InGrain Design Wood Crafting

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The Bite of the Boat
an essay


My interest in wooden boats actually began with a trip to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Cindy and I were on a day trip with her sister Stevie and her husband Mike, boat and marine lovers in their own right.

In one of the many buildings hung a wooden boat from the ceiling. It was a 12 foot Whitehall. One of the most well known traditional boats in America.

It hung upside to show off the magnificent detail of this beautiful boat. As I entered the building and first caught a glimpse of this boat I was captivated. I did not see anything else but this boat and I stood there for many minutes in awe of this perfect meeting of art meeting function.

That was the moment I fell in love with wooden traditional boats. I was bitten.

Then in the summer of 2008 I had my second marine epiphany. Sometimes it takes more than once with me.

A friend of mine, Scott Mayette, is a fishing charter captain on Lake Michigan. He has a 30' twin engine charter boat. This past summer he invited me and two other buddies for an after work 4 hour fishing trip.

It was a comfortable mid 70 degrees, no humidity, zero wind day. Near the end of our time we were about 4 miles out in an unusually calm Lake Michigan. The water was nearly flat. Not even gentle swells. The water seemed to have an odd almost Jell-O like consistency to it. It seemed that if I jumped out into it I'd just bounce along on the surface. As we sat still in the water for whatever reason, the engines off, there weren't even ripples coming from our boat. The sun was two thirds below the horizon and the wispy clouds that filled the sky were on fire with the most beautiful reds. The lakes smooth surface reflecting it all back up. The horizon was barely discernible. As my boat mates were huddled in the cockpit for some reason, I felt drawn to the transom which faced west with no land in sight. I place my knees against the transom, letting it bear some of my weight as I leaned out slightly. Standing there, I drank in the most surreal surroundings I've ever experienced in my life.

For a minute or two, everything behind me disappeared and I felt totally alone in this vast space. I felt a privileged awe to be present there.

A boat allowed this to happen. And if a boat that I hardly knew that belonged to someone else could do this for me, what could a boat that I created, that I gave life to, do? I think a boat we build, that we birth, maybe makes us feel that we've kind of earned the privilege to be out there on the water. Or maybe it makes possible a three way partnership or cooperative with the sea. It's like the boat is saying to the sea, "hey, I know this guy. He's alright. He belongs here". Of course sometimes the sea retorts with "I'm bigger than the both of ya. Let's see what you're made of"!

Epiphany #3. I can be really dense sometimes.

In the winter of 2008 I began researching boats. I went to the library and over a few weeks read every book I could find about wooden boats. One book provided that third epiphany. "The Year of the Boat" by Lawrence W. Cheeks. An incredible book that only two types of people should read... those who have thought about building a boat someday, and those that have never thought about building a boat.

I shared the above experience on Lake Michigan and also the following comments with Mr. Cheeks and found him to be a very encouraging person with his own passion for boats.

Mr. Cheeks, I've just finished "The Year of the Boat". Thank you for sharing your joy, pain, frustration, pride, etc... that resulted from your experience. I truly enjoyed reading it. I am amazed by your steadfastness towards the project in spite of your self-professed challenges at building. I suspect you are better then you think or admit you are.

And especially, thank you for helping me affirm and in fact nurture my desire to build my own boat from a pile of wood. You've helped me "peel back the onion" a little on why I want to build a boat and that has led to a more intense fire in my belly for doing this.

Can I share some thoughts with you that reading your book has stirred in me?

My dad was visiting from Florida and as he looked at some of the furniture pieces I had built he made a comment about the rectilinear nature of most furniture and certainly that describes most of my work. Though it was only an observation on his part, internally to me it felt like a pronouncement of the limitation of my skill. And ever since that comment I've been evaluating the ideas I have for future pieces and how not to just make boxes.

And it has just struck me that building a boat could be the natural course to learn to break away from the straight lines and right angles of most furniture. I wonder what this will do for my furniture design?

You awoke something else in me about why we build boats. At least in my apprentice state, why I think we build boats. As I was reading your book, I was working through it in my mind, maybe a bit in my soul, no, mostly in my soul, when I came to your line about it being the closest men get to having a baby. The act of building a boat truly is creation. We take rectilinear lumber and we create a complex opposite to straight and right angled. I love the phrase "a fair line". There is such elegance and depth in that phrase.

We create something that is greater then the sum of its parts. There is fantastic positive synergy in this system of parts that we have fabricated and joined. And then as we build it, we do impart something to it... it's own soul or life. We have truly given birth to and created something that we recognize as having its own persona to the extent that we even name her.

And so I began the pursuit of building my own wooden boat. n my research to learn about boats, I came across this one....

The Christmas Wherry, designed by Walter J. Simmons with plans and lofting marketed by Duck Trap Woodworking (www.duck-trap.com)

I


My goal is to build the full size 15 foot boat capable of sailing and rowing. But to learn the skills, I built this 1/3 scale 5 foot model using full scale building techniques.

My little boat


Remember that this was the poor mans approach to learning boat building. I didn't even know if I could do it. I had tried to build a scale model of a different boat a year earlier but couldn't do it. I didn't have the basic knowledge of spiling, strake shape or lands. I thought you just took straight planks of wood and bent them to shape around moulds. Boy was I wrong.

So to begin this project I gathered as much information on the Christmas Wherry as I could to get a sense of the size, shape and relationship of the components. I read as many books as I could find on on boat building. Walter Simmons "Boat Building by Pictures CD" for the Christmas wherry and "Building Small Boats by" Greg Rossel were my primary resources as well as an article in Wooden Boats magazine about the Christmas Wherry.

In my research I stumbled up on one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read. "The Year of the Boat" by Lawrence Cheeks. A wonderful account of a man building his first boat and learning more about himself than he did about boat building. This book really helped me connect my passion for functional art that is a wooden boat with the process of creating that art.

First step was to come up with meaningful shapes, drawings and measurements of critical components. Namely the keel, stem, transom and moulds. So taking drawings and photos from my resources I used the 3D drawing app SketchUp to create as close a drawing as I could of this boat.

Here's a screen shot of the resulting work that became my patterns for the various components of the boat.


Because the planks or "strakes" on a lapstrake boat overlap, the boat is built upside down.

The basic components to begin the building process.
The transom. The rearward flat end of the boat at the stern.
The keel. The elongated teardrop piece that runs the length of the bottom of the boat.
The stem or bow.
And the moulds. The pieces that look like ribs. These are temporary pieces that create the shape of the hull as the planks or "strakes" are attached to the stem, the transom and to the previoous strake along its length.

In this photo the garboard (the lowest strake, once the boat is flipped right side up, that is attached to the keel.) is already hung.

Now we are hanging the broadstrake. That is the second plank following and lapping onto the garboard.

I am using nearly every small clamp I own and in fact had to make some simple wedge clamps latter.

Someday I'll finish this.

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