Battens
This boat has a false stem, so all that is shown is the inner-stem that still needs to be beveled so the plank lands flush with it. The outer-stem will act like a cap and double its thickness.
Well I’ll be damned.
It worked.
The battens curve true and flush around the edges of the frames when they’re placed upon the keel.
It seems to me a bit of a miracle.
Some fellow (in this case marine architect Paul Gartside) a few time zones away sat at a table years ago and drew curves on a big sheet of paper for a man locked in some American jail who was dreaming of freedom.
He measured them and turned them into a graph boatbuilders call a table of offsets.
I came along last fall dreaming of something, equipped with a box of pencils and a mountain of spruce plank.
And those lofted out lines, transferred to spruce cross-sections of the hull every 28 inches line up within an eighth of an inch this fall.
It’s not just a bit of a miracle, it’s also a relief.
Because if the 32 foot battens I began running around the works last week had of shown some major miscalculation, I’d probably have said ‘shag it’ and turned to deal with life’s responsibilities.
I don’t have enough plank left to do it again and Lord knows I wasn’t going to go buy some at today’s prices.
The frames will be removed after the proper ribs are made. They are just there to get the shape.
The delay in this post is because I had taken a break from the boat project.
“You know dad, yesterday I was getting frustrated putting my shoes on at school and I wanted to swear, but instead I said, ‘Rats’,” my then five year old said last January before fixing me with a knowing look.
Earlier that week I’d snuck down to the basement I’d converted into a workshop while they ate their supper.
I was cold-molding the stem – wrapping 3/8 of an inch thick by six inch wide by 11 foot long black locust planks around a tightly curved jig.
When I loosened the clamps holding the previous lamination to add more, I hadn’t calculate the slow cure time of the epoxy holding them together in an unheated basement.
They blew apart with force, sent a clamp flying into my gut.
It wasn’t the impact so much as the $50 worth of epoxy wasted.
“Fuck,” I yelled.
It’s important to monitor oneself for obsession.
Like everyone else I’ve got plenty on the go, so I took a break from the boat.
The boys and I built a tree-house with much of the aforementioned spruce this spring, we got the garden in and I got this winter’s firewood cut.
Summer happened, life eased up a bit and so did I.
Lately, on the evenings when the boys are at their mom’s and the house is too quiet I’ve found myself in the shop again.
Might as well lay the keel.
Might as well put that stem on it and tinker with the tail-feather, where the backbone builds up around the prop and rudder.
Might as well put those forms on, and see if battens curve true around the works.
As it happens, they do.
Got a bid greedy with the size of the boat. I’ve got a plan to widen the shed … if it works, I’ll tell you about it.