Hunting and Gathering

In addition to actually building a boat there is just a lot of hunting and gathering you need to do. Finding the right rudder hardware is one example (Gudgeons and Gudgeons, Oct. 25 post).

In September I sold my beloved Chamberlain dory to a couple from California who drove to Lincoln City to get it. My goal was to sell the boat for enough money to get an new trailer and the sail for Ravn. I bought a new E-Z Loader trailer two weeks after I sold my dory. It's hard finding a trailer that is designed for a sailboat. This trailer is generic enough I can make it work. It has some very nice improvements over the trailer on my Chamberlain dory. For instance, it has a new type of bearing that doesn't need greasing ever! The trailer is all galvanized and it's designed so it doesn't have leaf springs to rust out.

I had $200 left over after the trailer purchase, which is about half what a new lug sail for a Valgerda would cost. Luckily my friend John Kohnen was willing to part with the sail from his Valgerda for my two remaining Benjamin Franklins. John's boat was built in the late '50s for the Weyerhaeuser family. It is a beautiful boat, but it has been extensively modified from the original with, among other things, an inboard engine. He said if it was ever to sail again it would need a larger sail. An assessment with which I agree and for which I'm grateful. I picked up the sail from John's place in Eugene earlier this month. It really is a beautifully-made sail. It seems almost new, so I'm sure it's not original to the boat. I can hardly wait to put it to use.

Yesterday I got another detail almost taken care of: two marine patrol deputies from the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department came to my house to give me a Boat Hull Identification Number (HIN) Inspection. It was nice of them to come by and do it. I was going to get a photo of them to put in the blog, but I forgot. Now I can send that report in, along with the letter from the State Marine Board, to the State of Oregon and get my HIN and registration numbers. Then I'll be legal to be on Oregon waters.

About the only things left to gather is a 5/16" dia. bronze rod for the rudder gear and the wood -- spruce if I can get it, cvg fir is a good second choice -- for the mast, spars and oars.

Bow Deck Beams

Before installing the other deck beams in the bow, I had to install the bow eye and the interior flange for the water-tight hatches. I was glad I waited until I bought a new trailer for Ravn before installing the bow eye; I would have put it too high. I had to measure from the trailer's main beam to the winch and translate that to where the bow will be when it's on the trailer to find the right place to drill the hole. I coated the galvanized eye bolt and the inside of the hole with epoxy before bolting it on.

As I was installing the piece of plywood that will serve as the interior flange for the water-tight hatches I had an epiphany: in stead of mitering the secondary deck beams into the main deck beam, why not cut slots in the plywood frame and bulkhead and run them fore and aft? It was much easier and it ended up in stronger joints and more support for the deck.

After milling the old-growth fir to the dimensions I wanted, I just laid them across the bulkheads, marked where they were to go and cut notches in the bulkheads with a back saw and a frame saw. I dry-fit the deck beams and used a compass to mark out the long scarf where the deck beams join the inside of the hull at the bow. I took the deck beams to the bandsaw and cut the scarf while sighting down the two lines. It only took a few minutes to do the whole operation and I glued them in with thickened epoxy. The next day I cut off the ends that were sticking through the number 2 bulkhead.

Finally a project on the boat that took less time than I figured it would!

Stern Deck Beams

I've spent a couple of weeks filling, taping and sanding the inside plank seams. I also used fiberglass tape to tab in all of the plywood bulkheads. Now it's time to work on the decks at the stern and bow. They are about the same, being a double ender, but after doing the stern deck beams I decided to do the bow differently. More about that later.

I installed the main deck beam when I assembled the stem and number 10 and 12 frames together back when I was building the skeleton (see Building Ravn's Backbone in September's posts). The deck beam connected the top part of the two frames and the stem and made them stable enough that they stayed in alignment while I put them on the building form.

