Tag: boating

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Week 15: Pancakes

 

Pancakes.

Somewhere along the line an editor has politely told me no introductory clause has a single word and certainly should not be a breakfast meal. What a shame, all that lecturing gone to waste and I insist on opening with pancakes.

IMG_4307Mind you, that is not all we did during week 15, but the blueberry pancakes for lunch on Thursday will take a while to fade from memory. Many thanks to staff members Tulip Morrow (Student Services Cooridnator), Heidi Groh (Admissions Coordinator) and Christina Cogan (Communications & Development Coordinator). Add to that one of our classmates and Jedi master Sean Koomen (Chief Instructor), who makes a mean blueberry buckwheat pancake. Why all this breakfast nonsense? Thursday was national blueberry pancake day—at least according to Congress. And you thought they did nothing useful in Washington DC? Ok, enough pancakes and syrup, at least for the moment.

So, where do we stand here at week 15?

Jedi master Jody Boyle patiently watched for two days as a pair of us large craft knuckle-draggers tried to figure out how in-walls are installed on a skiff. (Yes, there are at least two more skiffs waiting to float out of the Class of 2016’s  growing fleet.) We finally figured out the game, and then he divulged a secret. ‘PATTERN BEFORE TRYING TO BEND TIMBERS.’ We had the second in-wall done in less than 60 minutes. When it comes to wooden boatbuilding, experience and lessons learned sure beats labor and silent cursing. Thinking of labor…

Remember Oliver? I introduced Oliver last week. Our ceaseless taskmaster of a planer who will take all manner of abuse regardless of timber or weather. We knew Oliver could care less about wood types and what we discovered this week is that he cares less about rain. Good thing. It’s been wet up here in the Northwest—still beats snow. My apologies to counterparts in Maine.

So we start feeding Oliver in the pouring rain. No worries. He’s up to the task.

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S/V FELICITY ANN

 
The result? A “Great Wall of Wood” in the Hammond Shop. We are drying planking for the Felicity Ann, Folkboat, and Whitehalls, all at one time. Makes for a lot of scrambling around timbers and the “stickers” necessary to provide breathing space necessary to take this lumber from building material to ship stock.
 

No one said wooden boatbuilding was easy on the imagination or spine.

 
 
 
Time to stop grumbling. Another skiff has met the sea. On Wednesday, Master Jedi Bruce Blatchley splashed “Thin Lizzy.” Rain or no rain, this stretched version of the standard skiff (we added two feet), went into the Pacific and out for a row. Proving he was up to the task, Bruce took the lead in rowing Thin Lizzy around the bay. A skiff that will serve family and friends for a generation to come.

So where do we stand?

Up at the large craft shop the Sea Beast has found decking and a cockpit. The Felicity Ann has most of her planking, and the Folkboat won an admirable white oak transom. And then we spent time steaming and bending timbers. Who said we sleep up here in the sawdust kingdom?

In the Rubb Shelter the Whitehall teams are proving the craftsperson skills we learned in that first quarter and are about to meet Oliver. (He’s cranky…just my head’s up.) Down in contemporary, half the submarine looks like epoxy wizards are ready to roll. (I still have to figure out the pram they are working on…more to follow.)   And in the Westrem…? Well, a lot of lofting and crafting of all the bits and pieces that make up anything that floats.

And so goes another week here at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. If you thought this was all work and no fun, keep in mind a colleague, his wife and I had the chance to sail last Sunday and are looking forward to much more time afloat. Imagine the scenery when the clouds blow out and the strait opens to fair winds and following seas. Kind of like thinking of pancakes when you make same with an intention to make people happy—always fun when the work is done.
 
 

eri profile

 
 

Eric Anderson is a retired Air Force officer who can be found puttering
in his shop when not scribbling on the keyboard.  A new resident of
Port Townsend, he is an avid sailor, struggling carpenter, and would-be writer.

 

 

 

 

 

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Week 14: One Step at a Time

Maybe it was in second grade (I don’t remember kindergarten or first grade; a real shame), as at least one author has made a fortune by claiming to have learned everything necessary for life during that first year of exposure to a public education. (Think I’m kidding? Ask the local librarian for a copy of Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten first published in 1986.) Anyway, back in second grade I was told everything had to be done one step at a time. We’re  certainly at that stage here in week 14 of the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding.

 

One of the things that becomes apparent as the Class of 2016 moves along is the Jedi masters—aka instructors—provide much more space for completion of our own mistakes. In other words, that measurement you missed, the bevel not quite right, or lofting that made no sense, well, now you get to try it out and then spend time fixing an original error. Hence the temptation to make every cut more than a little wide of that precious pencil mark. It’s a lot easier to sand or work with a plane than trying to figure out how you will add wood back onto a beam that just does not make the mark. This is where some of us get to be jealous of the contemporary students. They really do know how to adhere materials back onto a miss-cut plank. (Epoxy, the magic elixir for boatbuilders). Alas, I am a knuckle-dragger (a large craft student) where we don’t get access to epoxy, just the band saw or a planer. Not that this is a bad thing. Thanks to Mr. Edison’s contribution of electricity, we are now attacking 30 foot planks. For those tasks we have a stable of band saws and “Oliver.”

Have I introduced “Oliver?

