Half-Hull Model and Lofting

Thursday and Friday I worked on creating a half-hull model from the plans we drafted of the Sixteen. The process begins with laying out the half-breadth waterlines on pine stock and then cutting the shapes out with the band saw. Once the waterline shapes are stacked in the correct order they are glued together with the assistance of toothpicks in pre-drilled holes (this is done to lessen the amount of movement when clamping the glued board). The glued stack of pine was left overnight to dry. Once the clamps were removed a profile of the boat was revealed. The sheer was then cut on the band saw. I screwed a piece of scrap stock to the back in order to easily place the upside down hull in a bench vise to start the process of removing the squared stock. With some effort and a sharpened spoke shave (love my Veritas!) it will take no time to start to create the correct shape of the hull. To be continued...

In preparing for Lofting of the Sixteen the rest of Friday was spent moving the contents of our workshop in order to lay down fresh sheets of door skin. When I left for the day, coats of white paint were being applied which should dry over the weekend and be ready to use on Monday. Teams of two will use approximately 2.5 sheets of plywood to draw the lines of the boat. Equipment needed for next week will definitely be knee-pads and slippers!

All I Need to Know About Running a Boatshop I Learned in a Band

Editor’s Note: While some people are lucky to have one great passion, John Harris has two: boatbuilding and music. The owner of Chesapeake Light Craft, the Maryland company featured in Professional BoatBuilder No. 152, studied music in college but before graduating in 1994 he lined up a job repairing old wooden boats. Today, his company is one of the most successful kit-boat suppliers in the world, selling more than 2,000 units annually. As Harris explains below, his success is thanks in part to lessons he learned in the music business.

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A few years into my boatbuilding career, I reached a fork in the road: I had an offer to become a full-time musician. I stuck with wooden boats because it paid more, which tells you a great deal about a musician’s prospects. After that, I persisted in music semi-professionally, gigging once or twice a week until my daughter was born and the trombone was exchanged for playgrounds and Legos.

Jen Edney
Boatbuilders, like musicians, never stop learning. “If you cringe when you hear someone referred to as a ‘master boatbuilder’ you’re an honorary musician,” writes John Harris, owner of Chesapeake Light Craft (above with trombone).

In moments of artistic darkness I ponder the preposterous expense of my music education, and wonder if all the years of music were wasted. But those years of orchestras, church gigs, jazz quintets, wedding covers, and indie rock bands have left me with indelible lessons about making a living as a working artist. And all boatbuilders are artists, as far as I’m concerned.

Getting good is very hard work. If you cringe when you hear someone referred to as a “master boatbuilder,” you’re an honorary musician. Musicians know that once you reach professional proficiency, after 10,000 or 20,000 hours of practice, only then do you realize how little you know. No one ever truly masters music, or boatbuilding. The best keep challenging themselves to grow as artists.

You need chops. One of the things I love about music is that there are no posers, at least not in the realm of classical and jazz. Even nonmusicians can tell if you suck. Thus, something like a true meritocracy exists in music. If you’ve got chops, you get work. If you don't, you won’t. The need for real, indisputable chops forces musicians to confront their weaknesses in ways that many professionals never do. The discipline of practicing, of being self-critical, of being determined to improve carries over from my music to my boatshop. I actively seek design and building projects that challenge me even when there isn't a clear profit objective.

Take chances. As a kid I was unusual for my willingness to do a lot of free gigs if I thought it was a good hang and I might meet better artists. I played coffeehouses for gas money in order to network with the guys getting gigs. Many of those jobs were dreary duds. A few connected in life-altering ways. Even with an established career as a boatbuilder, I still do a lot of volunteer and loss-leading work, and occasionally score a networking home run that pays off for years. You don't get to cherry-pick your gigs until you are old and revered, and I might never be either. So swing at all the balls.

Know how to be a leader and a follower. Nothing in music taught me more about life than watching great bandleaders on the stand. They know when to give concise direction, when to be politicians, and when to get out of the way of the music. Perhaps the most valuable lessons came from watching talented leaders grab their axe, take a seat with the rank and file, and blend in seamlessly when that’s where they're needed most. The leader of an artistic enterprise, like a boatbuilding shop, needs to be impresario one moment, 5-Minute Manager the next, and a few moments later just another working boatbuilder.

Put your best people out front. There’s a species of bandleader who wants to give weak players the chance to solo, y’know, so they can get some experience. Don’t do it. “Practice at home” is the professional musician’s refrain. A band might make hundreds of first impressions in a single night. People will remember the guy who can't play in tune. Whether you’re at a boat show, running a showroom, or meeting clients, you want the guys with the knowledge and the talent, along with your very best examples of boatbuilding, making all those first impressions. Is that boat not ready for the boat show? Skip the show or leave the boat at home. That's smarter than making a lousy impression.

The steady guys keep the gigs. You know the type. Movies are made about them. Wildly talented, all the chops in the world, but they’re late to the gig, drink too much, and antagonize their bandmates. Boatbuilding, like music, is a really hard way to make a living, and there's just no room for flakiness. Value the people who are “merely” very good, who show up every day and get things done. Tolerating talented head cases—instead of sacking them—is going to demoralize everyone. Let them drag down some other band.