I should mention that the watertight compartments in the bow and stern are not part of the original Valgerda plans, although at least one builder in Australia added them to the boat he built from Atkin's original plan. They are, however, a feature in the Selway-Fisher Kari 2 plans.

I wanted the bow and stern compartments for two reasons: the reserve flotation should Ravn ever become swamped and dry storage for gear. I also think it will help keep the boat neat and shipshape, which enhances safety at sea.

The deck beams are made out of some old-growth douglas fir that I've had for years. A friend gave it to me when I was patching the fir floors in my 100-year-old home. It is tight, light and stiff -- just what you want for a deck beam. When you cut the wood it has a dusty, pitchy smell that is very different from the smell you get cutting into, say, a douglas fir 2-by-4 from the lumber yard.

I'm going to use 6mm plywood covered with 6-ounce fiberglass cloth for the deck. I would be a little more comfortable using 9mm plywood, but that would mean another trip to Portland and another $90. I have a full sheet of 6mm left over from planking so I'll use that. The thinner plywood means I need to put in additional deck beams so the deck won't flex too much.

I suppose I could write several posts on things I would do differently if I built the boat over. Not that I'm unhappy with how the boat is going together or the work I've done, but I feel a couple things could be improved upon. One thing I would do is put a deck hatch in the middle of the stern deck between frame's 10 and 12. That would be the best access to the space and it would be fairly easy to secure and keep watertight. It would also be fun to build and look cool. For now I'm going with a tight flat deck with limited access through the stern seat bulkhead hatch.

The miter joints into the main deck beam were easy to cut with my old Jackson backsaw and a chisel. Where the deck beams meet the side of the boat I simply scribed them with a compass and took them to the bandsaw. The miter joint into the main deck beam retained much of the meat of the main deck beam and did not weaken it substantially. When I was gluing the whole thing together I decided at the last minute to epoxy a rectangular piece of plywood scrap under both joints just in case. I'm kind of a belt and suspenders guy sometimes. It ruins the elegance of the joints, but no one will ever see them anyway.

Gudgeons and gudgeons

I was pleased and relieved to finally find some rudder hardware that is designed for a double ender. A big bonus for me is that it's made out of bronze and not stainless steel. The rudder gudgeons and the sternpost gudgeons also seem to be very strong and heavy castings without looking clunky at all.

You boating types are most likely scratching your heads right now wondering why I have gudgeons and no pintles. You can't have one without the other, right? Well, that's what I thought too. Then I found Duck Trap Woodworking, an outfit in Maine that builds traditional wooden boats, including a very pretty double ender called Matinicus Double Ender. They are primarily boatbuilders, but of late they devote most of their time helping others learn how to build their own boats. They designed this rudder hardware for the types of boats they build. Here's how it works from their Web site (www.duck-trap.com):

"A piece of 5/16-inch bronze rod passes through all four fittings and acts as a hinge pin. Why no pintles? Because they have a uncanny tendency to become unshipped. Attached using the rod, should the rudder strike bottom, it can jump and then drop right back down in place. We've been using this system for years, and never had a problem."

This sounds good to me! I haven't liked any of the gudgeon and pintle combinations I've found - and I've been looking for months. I was beginning to think I would have to have something custom made. I'm really glad I don't have to do that.

I decided not to get the polished hardware to save a few bucks. But I'm also considering not polishing the hardware I got and leaving it more of a workboat finish. I think it might be more in keeping with the look I'm trying to achieve.

It's Alive!

I've often felt that building a boat is about as close as a craftsman can come to creating a living thing. Building an instrument, a violin say, is another instance where an inanimate object seems to take voice and become a living creature. But boats have movement, their own distinctive motion and reaction to the wind and water. The chuckle of the ocean passing by the hull of a wooden boat is amplified like a fine instrument amplifies the vibrations of bowed strings.

Last week, as I ran my hand along the inside of the hull after sanding it, I felt Ravn's heart beat. It was really the planks under tension amplifying the base beat of the music I was listening to, but it felt like a living thing under my hand. I've thought about it for days and can't get it out of my head.

