Oarlock & Sail Wooden Boat Club

Well, that’s been a very snowy December!! Duane and Michel have shared videos of their walks on the dock:

We had a great turnout for our Christmas party on the 17th – plenty of food and a good time, gathered ’round the boat moulds!

Before the festivities took over, we got some work done on the stem, doing a dry run of clamping the lamination strips to the form. Since then, a few of our members got together at Arnt’s shop to do the glue-up, as it needed more space and heat than we have available at the shop.

Tomorrow we’ll work on cleaning up the glue, and preparing to mount the stem on the strongback, and potentially cutting the transom.

Hope you have a happy New Year!

I forgot to mention one little thing in that last post – we’ve reconsidered the material choice for the boat, and have decided to build the hull in glued lapstrake plywood.

What brought that about was a discussion of flotation, and wanting to get it figured out right from the beginning. We talked about using foam or air-bags for flotation in a conventional clinker hull, but the conversation kept coming back to maintenance and ventilation. In the end, a suggestion was made to do it in glued lapstrake plywood, with built-in water-tight compartments. That should give us a lightweight self-recoverable boat.

After all, the plans we’re working from are designed for that method, and it will let us gain experience in another type of construction!