high swept sheer lifts both bow and stern over choppy seas, four cross-banked rowers and a coxswain sit in beamy comfort, but can make the hull seem to fly.

Did I mention they’re sleek?

Jodi Carpenter and students rowing BMC’s first St. Ayles skiff

The 1904 Manual for Seamanship for Boys and Seamen of the Royal Navy claims “a ship is known by her boats,” and those boats “carry the credit of your ship.” Perhaps it is the credit of not just your ship, but your whole institution, that goes with the boats. If so, we at BMC can be quite proud—gorgeous and seaworthy to behold, these twin skiffs were built by many hands, with much sweat and teamwork. This summer, those diverse hands will toil together at the sweeps, and the boats will respond merrily, carrying our credit across Presque Isle Bay.

All best,

Jamie Trost, Team Porcupine, and the BMC Staff

Porcupine’s “shoe” will run along the bottom of the keel, and counter balance the sail plan

The idea of external ballast is well established—from classic yachts to modern racers, iron and lead keels have become the norm for over a hundred years because they’re far more effective. The lower the weight, the further it is from the effort in the rig, and the “stiffer” the vessel becomes. When Porcupine’s 1813 namesake was built, however, the common practice was to load ballast into the bilges. Often this was stone, ideally cut into stackable squares or rectangles that minimize air gaps. Built in the wilderness that was early 19^th-Century Erie, the original Porcupine may well have carried a ballast load of local rocks.

Our new Porcupine will have a “shoe” instead. Not as dagger shaped as modern fin-style keels, the shoe is essentially a one foot deep extension of steel and lead along the bottom of her existing full-length keel. Except for the fact that it’s bolted instead of nailed, it’s not unlike a horseshoe, hence the name. And while the drawing of it is sequentially fourth in the set of plans that will make Porcupine, the shoe will be the first thing we install as we, quite literally, transform our schooner from the bottom up.

All best,

Jamie Trost, Team Porcupine, and the BMC Staff

We’re off to a good start and are continuing to seek community sponsors, donors, and partners.