A Flawed Launch to a Flawless Career-- Part 1: The USS Constitution's Launchings

From the USS Constitution Museum.

It was a cold and overcast day in Boston on October 21, 1797, .  That dismal weather very well might have matched  the anxiety of George Claghorn as he stood on the wharf at Hartt's Shipyard in the North End of Boston, waiting for high tide.

To say the pressure was on, would be an understatement.

Nearby, the newly completed hull of the United States' mightiest warship, the USS Constitution  sat on the shipyard's ways, while Claghorn, who led the construction of the ship, prepared to launch her -- again.

His ship had been stuck on those ways for a month and during that time, two attempts to launch her, taking advantage of the September spring tide, had come to naught.  The carefully calculated slope of the ways had settled during the ship's construction (partly because of the ship's increased weight), making them too flat for the ship to slide down them.

--Brock-Perry