Tuesday 6 September
Stuart was first on the scene this morning and started by finishing off the stem heads with a file and sand paper. He was joined later by Veronica and continued the sanding of boat 1 interior and gunwales. I also had a turn as did Paul H much later in the day. We are nearly there now although I finished up the day by sticking a couple more supports in for the stern floorboard and the passenger seat in the bow.
Dr John and Archie went up to Harry’s other shed with our remaining piece of oregon to mill it and produce a 60 x 30mm beam. They also took the Hoop pine we are using for the blocks in the gunwale in the second boat, cutting that into 45x19mm battens for cutting with the drill press and a 32mm bit. I did some calculations on how best to arrange the blocks along the gunwale to avoid one or two glitches we had, eg a gap overlapping the frame end.
Unfortunately the belt drive on Harry’s bench saw gave out while Roger and Dr John were using it so Dr John went across to Thorntons for a new one and they were joined by JD and Harry to replace it in the machine which then did the job better than ever.
I was asked yesterday about the history of clinker built boats like ours and I looked up on Wikepedia an amazing example of a boat built in the Iron Age in Denmark (the country) and dug out of the Nydam Bog in 1863. Dating sets its age at 310 – 320 AD. The similarities in shape to our St Ayles Skiffs is astounding. But even more remarkable is that these ships were 23m long, weighed 3 tonnes and used to go to war. The Nydam Boat is on display at the Gortoff Castle, Schleswig, Germany. It is constructed with clinker or lapstrake oak planks and is double ended and even has a rudder. A crew of 45 rowed her. We’ll have to get a few more members if we want to build one of these!
The Nydam boat predates the Vikings and it is likely that similar boats were built before this monster.
Another interesting connected rowing fact was that in 1896 two Norwegian born Americans, Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo were the first people ever to row across an ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. They rowed an 18ft double ended clinker built open boat from New York to the Scily Isles in 55 days, a record that stood for 114 years.
Or if you want something up to date there is a young man from Brisbane who is currently rowing a clinker built plywood and epoxy boat across the Pacific Ocean. Tom Robinson started from Peru and is about 400 nautical miles into his journey. See his website for more details www.tomrobinsonboats.com.
Enough I hear you cry!
Cheers Dave