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.