Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club

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!

After our last post about fitting the garboard planks (the first pair of planks next to the keel), we came back and cut the gain at the stem, which will get our planks laying flush. We’re cutting the gains half thickness on each plank.

We then laid out the next pattern, this time on the Port side – we’re alternating sides, to even out any accumulated error, just in case we haven’t got the molds perfectly symmetrical. We are quite pleased with the lattice truss pattern method!

The next pair of planks got rough cut, and the scarf joints cut. This is the second pair of planks, and the boat has 8 pairs – we should get pretty good at this by the end!

The garboard planks and the next planks scarf joints got glued during the week. The screw-clamping worked well, making a nice tight joint, and the screws came out easily – nice to have that system in place, allowing us to move forward with the next steps!

Flattening the joint for the keel came next, making room for the fir keel that is to come.

Meanwhile, in our tent, the next pair of planks got cut, trimmed, and ready for their test fit. The progress is feeling good, and it’s wonderful to see the hull coming together!

After our work sessions, some of us have been out enjoying our boats, whether it be the club boats or our members’ own boats. We’ve been fortunate to have decent weather for it, even if we do sometimes drift to a stop when the wind fades – in good company, it’s still a great time!