Whaleboat Update

 

 Newt Kirkland helping John Schwarzenbach installing ribs. Tough job! Very meticulous.

All the ribs installed

John and Newt checking position before installing the port
riser, which is the upper, inner plank. 

 Newt and John actually positioning the centerboard
for install. Not as simple as it looks!

Newt sitting on the installed centerboard, working at getting
the long bolts in. They go all the way through the centerboard and the
keel! There were issues, but Newt got it done.

The floor of the warp box, before the thigh board
installation. 

Thigh board being installed in the bow. The half circle is called the clumsy cleat. Used by for the (harpooner?) to  lean or brace against.

The hinged mast tabernacle, useful for quickly lowering sail during a whale hunt.

All photos and captions above courtesy George Clarke 

 Bow shot as of June 6

Gina Pickton filling me in on the progress made.

This stern shot clearly shows the combination of carvel and lapstrake planking.

It's my understanding that the combination of two different styles of planking styles is practically motivated. Carvel, in the water, is much quieter than lapstrake, with lapstrake being stronger above to handle increased stresses.

Centerboard thwart

Looking toward the bow from just behind the centerboard case. That spar does not belong to the whaleboat.

The above six photos and captions copyright Thomas Armstrong

First let me welcome a new eye and voice helping out with this post. George Clarke is a workshop volunteer and has been photographing the whaleboat progress and posting to the WOW Facebook  page. I welcome his help.

It's been quite some time since we posted here and a lot has been done. I asked Gina for a laundry list of work accomplished since our last post:

"Here’s a list of all that has been done in the past few months. We’ve made some good progress. The whaleboat was not worked on during the month of March as the whole crew moved over to make cannon carriages or the month of June when the whole crew went to work on Whitehalls.  

All the frames

Centerboard and Centerboard trunk

Lions tongue

Seat riser and thwarts

2 Ceiling planks

Sheets

Bow chock

Oarlocks

Mast trough

Mast Tabernacle

Loggerhead

Rudder

Warp Box

Aft deck

Quarterchocks"

I recently received an email from Lowell's Boat Shop vis a vis their beginning a fund raising campaign for their whaleboat build. If you are in their area, please give them a hand.

Also must see is Tom Jackson's piece on the whaleboats in the currents section of WoodenBoat #226, May /June 2012. 

Hopefully we'll have an update from Geoff McKinley at Rocking the Boat soon. In the meantime you can enjoy a flickr set of their progress here. (scroll down a bit)

Originally published by Thomas Armstrong in Whaleboats for the CW Morgan