I was telling this to my neighbor, Tom Dollar, who builds guitars, and he gave me a knowing look. As he ran his hand along the planks of the boat he said, "What you've got here is wood under tention, just like a big guitar."

Bow Chocks

I spent the better part of a day making a couple of bow chocks out of purple heart. Most of the shaping was done with my patternmaker's rasp, a great tool. I think they look just right for the boat. Metal bow chocks, even nice bronze ones, just wouldn't do, but I did want the functionality of having a couple of chocks to keep anchor and dock lines from sawing off the finish from the gunwales and destroying themselves. So I spent the time and made what seemed to me to be right for the boat.

This is one of the wonderful things about building your own boat. It is also the reason building a boat the way you want it takes so damn long.

Gunwales and inwales

I've come to accept that almost every step in the boatbuilding process takes twice as long as you estimate it will. Putting the gunwales and inwales on Ravn was the exception -- it took about 10 times as long.

Part of it was that I chose to use purple heart for the job. I had some nice 12-foot long strips left over from laminating the keel. I've also come to like the wood for how strong and hard it is. It also glues well. The downsides to the wood are that it does not work well with planes, chisels and spokeshaves because it tears out easily, it gives you the nastiest splinters of any wood I've ever worked with and it smells like -- I'm not sure what -- wet dog, maybe? It's pretty much on the other end of the spectrum from the wonderful pine scent many people associate with woodworking. Another feature of purple heart is that it doesn't take a set. This makes it a favorite of recurve and longbow makers who like to use purple heart to laminate the limbs of their bows, lots of spring and not a lot of memory in the wood. I think that will be a good thing in the long run, but it caused some drama during the installation of the gunwales.

I found out just how springy purple heart is after gluing the two sections of the port side gunnel to Ravn. I let the epoxy cure for a couple of days before I took the clamps (all 64 of them). Just as I stepped back to admire my work, "POP!" "Crack!" "BAM!" Starting from the stern, the gunwale broke loose and lunged at me. It hit the tablesaw instead and I was spared. The noise was loud enough that my wife opened the garage door to see what happened and if I was OK. I stood there in stunned silence and shook my head. I went in the house and didn't return to the shop for a couple of days.

I made a couple rookie mistakes gluing the gunwale. First, and most important, I didn't rough up the surface of the hull or the wood. The hull had two coats of epoxy on it and was real smooth. The second mistake I made was to glue using epoxy only with no additive in it. These were both things that I knew, I just didn't think about them. I was too busy cutting the complex bevels at the bow and stern ends of the gunwale and then measuring and marking the scarf in the middle. It's very exacting work that requires you to clamp, measure, cut, reclamp, mark, unclamp, refine the cut, then finally glue up. I was so focused on getting all the cuts right I totally forgot what I knew about making a good epoxy glue up.

When I returned to the shop I roughed up all the mating surfaces with 60-grit sand paper, mixed in the best adhesive filler I know of (colloidal silica one-to-one by volume) and clamped it up. I also decided to add six quarter-inch galvanized carriage bolts to each side of the boat. I had galvanized carriage bolts on the gunwale of my Chamberlain dory and they did a fine job for all the years I had the boat and will serve for many more decades I'm sure. The thing I want to avoid on this boat is any stainless steel. I'm not a fan. Give me galvanized iron or silicon bronze every time! Until the inwales were in place so I could through-bolt them to the gunwales, I always kept a few strategically-placed clamps on the gunwale just in case.

The inwales were laminated in three-eighth-inch strips: two laminates in the spaces between the frames and two inside the frame heads. I notched the top of the oak frame heads for the two inner laminates. It made for a strong, stiff structure on the sheer. Since I will mount the kabes for the oars, the shrouds and mast bench for the mast, and rope traveler for the main sheet on the inwales, they will need to be strong .