Sweat the small stuff. When you hear the London Philharmonic, the reason it’s perfect is that all those musicians are getting a thousand tiny details exactly right. The Beatles? Same thing: George Martin and the boys always made sure the pieces fit together perfectly. Great art is always about the details, and you fumble them at your peril. From Steve Jobs to Yo-Yo Ma, from Nautor's Swan to L. Francis Herreshoff, it comes down to not considering any detail too small to be worthy of time and attention. [Sweating the small stuff is also highly recommended by our technical editor Steve D’Antonio. Read his column about it in Attention to Detail.—Ed.]

Stagecraft matters. When you think of musical “stagecraft,” the overwrought antics of pop stars might come to mind. But at the level of the workaday musician, it means a host of small things that add up to a polished performance. Being dressed neatly and appropriately; not shuffling your music or fumbling for gear between songs or grimacing at mistakes; avoiding overlong or inarticulate introductions to songs. In the boatshop, this is what I call “presentation”: making sure that the packaging, documentation, display, and press materials of my boats match the quality of the product. This can be expensive and time-consuming, but presentation issues are a major line item on quality control checklists at my shop.

I loved the music. I loved the stage, the people, and the business. At Chesapeake Light Craft, a creative organization with about the same head count as a swing band, I draw on my musical experiences every single day. I wish more boatbuilders thought of themselves as artists, and more musicians thought of themselves as businessmen.

—John Harris

Is it Fair?

One of the definitions for the word "fair" from Merriam-Webster is...pleasing to the eye or mind especially because of fresh, charming, or flawless quality. This definition most resembles the use of the word fair when describing the lines of a boat. Or as my instructor would say, a fair line is any line that when drawn requires a choir of angels from heaven to sing. Today was Day 3 (off for Veterans Day yesterday) of the Drafting Course. We are working on the "Sixteen" which is as you may have guessed a 16-foot long boat. You may ask why not just use a computer-aided-design program? Good question. I think the purpose of drafting the lines of a boat by hand is part of the natural process of learning why and how things are done. The information learned in drafting will be applied to the lofting process but in a larger scale. Besides drafting can be fun! How fun is it to have the computer do all the work for you? The main purpose of drafting (by hand or computer) is to fair the lines of the boat for planking. The process of drafting the lines will ultimately correct and prove out the fairness before lofting.

The lines of the boat are shown in three views:

• Plan view (looking forward and aft)
• Profile (side view)
• Half breadth (looking from above down on half of the boat)

The process of drafting can be simplified into the following steps:

1. Drawing the grid (baseline, center line, aft and forward perpendiculars, water lines, buttocks and diagonals) on the backside of the vellum.
2. Drawing the master lines (sheer, stem/keel, rabbet, transom rake and load water line) on the front side.
3. Drawing Stations 2,4,6 and the Transom.
4. Developing Water Line 2A
5. Developing Diagonal C

Once those lines are plotted the remaining water lines, buttocks and diagonals can be developed. The transom is also rolled-out in detail as well. Finally, comparing the lines plotted in the half-breadth view and profile can be compared to the plan view thus "proving out" the correctness of the lines.

On Friday we will take our drawing and use it to build a half-hull model of the boat. On an interesting side note...Sean showed us today how to use a "Half-hull Contraption" to develop the station lines from a half-hull model. This is basically the reverse of what we are doing in class. In some instances a half-hull model is built by hand and the lines are faired by eye. This information is than transferred from the model to the hull. Pretty cool indeed!

Here comes the Vikings!

During lunch yesterday, Leah from Northwest Sails gave a presentation "Sailing a Danish Viking Ship in the Baltic Sea". This past summer she was the only American to be part of the crew sailing (and rowing) the Sea Stallion from Glendalough. The Sea Stallion is part of the collection of reconstructed Viking Ships of the Danish Viking Museum (http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/). Leah spent about three weeks and 400 nm traveling around Denmark, Germany and Sweden. To say that this was an adventure would be an understatement. Sixty crew plus the Captain and Mates in an open boat with only two buckets to serve as toilets is probably a little more than an adventure. No wonder the Vikings pillaged when they reached their destination! Below is some detailed information on the vessel.

Sea Stallion from Glendalough

The longship, Sea Stallion from Glendalough (in Danish Havhingsten fra Glendalough), is the largest vessel the Viking Ship Museum has build so far. With a length of 30 m, it is indeed in a special class among Viking ships. The Norwegian Viking finds, the Oseberg and Gokstad ships, are "only" 22 m and 24 m long respectively. The famous great-ship of the Norwegian king, Olav Trygvasson, "Ormen hin lange" (Long Serpent) was, according to Snorre's saga, all of 43 m long!

