Month: February 2018

Some wonderful progress on the Button Swan Providence River Boat.  The yellow cedar floorboards have been cut out and fitted to the boat, held together with white oak battens.

Bob, one of our members, knows his way around sail design, and has done the calculations for our boat.  We decided on some changes to the shape and size of the sails to reduce the length of the boom a bit, as the original design has an overwhelmingly long one, and we’re not sure we could manage the dock space!  This seems a little more practical.

The seats have been shaped and fitted, and got a couple of coats of varnish – so beautiful!!  Thanks to Leif (our member from New York City who was here on a visit) for a few of the photos below.  Leif has been a generous supporter of the club, and was super inspired by our boat build!  He owns Polaris, a Concordia 41, and had help from his brother Arnt with his mast rebuild last year.

And, thanks to Arnt and Rob, we’ve got a start on shaping the spars – the bow-sprit even has a coat of varnish on it!

The boat is looking more beautiful each week!!

And to maintain our workshop, Nick did some great work yesterday on replacing the fascia board at the roof-line of our shed, and installing some flashing to try to prevent the leak which has been a problem lately.  Hopefully this will keep our tools dry!

The quarter knees were refined and fastened, and look beautiful!  It’s another one of those things where we see it shaped and in place, and ponder whether we can finish it ‘bright’, with either varnish or oil, instead of painting it like we’d planned.  Before long, we’ll be finishing the entire interior with the wood nicely visible!  But then we ponder a little further, and realize the maintenance requirements increase dramatically with the amount of bright wood.  To that end, the interior of the hull got a coat of primer, and yeah, that looks pretty nice as well!

The lower rub rails were fastened and plugged, and the thwart risers were steamed, bent in place and fastened.

And, after the risers were in place, work got started on the thwarts.  One of the main thwarts is fitted and in place, and the stern sheets (or side seats) are being mocked up, along with the curve at the stern.  The pattern for the thwart knees has been started as well.

It’s exciting to see the interior of the boat coming together, and imagining taking her out for a sail.  It will be interesting to see how the small side deck and coaming will change the look of the boat!