From Pirates of the Caribbean to the Nonsuch: Historical rigger helps with ship renovations at Manitoba Museum

He may not be Capt. Jack Sparrow, but the Nonsuch's historical rigger is as close as one can get to being an honest pirate.

Courtney Anderson is spending several weeks in Winnipeg, away from his warm, balmy, San Francisco home, to make sure the rigging on the Nonsuch — the replica of a 17th-century trading ship that's currently undergoing renovations and a refresh at its Manitoba Museum gallery — is historically accurate.

It's not a job to be taken lightly, he's learned.

"Everybody I talk to in town, when they say, 'Hey, what are you doing here?' and I say 'I'm working on the Nonsuch,' they're like 'Oh man, I went to that when I was a little kid.' Everyone. Everyone."

As for what he's working on, he says "basically, everything from the deck of the ship up is the rigging — mast, sails, yards, shrouds."

The Nonsuch's rigging is getting refreshed for three main reasons, said Anderson.

"One, safety, because museum staff do periodically go up and clean and do work on the ship, so we wanted to make sure that everything that they were going to stand on was really strong and secure," he said.

"You know, the ship was put in there in 1973 and a lot of the rigging has been there ever since. Some of it is old, dried out, natural-fibre rope."

After more than 40 years, the ship also needs some updates for historical accuracy, Anderson said.

The Nonsuch replica was built in England in 1968 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Hudson's Bay Company. The replica sailed 14,000 kilometres of salt and fresh water before finding her home at the Manitoba Museum, in the gallery which officially opened in 1974.

"Things got changed over the years and while they were sailing they changed some things, but we want to put everything back to the way the original drawings were," Anderson said.

"And longevity, because some of the line that we're using is synthetic instead of natural, so that it should last a long, long time."

An honest pirate

Becoming a historical rigger is something that only a few have managed to turn into a full time career, said Anderson. But he was drawn to it even as a child.

"I have to be honest, when I was a little kid I always wanted to be a pirate. And I made a career out of it," he laughed. 

"But I worked at the Bounty replica, then did Mutiny On the Bounty when I was in college, and I was a tour guide. And the rigger on there would sometimes have me help him with little jobs. So it just kind of grew from there."

I was working on a ship back in New York and literally the phone rang one day and this guy said 'Hey, I'm calling from Disney, we're going to do this Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and we need a rigger to design and build the stuff. '- Courtney Anderson

While his career grew and he worked on more ships, one day, Hollywood came calling.

"I was working on a ship back in New York and literally the phone rang one day and this guy said 'Hey, I'm calling from Disney, we're going to do this Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and we need a rigger to design and build the stuff. We asked around and your name popped up a couple times, so we thought we'd give you a call.'"

Flabbergasted, Anderson said he wasn't sure he wanted to work on a movie, but was convinced to try it for a few weeks. After a few days, noting the energy and enthusiasm and "how much fun it was working on a movie," he decided to stay for the whole production of the first film outlining the adventures of Capt. Jack Sparrow — and then did the other four Pirates of the Caribbean movies, to boot.

In the movies are little touches he added — "little nuances and minor, trivial details that nobody would ever notice or see" except other historical riggers, he said, grinning.

For example, the Flying Dutchman — the ghost ship in the movie series — is a Dutch ship with a cap on the top of the mast called a donkey's head.

"In Dutch they call it a donkey's head because it looks like a donkey's head from the side. So we made sure the Flying Dutchman had proper Dutch donkey's heads on it."

Accurate research

In order to make the details historically accurate, a lot of research is involved, said Anderson. 

"Basically you try to see what information we have that shows details. Sometimes it's paintings, sometimes it's archeological evidence, and sometimes — because a lot of times there isn't a lot of information — you kind of have to put yourself into the mindset of who the people [who lived in] the time period, and what they knew and how they thought."

Some of his most memorable projects include a rebuild of an 1895, 45-metre, three-masted schooner, where he designed the rigging from archeological evidence and photographs. 

"I also just did riggings for the shroud at the USS Maine," he added. "They have the mast of the Maine, which blew up in Havana in 1898. And it's got new shrouds and rigging on it.

"And you know, putting those on and looking down and seeing the graves of all the sailors that were killed on the ship when she blew up was pretty mind-boggling. Every job is kind of a unique, special thing."

Anderson is giving a talk on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Manitoba Museum about the work he's doing on the Nonsuch, and admitted Saturday morning he hadn't fully figured out what he'll talk about, exactly. 

"I'm still kind of working on it,  but the title of it is 'It's Not a Pirate Ship': Stories of Modern-Day Riggings."