Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club

• Whiskey planks possibly June 3
• Rudder/centerboard progress
• YouTube series on North Star
• New dock piano, piano concert fundraiser for North Star
• Richochet arrives at HH
• Dorothy relaunch May 27

We’ve been having a very productive and satisfying time at the boat shed, with lots of our members taking part, and gaining new members each week! With many hands at work, we’re quickly approaching the Gannet’s 8th and final pair of planks, the sheer strakes. We’ve got the traditional celebratory whiskey ready, and we anticipate that we could be ready to fasten them on Saturday June 3.

We’ve got our rhythm of patterning, rough cutting, scarfing, gluing, final cutting, fitting, and fastening pretty well-practiced, with new hands getting involved, led by newly experienced hands with a plank or two under their belt! We currently have the 6th pair glued in place, with the 7th pair ready to fasten, and have rough-cut the sheer strakes and cut the scarf joint. Glue-up this week, and then shape and fasten next week!

The centerboard and rudder have been shaped, and will receive a fiberglass sheathing. The rudder is 3/4″ plywood, and the centerboard is 3/4″ and 1/2″ plywood laminated together. They’re looking very nice and shapely, and should perform well!

In case you’re not already aware, the Vancouver Maritime Museum is raising funds to acquire North Star of Herschel Island, to carry on her legacy of Arctic history. One of the members of our Heritage Harbour community has been recording stories by our wharfinger Bruce, current owner of North Star, to build awareness of the fascinating history of the ship – please check out Michel Duran’s series on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/cuGEbcbNkBI

The old piano has played its last notes a couple of weeks ago, after surviving a few years of sunlight and winter storms, with lots of people enjoying its music! It was dismantled (with a lot of hard work by some of our crew!), and pieces of it will be used in various new lives.

But don’t worry – a replacement was quickly found, and a bunch of members of the wonderful Heritage Harbour community stepped up to provide strong backs to move it, a crane truck for transport, expertise to tune it and to share its history, and of course, to bring out its best sounds, playing it with passion!!

There’s a plan afoot to put on a fund-raising concert in July, with Tom Arntzen leading the charge, and recruiting two other professional players to entertain the crowd. Keep an eye out for more information as it comes.

Earlier this month we welcomed Ricochet to the harbour after a through restoration by one of our members. She’s a beautiful addition to the harbour!

An even longer restoration is coming to an end over on Vancouver Island, with the long-awaited relaunch of the Dorothy coming up this Saturday May 27th. Read all about her on the Maritime Museum of BC’s site.

Hope you can join us at the shop to take part in the action!

The planking of the Gannet has been marching along in the past 2 months – with the 4th pair of planks fastened to the hull, we’ve reached the halfway mark of the planking! The screw-fastening and patterning system has been working quite smoothly, allowing us to make very satisfying progress.

Planks 2 and 3, patterning and scarfing:

Planks 3 and 4, including filling some of the screw holes with epoxy:

Fitting and gluing plank #4:

This past Saturday we also made patterns for the rudder and centerboard. The dimensioned drawings were transferred full-size to some thin plywood, and cut out. Those will be used to cut the plywood for the real thing.

One of our members, Ben, took on the task of improving our plank clamps recently – we had been using blocks of wood with holes in it to tighten the wing-nut on the clamps. Our old “Clamp Champs” had been adequate for the job starting with Button Swan, but now that we know better, the new Clamp Champ Mk II is a HUGE improvement!! Thanks Ben for your 3d printing skills! We tested a couple of prototypes to get the best shape.

A couple of weeks ago on a warm sunny day, a few of us spent some time doing repairs/improvements to some of our boat equipment, under the patient guidance of Bruce. Button Swan got new rope grommets for the jib sheet leads, and Enke got her tiller whipping tightened up.

Last Saturday we got to see one of our members launch the dory he and his wife built – always fun to see the excitement of a dream come to fruition! Congratulations Willis, and we hope you enjoy the boat!

We’ve been enjoying a great turnout of members each Saturday, and it’s a pleasure to see the enthusiasm of everyone working together on our new boat!