origin story.

Harborburn Cannon Co. is brought to you by the founders of 59 North Sailing. Harborburn was born of an idea by a group of sailing friends looking for a way to add some fun onboard our boats. We figured “if you own a boat, you need a cannon!”

Our origin goes back almost twenty years, when founder Tom Herrington bought his first black powder signal cannon to mount on the bow of his Ericson 35 JUBILEE. There it sat for many thousands of miles aboard the boat, celebrating sunsets & making people smile up and down the East Coast from Maine to the Bahamas.

Tragically, JUBILEE sank at the dock in Florida during Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the cannon remaining on her bow as she went down. There it sat on the bottom of the ocean for 7 days, before Tom and his family were able to get to JUBILEE and salvage what they could from the wreck.

Andy Schell, founder of 59 North Sailing, first got to fire a signal cannon while working as a deckhand on the schooner WOODWIND in Annapolis, MD, his first job as a professional sailor. During the annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, the fleet would do a parade of sail in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, many of the ships having big and small cannons, and ‘firing’ on one another and the city through a fun afternoon.

Today, Tom’s original signal cannon, and the inspiration for Harborburn - it’s why our first model is the “Herrington Mk. 1” a replica of Tom’s original - rides on the bow of the family’s Ericson 38 COMPASS, a weathered green patina giving it a historic look. And it still fires as loud as ever!

THE PROCESS.

How did you design the prototype? What material did you use first and how did the prototype evolve? What did you learn by doing the prototyping process?

The design and inspiration for the prototype were one and the same. One night at the Annapolis boat show in 2019 while in the saloon of 59º North's Swan 59 ICEBEAR , Tom Herrington's cannon that he had ordered out of the back of a sailing magazine in the 90s was being handed around. Everyone was asking where they could get one for their own boat. From there the idea was born to build and produce a cannon ourselves with the justification of "if we all want one I'm sure there are other people that do too". Immediately following that conversion a pen, paper and calipers were brought out and we began to pull dimensions off of Tom's cannon.

The cannon is designed around a standard oar lock which is about 2" wide. This sets the scale for the rest of the cannon and happens to be a great size to have on a small yacht. It's big enough to not feel like a toy yet stores easily in just about any locker and looks great if left on the bow pulpit.

We built the first prototype on a manual South Bend lathe out of aluminum. Aluminum was used to practice all of the operations that the cannon required. Aluminum is easy to machine and cheaper than bronze or brass in case we made a mistake. After the first successful aluminum prototype was made, we went ahead and made one out of bronze.

The prototype went through some changes — the mounting point was changed in order for it to balance "muzzle up". The most substantial change made was the step down bore in the barrel. About 200mm of the bore of the cannon is stepped from 1/2 diameter to 1/4" diameter. This makes the cannon much easier to load and fire, leading to much more consistent and therefore more pleasing ‘booms’.

I'm not a professional machinist and even this relatively simple project (in the realm of things you can make on a lathe, ie anything!) was challenging and a great learning opportunity. Since then I've gone on the more complicated projects with tapers and crazy threading operations.

Why did you choose bronze for the final cannon material? Why is bronze better/different than aluminum, steel, etc.? What actually IS bronze? What type of bronze are our cannons made from? Why can bronze be left out in the weather? Why does it turn green, and does this mean it's going bad?

In the days of old all the best cannons were made from bronze. Bronze was a more elastic and stronger metal than iron. A lighter gun of the same power could be made from bronze — important when placed on a ship deck. We choose to not only use bronze but go further and machine it from billet stock — this results in the ultimate strength. Bronze is also a noble metal, it is resistant to corrosion and oxidizes to form its own protective green coating that also happens to look quite nice when it’s ‘weathered’. The truth is these cannons are heirloom items that can be passed on to future generations, even left on the bow of your boat year-round in any condition, they will last for literally hundreds of years.

How are the final production cannons made? What does "milled" mean, and why is it better than "cast?" What does "forged" mean and why can't you forge a cannon?

The production cannons are all machined from billet stock. This is a pre-made blank — in this case 2" round bar stock. It is then placed on a CNC lathe and machined to the correct dimensions. The bar stock is made in tightly controlled conditions, resulting in the ultimate quality and strength and free of any imperfections. Cannons were traditionally cast, however they were much larger and therefore easier to mold and pour. While it would be possible to cast a cannon of this size, the end product would not be as good as a machined cannon. Forging is another way to form metal. Forging is when metal is heated and then formed with force by hand or with machine. This process lends itself to some tools such as knives, axes and swords, however the bore of the cannon would make it extremely complicated and difficult to forge.

How do you stamp the cannons? Why is stamping different than engraving?

The cannons are stamped by hand using a hammer, a die and a good eye. Bronze is quite a soft metal and stamps easily, however each time the die is stuck it can't be undone. Stamping has its own look and while it's not as precise as a CNC engraving would be, we feel it's more in line with how a muzzleloading cannon should be marked. Each cannon is a unique handmade piece when delivered to you. We begin the story — it's up to you to continue it.