From Keel to Launch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Launch Day. Photos are Worth...

Talk About Just in Time...

The sails arrived from Steve Hall at North Sea Sails just a day before the owner, and the day the spars arrived was the day Mattis and I finished the daggerboard case, and finally hung the rudder and put the final coat of varnish on and, and...

But here she is, rigged and almost ready to launch, had not the heavens opened just at the wrong time. Hopefully (although the forecast is rubbish for Thursday) we'll bend on the sails and slip her into the water tomorrow.

Enough: here are the latest photos showing Mr Jeremy Freeland's spars; Viking Boats' way with rudder gear (34 quid, rather than £80's worth of bronze, of which more later); the rudder and tiller, showing the split tiller (that green string's temporary) and lines to up and downhaul the rudder and some photos showing Jan the owner and Mattis stepping the mast.

Throughout the riggging we tried to eliminate stainless steel and unnecessary boat bling; hence the shrouds have lanyards (albeit Excel V12 racing) led through wooden fairleads. This is in line with current racing practice which aims to eliminate unnecessary shiny bits.

Collars spars arrived the day Jan, her owner, arrived to supervise the rigging.

3Si supplied the 12mm swage rigging fittings, John McIntyre the 12mm stainless bar and tube; and this is how we hang rudders at Viking Boats. Cheap, strong and it works. The flat filed in the bar allows the bottom ring to disengage, then the rudder can be lifted off.

The tiller is formed from two lengths of oak, glued then split, bound at the end. The tiller will articulate up and down and can be drawn in or out if a little more or less length is needed. The lines are for uphaul and downhaul. The green string is temporary...

Stepping the mast. Jan, the owner, and Mattis

Latest on the Arctic Tern

Bottom painted and topsides varnished, we turned her over yesterday to fit the mast step and on Monday the spars should be arriving from Collars. The rudder is hung and the tiller made, which just leaves the rig.

Sails from Steve Hall at North Sea Sails came this morning, and the owner arrives Tuesday to supervise the rigging.

Then she's off south, not before we have a trial sail.

Nearly There

One more week and she'll be ready for the owner's visit, rigging, trial sail and off down south.

Then it's on with another Oughtred boat, a Sula, Iain's only design for solid wood, a Shetland boat destined for Ireland.

More anon...

Knocking Off for Easter

Here she is at close of play today. We had hoped to rove up the frames before knocking off for Easter and may slip down to the shed tomorrow and finish the job for (as Mattis says) we can't possibly work on Easter Sunday.

Fitting the top section of the frames entailed quite a bit of juggling of templates and angles. Needless to say Mattis and I had totally different ways of achieving the same result, and they took about the same amount of time. I relied on templates, cutting the frames at the wide side and by measuring the gaps, could transfer the measurements to the aft (shy) side, which was then beveled on the band saw.

Easier done than said (or maybe vice versa). Mattis used templates, and a bevel gauge, using saw cuts to transfer the bevel to the faces meeting the strakes. The bevel gauge neatly slots into the saw cuts from face to face. It's a technique I may have invented myself. But probably age old.

Happy Easter to all who stumble upon this, and especially to my 47 followers. Bless you!

What is Wood and What Not (2)

More people have read my post on the merits of solid timber vs plywood than any other post: to date 1,023 to be precise, and reading it again for the first time in years I find it hard to change a word. As the Arctic Tern nears completion I thank my lucky stars that the owner was persuaded to build her in larch and Scots pine, not plywood. "All that mixing of mayonnaise..." came to mind and something about the "deadness" of the material.

This boat already shows signs of life, and throughout the build has been a delight, albeit at times frustrating. But to turn out an almost flawless top strake from a board of creamy Scots pine, fire it through the thicknesser (should that not be thin-nesser?) and offer it up to its lower sister is a joy that cannot be matched.

What's the pleasure in hacking out a strake from a panel of 8 x 4, planing the edges (mind the splinters) and slapping on the goo compared to the tap tap of hammer on copper nail?

No, any wooden boat revival must be based on a reappreciation of real wood, not man-made laminates masquerading as wood. Build in plywood to the highest standards for all the best reasons but don't pretend they are anything but good boats. And when the epoxy's run out and you're sick of the sight of inert sheets of 8 x 4, have a shot at building a boat in solid timber. You will be amazed at the difference.

Wednesday Afternoon and All's Well

While I finished and fitted the fore stamerung (that's the cant frame at the bow) Mattis fired up the steam box to get the oak gunwales to behave, which they did, beautifully after 40 minutes at 100 degrees. By the end of the day he had the gunwales dry fitted, which means by tomorrow we can make a start on the rest of the frames and I will finish off the rudder which can be seen in the background.

The jobs are getting ticked off pretty fast now and it'll soon be time to flip her over, maybe at the weekend when Mattis will fit the sternpost (I've already ftted my stempost, which was a fiddle to say the least).

In effect we have made a conventional rabbet, but using an outer laminated stem and sternpost which are retrofitted to the aprons. Not sure we'd do it like this again, but rather cut a conventional rabbet in a solid stem/stern. The two part laminated apron/stem has its advantages. This hybrid needs more thought.

Sails arrive next week, and spars, so it's full on to finish her by the time the owner arrives on the 23rd to supervise and help the fitting out and trial sail.

Arctic Tern All Planked (straked?) Up

Week five (or rather six, if we count the days before that spent lofting and making moulds etc), and the Arctic Tern is taking shape. The last strake went in last Friday, a scarphed length of Scots pine from the Queen's estate at Balmoral. Stems in the photos have yet to be fitted, which were to prove rather tricky.

Why pine? Well, honestly, we ran out of good larch and, in the best traditions of making do with what you have got, discussed with the owner the idea of giving the top strake a contrasting look in timber rather than the original idea of a light colour. We reckon, when capped with an oak rubbing strip, it will look rather fancy. This is a Shetland-type boat, but let's face it, really a rather posh traditional dinghy, authentic to a point, but not slavishly so. An evolution not a replica. We do not like painting by numbers at Viking Boats...!

The frames are now going in, slowly, as it is a painstaking, skilled job entailing spiling to each strake, and each has a different bevel, and some of the strakes have a slight cupping as well. So that's a job for Mattis, fresh  from two years at a boat building school in Stockholm. I promise I'll take some photos of the ancient Swedish gadget used from time immemorial to make the frames fit the strakes.

You'll also notice that we chose not to follow the lining out of the planks, which calls for  wider strakes two and three up from the garboard. In any case, we went for seven not six to make best use of the timber.

Our strakes follow a more conventional line, kept more or less equal at the hood ends.

Here's me pretending to look busy, battening out the sheerstrake, which I had spiled, cut, planed and gained, a job I felt I should claim before Mattis had the chance. It's a lovely task, getting the sheerstrake right, and vital for the look of the boat. Besides, as Mattis had fitted the last three strakes on his own, I had to do something to justify my existence.

Undoubtedly one of the nicest jobs in building a boat is striking in the sheerline, and planing to the mark. It calls for lots of squinting, battening and discussion.

We even used a laser shone onto the sheer from the inside to mark what appears to be a straight line (which turns into a curve when seem from the side), then a length of cord, stretched tight from stem to stern (ditto). All methods seemed to agree, but the final line - a slight upturn at bow and stern - can only be done by eye. Then pure pleasure with the Veritas block plane...

The slight blurriness in the photo is because I am working so fast, such is the extreme skill and confidence displayed by Viking Boats.

Well, no, it's because I left the camera set on manual focus, rather than auto...