Long Sticks and Big Boxes

The first order of business these past weeks was to find out where the sole (the floor for the non-initiated) of the boat will be. This is the straight line in the round boat. It is quite easy to see where it goes in the 2 dimensional profile view, yet another thing altogether to find it in the 3-D bowl that is our boat.

Not impossible though. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the process, but it involved a long straightedge, a few levels, a frame sample, a plumb bob, and similar triangle theory. Long story short, we were able to mark a line on the frames.

After that, we installed the long sticks. In the picture below, the 3 sticks/side near the bottom are the bilge stringers and those near the top are the seat risers. Their first function is, along with the keel (very bottom) and inwale (very top), to provide fore to aft stability in the boat. Of course, the seat risers also provide a place to put the seats and the bilge stringers actually run along the sole, and will provide a place to screw in the sole timbers (think of the sole as a deck, and the sole timbers the joists). A straight line in a round boat isn't really straight.


One thing I learned in this step is the impossibility of doing this on your own. Getting the bilge stringers to twist into place took all 4 of us. I suppose you could have built some big clamping scaffolding around the boat, but that would have taken days.

Next step is to install the daggerboard trunks. This is the first place the "specialness" of this boat rears its head. Most boats would have one centerboard or daggerboard trunk. This one will have 3, so the people using it can change the way the boat sails. From this view, you can see the 3 spots where the daggerboards will go.


The daggerboard trunk is just a very heavily built box. Since we are going to put a hole in the bottom of the boat, the box needs to keep the water out. You start with the bedlogs, which fit between the floor timbers.


Next come the head ledgers, which are notched into the floor timbers.


So far so good. . .


Now to fit the panels to complete the box.


If you look closely you can see all the pre-drilled holes. This trunk is only fit temporarily since we still need to drill the hole in the bottom of the boat.

The hole actually takes the shape of the daggerboard, which is a foil. After we did the drilling, it took me several hours to shape it (the keel is 6 inches thick) with a big chisel and a tiny saw (so it could fit in the hole, which is 1/4" wide at one end and 2" wide at its widest).

And here it is! You'll just have to trust me, but the 6 foot daggerboard is resting on the floor of the shop.

The box will be cut off to be level with the seat risers, so the seats can run from the side of the boat to the middle. Maybe next week.

Internet geek note : I have the little feedjit thing on this page to tell me where people are that click on my blog. Also, If someone does a search and then clicks on the blog, I get told what they searched for. My favorite so far . . . "for want of a rivet a plank was lost." I did it myself. . . my page was #4 for that search!

New stuff every day now!

Maybe we don't get to do something new everyday, but after months of planking, it is nice to be able to move from one job to the next fairly quickly.

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind. While a couple of the guys were finishing up and installing the floor timbers...

I got to spend some time out in the spring weather cutting up the stock for the inwales. These are the pieces that run the full length of the boat, inside, at the sheer. The stock was a piece of oak, 26' long, 3" thick, and about 12" wide at the bottom and 6" wide at the top. I was able to get 4 pieces out of it. This process involved a very long straightedge, a bunch of clamps, a huge circular saw, and a no small amount of patience. Once I got a sort of rectangular shape out of it, it took 3 of us to muscle the thing through the planer and table saw. The fun part was we didn't even know if they would be long enough. We knew it would require about 26', but since the inwale fits in a big curve, the easiest way to find out is just stick a piece of wood in there and see if it fits. Turns out they were big enough. Here is a picture of the excess that we cut off.


The inwale is the oak just to the right of my hand. It follows the top of the boat all the way to the front.

After installing these guys, I spent a day with a camber gauge... just a 10 foot long piece of wood with a slight curve cut out of it. You put this across the boat and shave down the inwale and sheer so they match that nice curve. (you can see in the picture above why this is necessary) This would be really important if, say, a deck were going on the boat (which it's not), but is still mildly important just so the boat looks good. A straight line at the sheer would be easier, but uglier.

I also worked on the breasthook in the stern. I didn't get to make it, but once we got the inwales fit to it, there was a lot of shaping to do.

Here are the current status shots. . .


Our instructor, Kevin, finally gave us a good answer to "what kind of boats are these?" I always have the convoluted answer... Nigel Irons design, 28' open boat, 3 daggerboards and multiple mast steps for sail training, blah, blah, blah. But now that we can see the open boat like this, it's obvious. . . A giant Peapod! A Peapod is a classic maine fishing boat and now a popular recreational boat. There was a picture of one on a prior post. Double ended, beamy, pretty, and about 14' long. Of course, it is not a perfect comparison, but now I at least have a short answer.

Next step is to find a straight line (or, more precisely, a plane) in this curved boat. We need to give the boat her soul, er, I mean, sole.

Side note. . . we took a field trip to the maritime measuem in Bath. Very interesting. It was built right on the spot where the last great wooden schooners were built (1850 - 1920). We're talking 350' on deck sort of boats, used to haul coal up and down the coastline. Nothing romantic about building wooden boats back in those days. Best part of the trip, though, was we got access to their boat sheds, which are not for public access simply because the floors are mud, and to get to the second floor you have to climb a ladder. Well, they let us in. This picture shows maybe a tenth of the boats in the building.