As can be seen in the museum hall where the original longskip is exhibited, only about 25% has been preserved. That it is possible to build a satisfactory reconstruction is solely due to the fact that the 1800 fragments that were found included essential parts of the bottom, the whole keelson and the stern - and the ship's side adjacent to the stern, right up to the gunwale. Hence, the most vital measuring points still exist.

High-quality materials were used in building the original ship, not only for the sake of appearance, but also to enhance the strength of the construction. It thus became necessary to select material for the reconstruction which as far as type and properties are concerned, came as close as possible to the original.

The Vikings built their ships of fresh wood. The long planking for the ship's sides, the strakes, were cleaved from long, straight oak trunks, while the inner and more curved timbers were made from parts of the oak tree crown that had already grown into more or less the correct form. The total volume of wood required for the reconstruction is 150 stacked cubic metres. Then there are 400 kg of pure iron, hemp for the 3000 m of rope, and a great deal of flax for the sail, all 112 square metres of it!

Judging by the most recent wood and tree-ring analyses, the original ship was built in accordance with Scandinavian shipbuilding traditions in Dublin around the year 1042. The ship is thus linked with the Scandinavian expansion westwards and the history of the Vikings in Ireland. Without doubt the ship was also on the scene of many dramatic events that occurred at the end of the Viking Age, after William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066.

The reconstructed longship was launched in 2004. Hereafter the initial sea trials and crew training took place in 2005 and 2006. Further experiments was conducted to establish sailing characteristics and seaworthiness on different types of seas and weather conditions.

Brass and wood

On Friday we had our second field trip and our first stop was at the Port Townsend Foundry which was started in 1983 by Peter and Cathy. The foundry makes castings in various alloys of marine hardware, industrial parts and architectural detail. The marine hardware which was our focus was simply incredible. The parts were made mostly of brass or bronze and include; cleats, nails, screws, rudder fittings, portholes, etc. Some of the larger items have been custom made for amazing restoration projects, such as:

The Columbia, a steel hull exact replica of the historic 141' Gloucester Fishing Schooner built by Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Inc. in Panama City, Florida. The foundry's work was featured in Show Boat International on an article on the Columbia. See a video about the construction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76zglGNkoKk

The San Salvador. The Maritime Museum of San Diego is building a full-sized, fully functional, and historically accurate replica of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo’s flagship. See video:

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/feb/21/san-salvador-60-perecent-complete-after-two-years-/

A video about the foundry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7XrCpIs9J4

Our next stop was Edensaw Woods. What is interesting about Edensaw is that it was founded by two boat school graduates. After graduation they realized the need for quality boat building materials in the area and are still in business 30 years later. Edensaw is also a supplier to and supporter of the boat school and this year sold a package of beginning tools to students. The first thing we did was to see a "live" demonstration of the SawStop using a hot dog (apparently the company must give dealers a ton of these demo cartridges to use). As expected the SawStop performed as it should and the hot dog was spared from being cut in half. Ted then took us on a tour of the showroom, mill and warehouse. Edensaw stocks over 100 species of domestic and exotic hardwoods. To list all of the available woods would take forever. Ted also gave some interesting perspectives on the job market in wooden boat building as he is Edensaw's sales rep to the marine industry.

I love the smell of pine in the morning...

I haven't written in a couple of days because my focus has been on completing the "Shoulder Tool Box". I should have mentioned last week that groups have been rotating through Drafting class each week (we start on Friday afternoon) while the others are completing their tool box. The tool box has probably been a little harder than I hate to admit. My dovetails are seriously lacking but the four sides fit together. The other technique I have had to become more proficient at is cutting the dados. I think there are six so far and that includes two stop dados (cuts that do not extend to the end of a board). Because there are many variables; thickness of the dado stack, depth and width it can become frustrating at time (especially because we are sharing one table saw to do this). Speaking of the table saw...we actually got to see (more like hear) what happens when the SawStop works. One of my classmates was cutting with the dado stack and had a kickback that propelled his thumb into the blade! I'm pretty sure he wasn't using proper technique but the good news is that he still has his thumb. We have also had demos on the joiner and planer, and I actually used the planer today to work on my tool box bottom. We also had a demo on the lathe and using it to make a small wood mallet from a square piece of maple stock. When and if I ever get the extra time I plan on making the mallet as it would have been beneficial in cutting dovetails as opposed to big sledgehammer like mallet I made earlier. So the tool box now has four sides and a bottom that kinda fits together. Tomorrow I will work on putting a divider in the bottom of the box and making my sliding till. After that it is gluing and finishing.

When I look back on my earlier posts I realize that my more recent ones have lacked philosophical or comical comments. I think that is because the work we are doing has in fact become that...work. Although there is some instruction going on, the main focus has been in executing a project from start to finish using the tools and techniques we have learned to date. What I have personally learned is that this type of work takes two things: concentration and patience. Concentration is black or white. You either are or you're not. Patience is a different animal. To me it is learning to trust the skills that you are developing to see you through the process. At times I have caught myself rushing to get something done for the sake of getting it done and not allowing what I am doing evolve over time. I hope that I can improve on this...at the very least I am cognizant of it.