Diary of an Apprentice Boatbuilder

This blog will follow my progress from the kind of guy that struggles to put up shelves to launching my own boat in 38 weeks.

Saturday, 22 October 2011

An Apology...

Firstly can I apologise for the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks, a combination of factors has meant that I have been unable to access my blog.

However we have now finished planking, removed the moulds, and cut the sheer.  So on the basis that a picture says a thousand words...

Nailing on the Sheer Strake... the FINAL plank of the planking saga

Still nailing!

This is the point at which we had finished the planking, started to remove the moulds, but decided to go to the Pub to celebrate!

All the frames removed, amazing how quickly one can get moulds out when you've had a couple of pints.


Sheer Strake in place but without the final sheer (shape of the top of the plank) marked or cut

Cutting the Starboard sheer...



Cutting the Port sheer...


TARRRRAAA!!!

The Rose finally planked and ready for fitting out


So we have completed the planking, well behind schedule, but we can now push ahead with the fitting out that hopefully we will have more help with.  The next stage is to fit the Centre plate box, clean up the inside of the hull, fill and fair any knot holes and gaps and then apply a couple of coats of primer prior to putting in the timbers and floors.

The mast is virtually complete, the Gaff is complete and the mizzen mast is glued up ready for shaping, so while there is a lot to do all is now achievable.

The Sheer is the line of the top the plank which gives the boat its shape when it is in the water, it is considered one of the most important aspects of a boat and it took about an hour working with a baton to get the Jessica Rose's sheer the way we wanted it.  The old way of doing it was to run a string from the outboard edge of the transom at sheer level to the stem and then by eye mark the sheer in the same plane as the string! No I didn't get it either, so we used a very long sail baton clamped to the plank.

More to follow as we get into the interesting bit... thank you for your patience!