Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club

We’ve riveted the first few planks to the boat! The sheer strake and garboard on both sides are in place and fastened. We’re now working on the next sets of planks, and will be working our way up and down on both sides of the gap to meet in the middle.

The first boards to be fastened to the boat were the sheer strakes, the uppermost planks on the boat. After shaping the edges of the planks, we had to “back out”, which is rounding out the inner face of the plank, to fit the curve of the frames. We used a hollowing plane with a convex set of gauges to guide us. Once we got them riveted in place, we were free to trim off the excess length of the frames, giving us the first look at the final height of the boat.

The garboard planks needed to be steamed thoroughly in order to get the nearly 90 degree twist. Those are the most extreme shape in the boat, and the next plank will need some finesse to fit to it. The joint between the garboard plank and the keel is the most prone to leakage, so to prevent that, we used sealant in that joint, and then clamped them in place. The following week we riveted the planks to the frames – that was the most awkward place to work, so we gave that job to some of our newest members.

We’ve shaped the next pair of planks, and are working on backing them out to prepare for fastening. This will give us the first joint between planks that we need to carefully fit. And then repeat the process a few more times!

We’ve got (and nearly sold out) a new shipment of t-shirts! And we’ve started on some boat maintenance, beginning with new gaff jaw leathers for Button Swan.

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A couple of months ago we had the pleasure of helping a group of young people launch their new boat! One of our members has been working with them to build a small sail & row boat, and it was a delight to see them so proud of their work!

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We recently lost a member of our Heritage Harbour community. George Egerton, owner of Mysterion passed away, and we raised a glass as a toast to his life. He was our resident piano tuner, and his work on that has been enjoyed by many. His grandson was one of the boys building the boat, and George got to take part in the launch. He will be missed by many.

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We have fitted the first plank on our handliner project, and getting ready to do some riveting soon! A LOT has happened since our last post:

• we finished bracing the moulds for a strong foundation
• cut the rabbets in the stem and stern post
• added ribbands (temporary longitudinal strips) to give us something to bend the ribs into
• steam-bent all the ribs into shape
• patterned the first planks
• cut and rough fit the planks
• steamed and twisted the planks into place

The rabbets in the stem and stern post were cut by chisel and mallet, carefully following the lines laid out from our lofting. We made some short sections of planking, steam bent into the twisted shape that the garboards (bottom-most planks next to the keel) will take at each end of the boat. That guided us in cutting the rabbet to the right shape.

Next up was the ribbands, which were screwed to the moulds. These are temporary strips that we then bent the ribs into, so they had to be strong enough to hold that force, and to keep their proper shape.

When we got to steam-bending the ribs, we found that the strips that we cut from the donated log were sadly too knotty – a lot of tiny knots that barely showed up – until we started bending them into shape, and they split or kinked. That was a disappointing turn of events – we had been quite hopeful that we could use that great local source of material. And it meant that we had to go and buy a board of suitable white oak. THAT was then cut into strips, and successfully bent in shape, thank goodness!

Next we formed the patterns for the sheer strake and garboard, using the lattice method – a batten was placed at each edge of where the plank will go, and connected to each other with a series of sticks hot-glued together.

That pattern was then laid on our yellow cedar planking stock, and cut to rough shape, then refined by hand plane, creating lots of fragrant shavings!

After that, we carefully shaped the ends of the planks to fit to the rabbets at each end, and used our steam box to heat each end so we could twist them into shape. The sheer strakes are close to final shape, and the garboards each have one end twisted, and the other end still needs to done.

We’ll still have some backing out (hollowing the inside face of the plank) so the planks fit closely to the ribs before we start doing any fastening, but it’s great to see some planks at least clamped to the boat!

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Besides the boat-building, we’ve also been busy with some open house and Family Day events in partnership with the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Last Saturday we had a table set up in the museum showing some of our tools and planking patterns. A couple of our members, Tom & Georgina performed some music and story-telling, and Rob gave a talk about wooden boatbuilding, our club, and our boats. The day was very well-attended, and we welcomed many appreciative visitors into our shop!

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A while ago we had a UBC Journalism student hang out with us in the shop for a few Saturdays, taking photos and video, interviewing members, and observing us in our work. He shared his final submission with us, and I think it looks fabulous!! Thank you Ashrit for sharing this with us!

https://ubcjournalism.shorthandstories.com/oarlock-and-sail-wooden-boat-club/index.html