Launch!

The big day finally arrived. The boats were pretty much ready. No masts yet, so we are launching the world's largest 4 person row boats.

The launch was a 3 step process : get the boat out of the shop, get the boat to the ramp, and finally get the boat into the water.

Here is the first step. Just like the Egyptians. Except our long tubes are lightweight aluminum. But the boat is still heavy. The timbers the sled were made of are getting pretty rotten as well, so they tended to dig in rather than roll. It took several of us to get the boat lined up with the exit.


But we finally did.

Dale is a good friend of the shop. He is a mason and therefore has a lot of big boy toys, including a tractor, a farm winch, and a really big truck. Here he is pulling the boat along the muddy parking lot.

This worked for awhile, but it turns out what worked best was simply tying the rope around the hitch on the back of his truck and towing it to the ramp.

Meanwhile, a few folks have been busy at the ramp (it is low tide) getting the slides ready for the sled. They greased it up with 3 gallons of Crisco.

Here she is, all ready for launch. See the gudgeons (the bronze pieces which hold the rudder) in the back? We were up until 2am the night before installing them (and finishing the rudder) . . . we have yet to put the rudder on.


Of course, one of the many cool things about this boat is that there are 2 of them! Now we just wait for the tides. Check out the 8 monster oars which new apprentices Jim and Doug made for us the last few weeks.


As you have already noticed, it was rainy. Really rainy. But we still had a crowd of about 100 show up for the launch. Maybe it was the free chowder.

It wasn't all about the twins either. We had 5 boats to launch. 1st up was Pat with his new Susan Skiff.


Next was Curtis and Martin with the A&R Tender


Then Kat and Phil with their Lawley Tender

And finally it was our turn.

OK, funny story now. See the sled underneath the boat in this picture?

In theory, the rope attached to this sled keeps it on the slide. Well, the theory doesn't work in practice if the rope breaks. We ended up taking the sled with us. We were wondering why the other boat was rowing circles around us.

Nevertheless, we were able to get her to the dock.

Pre Launch Post

Tomorrow is the launch. Looking back it has been nearly a year since lofting. Time flies when you're having fun. But this is the pre launch post, so here is what we've been up to lately.

After finishing the outside of the boat we were able to start building up the insides, starting with the sole. Here it is all laid out and oiled up.

And here it is installed. Enough room for a dance party.

I got to make the knees. The forward and aft thwarts are well attached and notched in to prevent any rotation. The forward center thwart, however, is just hanging there. Since it is going to support a mast it needs to be beefed up quite a bit. We do this with knees. Here is the starting material. 3 months ago, these were tree roots.

The roots are of Eastern larch. In boatbuilding terms, this is hackmatack. It is prized for its strength around a curve, since we follow the grain of the knee to build the shapes that go in the boat. Here are the results. (You'll get to see them installed a few more pictures hence).

Next, the side seating, which for some bizarre reason is called the sheets. We can use the thwart riser to support them on the outside, but we need something to support them on the inside. This means one more long stick of wood.

Ta da! This is the morning after the 18 hour sheet installation marathon.

Nothing left but the painting now.

And some oar locks.

Next post. . . launch day.

Oh, what the hell. Here’s a preview.

Finishing the Outside of the Boat

Hang on, this is a long post. . .

As promised, the lead pour.

I started out by building the mold which you can see in the foreground of this picture. It looks pretty easy, but it isn't rectangular. The sides have a curve in them to match the keel, and the top is angled in 3 sections. It is built up in layers (just like microchips!) of 2X4s, then a wall of masonite is screwed in, and finally, ceramic paper is glued to the masonite with something called waterglass (Sodium Silicate for the nerds). All this to protect the wood from exploding when the hot lead hits it.


The next step was to acquire the lead. We went to a salvage operation in Portland. We got 3300 lbs of lead for a cool $2200. We rented one of those cargo vans from Enterprise and the salvage dudes just forklifted 2 pallets and a barrel full of lead into the back. We had to unload by hand. I was surprised how much room lead it takes to fill up our relatively small molds.



Finally, the melt set up. Basically, a big old tub with some propane burners below. You can see it behind the pile of lead.

It took 6 hours to melt our 1600 lbs of lead. We took out about 100 lbs of slag, which is just the dirt that rises to the surface. Once everything is good in the tub, it is time to open the valve. But that doesn't really start the flow. Usually there is a hold up somewhere in the pipe, so you have to get out the flame thrower and heat it up. Also in this picture you can see how we built up earth around the mold the support it.

It was a hot days work. Lead melts at 621 degrees F, and I was standing right next to that tub pretty much all day. Add a little lead, let it melt, take of slag, repeat. But finally, it started pouring. The molten lead is beautiful. It is shiny and silver.

Next day we dig her out.

Next I take off the mold (including that daggerboard cut out in the middle), clean it up, roll her into the shop, fit it to the boat, find it doesn't fit, cut out some more of the oak keel (repeat last 3 steps about 5 times) and then finally tar it up on top as a filler and bolt it to the boat.


The angles on top are what caused us the most trouble. They were off a little, so we had to keep shaving the sides to eliminate the gap at the top. The width of the keel was right on, but it had a bend to her... probably from that time we dropped it on the cart. No problem! One of our instructors, Brian, had us set the keel on it's side and then took a few carefully placed smacks with a sledge hammer.

Close but not quite . . .

The picture above shows the keel completed, but what about the gaps to the front and back? These areas need to be filled to finish the shape of the boat. These filler pieces are called deadwood. Here is a shot of my layout for them.

The wood is 2" thick locust, which is becoming a common substitute for white oak. The patterns are shown on the left. The smaller is for the front piece. Only one cut out is needed for the front, as the filler is never more than 2" thick. However, the larger pattern is for the back, which is 5" thick on the aft part of the boat, so I'll have to cut out 3 of these pieces and laminate them together.

The deadwood is cut out to the pattern above (which follows the shape of the keel). Then I had to cut out the daggerboard holes (remember, there are 3 of them on the boat and only 1 goes through the lead). Next was fitting the pieces front to back and tapering them down (the front of the piece was about 1" thinner than the back) . Finally, drilling them out and installing them. The longest bolt was 19" (All our bolts are Silicon Bronze which sells for about $6 per foot for 3/8" rod. Fastenings are a huge part of the cost of these boats).

Here Dillon is putting the final touches on the rear deadwood piece. To orient you, the far left is actually the stem which is half lapped to the keel and the deadwood. The oak keel is to the right of the triangle on top and the deadwood is below. In the distance you can see where the keel and deadwood run into the lead. You can see the 1/2 laps to the left, right below Dylan's head.

And here is a bad shot of the front piece (kind of in the middle, in front of the lead), but I included it since you can see that the outside of the boat is now complete! A little planing down to fair out the bumps, some paint, and she'll be ready for the water.

In the meantime, they launched the Herreshoff 12 1/2. She is named Gimlet, which is just a fabulous name for a boat, especially this cocktail friendly daysailer.




Our turn in a couple weeks! Launch is scheduled for June 19th.