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Welcome to an industrial planer. Oliver likely came to life sometime in the early 1950s. Located on the leeward side of the Rubb Shelter, Oliver lives in a lean-to shed that keeps him dry while allowing for extrusion of endless sawdust and shavings. I know this because large craft students don’t get dainty planks and indoor work spaces. We are condemned to a life of timber loads delivered aboard semi-trucks and only transported about the work space with a lot of manual labor. As a result, we spent all Friday afternoon keeping Oliver busy by taking $8,700 of Douglas Fir from 1 ¼ inch to 5/8 inch. This is no minor undertaking, particularly when many of the planks are over 30 feet long and 14 inches wide and need to go through Oliver five times. My gym trip is rendered moot with my workout coming from chasing a lot of timber through Oliver and then cleaning up the subsequent mess. Fifteen industrial-sized garbage bags filled with shavings to be exact. I, and my fellow culprits, will smell like Douglas Fir for more than a few days.

Why all this labor? Because we’re planking a Folkboat!

 

 Meanwhile, elsewhere in our Boat School world, the contemporary team has put its first round of epoxy into the Handy Billy and are starting to put planks on the submarine mold. Oh, and Jedi master Bruce Blatchley has a skiff that looks ready to launch, but more on that in a moment.

IMG_4210[1]Up in the Rubb Shelter, Jedi master Leigh O’Connor is leading a charge on the pair of Whitehalls and has a sailing skiff thinking about splashing into the Pacific. The cold and rain have not slowed his team. They persevere and are crafting elements of their boats at an amazing pace. Apparently working in unheated spaces really does cause an increase in productivity.

Thinking of heated spaces, the small-craft crew is “building in heated luxury” (just kidding, it gets damn cold in there too) in the Westrem building working hard on lofting an 18′ runabout. Only the contemporary students live in warmth, something about the epoxy needing to set that swirls into more science than I am going to understand. It’s going to be interesting to see what rolls out of that shop come Spring.

And with that we come to the end of week 14—one step at a time. You must have the right lofting to build, the right timber milled to appropriate dimensions to plank, and the right surface and temperature to epoxy. But! You also need to know when it’s time to sit back and appreciate a finished product. And so we did, on Friday when Jedi master Ben Kahn splashed his team’s drift boat into the Pacific. Looks nothing like the other skiffs but serves the same purpose: Water stays out and occupants get to wander the other 70% of our planet’s surface.

One step, one step at a time.

My second grade teacher was right but it only took me 48 years to realize the wisdom of her lesson.
 

 
 

eri profile
 
 
Eric Anderson is a retired Air Force officer who can be found puttering
in his shop when not scribbling on the keyboard.  A new resident of
Port Townsend, he is an avid sailor, struggling carpenter, and would-be writer.

 
 
 
 

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Week 10: Skiffs and a Drift

 
Imagination is a wonderful indulgence, particularly when a project starts to approach fruition. It would be no minor claim to declare imagination has been fully employed here at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding over the last week. In addition to stretching lines and changing structural layouts, the Jedi masters have all opted to build crafts that are more than a little different. Five of the finished products will be classic rowing skiffs with the sixth being a true drift boat. Ready to run the Grand Canyon?

IMG_1071As you would suspect, tasking for the various components has passed from one small team to another. Milling planking seems to be a specialty for some, while shaping critical components falls to others. Teamwork is happening at its finest, particularly when running a 14’ x 14” plank of Alaskan Yellow Cedar through a band saw.

Not a bad job if you are “trailing” (holding up the end), or “catching” (holding up the front end of a plank that has just passed through the saw), but very stressful for the person tasked with “driving.” They have the nerve-wracking challenge of keeping the line, steering a 14 foot plank and owning up to the final product. I’m happy to report everyone seems to have mastered the task, even when working with planks that have been planned down to less than a half-inch of thickness.

With chines completed and molds ready for loading, it’s time to start putting together a boat one board at a time. It’s amazing how many clamps one can consume before achieving the proper fit. Did I mention that fit has to be leak-proof?

It is a boat after all.

I don’t know about you, but the sight of water seeping into your boat is less than reassuring on a delightful day afloat.

This means we spend a lot of time with planes in hand and run through several fittings before going in search of Dolfinite bedding compound. Before the environmentalists head for a phone, allow me to explain. Dolfinite—despite there being a picture of a dolphin on the can—does not contain any of our favorite marine mammal. It’s a compound intended to help ensure the water stays out of the places that would otherwise cause consternation.

Not only do we get to run chisels, planes and saws, there’s also a fair amount of putty knife time in this game. Dolfinite, that sticky stuff, did eventually come off of my hands and a few places where I decided to wipe a putty knife on my pants. Kind of leaves me wondering what will happen when I run this week’s laundry through the washing machine. If the bedding compound is supposed to protect from water, well, somehow I suspect laundry soap is not going to be up to the challenge. Alas, another pair of shorts destined to be painting clothes.

Now for the fun part where we begin attaching planking to chines, stem, and transom. You won’t find any common nails here; we’ll be using number ten brass wood screws. The home for each one is pre-drilled, counter sunk, and then tested.

 

Wooden boatbuilding—like the construction of Rome—is not done overnight.

 

With that observation firmly in hand, I have to admit we have all made remarkable progress over the course of one week. Long hours in the shop and remarkable dedication and direction from the Jedi masters means we are quickly headed to the stage where hulls can be flipped right-side up and interior work begins. In fact, by Friday, Chief Instructor Sean Koomen’s team had actually completed that feat. Pretty amazing for a group of people who have never built a boat before.

 

And so we head into the last week of this term. The list of tools for our next class has been distributed with another trip to Edensaw in the near future. We look forward to a completed hull and the pride of knowing our handiwork contributed to the construction of a boat that will harbor imagined adventures and smiling faces for years to come.

 

eri profile

 
 

Eric Anderson is a retired Air Force officer who can be found puttering in his shop
when not scribbling on the keyboard.  A new resident of Port Townsend, he is an
avid sailor, struggling carpenter, and would-be writer.