Hazelnut

So they ate hazelnuts? The people who sailed this ship we call the Lootsi ship but they of course something completely different, the ones who made it and lived in it. What was the name of this ship?

How could we ever get to know the real name of this ship we're now cleaning and finding things they ate and wore and used, the medieval sailors?

I'd love to know it. Probably never to be found unless it's somewhere in archives and somebody's clever enough to dig it out from there. Maybe together with the names of the skippers who once sailed these. Fat chance, I know, but who knows. Archival magic might reveal wonders. 

Hazelnut. It came up with one of my spoonfuls of sand from under the planks in mid-ship. Such a small find, but so meaningful when considering it with the other foodstuffs found here, fish- and animal bones for instance. And whatever those rats found from underneath the tar barrel hold in their stomachs. Food for scientists to feast on, all these fine finds. The diet of those sailors, their health.

It's a bit cracked on the other end, the hazelnut.

Meanwhile at the other end of the ship, Heikki was cracking rock-hard concretion crusts covering the rudder fastenings. They're formed within the centuries of submersion when the iron reacts with marine environments, resulting in those hard bulky calcareous salty ironic crusts. It's iron returned to its original state of being, ore, from which that metallic iron once upon a time was smelted, and which then in the hands of a skilled blacksmith turned to this thing keeping the rudderpost in place and holding the rudder, now missing.

Luckily there's enough of the metallic iron left to preserve the shape of that fastening. That's what Heikki was exposing, one skilled gentle hammer hit and chisel's touch at a time. Pneumatic hammer and glass-bead blasting are then used to finish the nice surface not seen by anybody since late 14th century.

Now it's here again, the originality and authenticity of this precious bit of the ship. Given that we manage to stabilize it, that iron in so vulnerable state now freshly exposed from under the sheltering crust. I'm sure we manage, with our fish-oil tricks.

Actually it's not totally original material anymore because a lot of it has been lost or transformed through corrosion processes to that crust Heikki’s now hammering off. Maybe the crusts could be smelted again to make new iron? And new things from that? A tantalizing idea, as is the idea of somehow reusing the sand we're now digging out from the crevices of the ship. It's beautiful, true whitesand beach stuff, should be used somehow, to make a sandbox for kids or else a small beach. Perhaps right here in Lennusadam, overlooking the Tallinn Bay, where the ship once wrecked.

Last night we went to the Pirita beach for an evening swim. Had to walk hundreds of meters to reach swimming depth. On our way back to town we looked at the rocks sticking out from the sea and wondered how shallow the Tallinn Bay actually is. No wonder the Lootsi ship wrecked here, as did so many others.

But now ferries bring people to Tallinn, from Finland and elsewhere. Some of them wander to the Seaplane Harbour and find the door to our tent open. Today we welcomed people from the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Estonia of course too to see the ship, walk on it and hear our stories of it.

All were visibly happy and truly taken by the chance to experience this. That made us very happy because it reminded us of how cultural history and museum collections should be used, to bring joy to people, to whom these things really belong.

It's been really really hot lately. Last night when coming back from Pirita at about maybe 10pm, the sun was setting but still shining in the horizon. It was still warm, unusually warm. The summer came really early this year, and it's something that's gonna affect the ship as well, in her white tent, which on sunny days like this give an uniform perfect working light but also lots of heat and humidity.

Is it too hot, drying the wood too fast? Forming cracks maybe on the wood? Is it still moist enough in the bits we've not managed to clean it to allow mushrooms to form, as happened last year? Do we face biological problems?

It is indeed humid in the tent the Lootsi ship now rests. It's easily noticeable when entering from outside, the ship still breathes humidity out of its wood. It's as if she’s slowly sighing off the centuries' watery pressure from her pores. Relieved, I presume. 

Lots of water still to be released. How many liters? Lots, and we need to get rid of the sand to allow all of it come out. Hence a lot of the day went by shoveling the sand off from underneaths of planks. Slow excavation, thanks to which I now have my right arm slightly black and blue. It's indeed hard to reach some of the tight spots.  

But still, we don't want too fast drying. Heikki noticed that the beeswax sealing we'd applied a year ago to the ends of the planks in order to slow down drying needed renewal, so he heated a batch of wax and brushed it on the exposed plank- and beam-ends. 

Yes, there are cracks on the wood. They're forming as we go on, trying to control the drying by the modest simple means we have in this tent-situation. It's been two years now since the excavation of this ship and drying is quite advanced. Cracks have formed, yes, but those were to be expected. It's a living breathing moving material, partially degraded. There's no way for it to dry without movement, visible cracks. But the shapes of the planks and beams remain, there's no dramatic dimensional changes. That's of most importance. 

Looking good.