Planking Begins - Boat Bulding Week 12

Another good turnout saw six planes in action simultaneously at one point on Sunday. More shavings for the Hall’s chickens.

This would not have been possible without the planes kindly lent to the project by Frank Hepburn, along with a bag of other useful tools and a portable workbench.

The two Plank number #1s were glued on Friday and one of them is now almost ready to be glued in position. The final shaping of the hog to assure a smooth curve for the bottom plank (garboard) is almost done. But it is a slow job, with lots of sucking in of breath and looking for millimetre gaps between the hog and the plank.

Stephen Hall and Chris Anstock have now sussed how to scarph and glue planks and were able to get Plank #2 prepared and glued in an afternoon.

I keep being asked when will the boat be launched. I do not know, but this is what I do know.

Firstly there is no deadline and the boat will be launched when it is ready. It is estimated that it will take 600 -1000 man hours to complete the boat. So far, some 200 man hours have been done, so we are a third of the way, or a fifth depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. But more importantly this is dependent on the boat builders enjoying themselves and turning out and whether we get any more recruits. In November we did about 90 man hours, so at this rate, we have another 4 - 9 months to go. (Nine months would be a August launch, four would be April).