Sagadahoc Stories #85: 3/29/99

When CC and I got home, my blood was up, and I started pacing out where this boat is going to arise. A sudden cry startled the air above me. A haunting musical note. Half honk, half scream. Ducking and twisting my neck, there was a pair of courting eagles cavorting over my head, tumbling through an aerobatic arabesque. In a flurry of wingbeats they were gone and I was breathless with joy. That eldritch call, the great beating of wings, and the immensity of the birds close up. Magic. Initiation fit for an ark.

With that motivation I began the boatbuilding process in earnest, which means making a host of small decisions. Although the basic hull shape of this vessel is clear, a curvilinear box, I have to come to some understanding of the construction details before I can gather materials. Building a boat is both like and unlike conjuring a sculpture. Instead of marshaling images of subjects and animals, then making a rough sketch, I steep myself in boat plans and photos, then pencil out a crude set of lines on graph paper. Both creations start with envisioning, but where one form mutates with the materials and evolves as the image is realized, the other is built on a rigid skeleton, and the essential expression is defined before the first timber is bent.

Right now there's a bunch of conundra to untangle. How will she be sparred and rigged? What kind of rudder? How steered? How will I mount the outboard? Centerboard or lee-boards? Full length skeg? Stowage and hatches? Sun shelter and a swim ladder for Peggy? Seating? Some of these determinations will affect basic framing and hull construction. Others are superficial details, but it's better to thrash out as much as you can before you start setting up, lest you overlook a crucial ingredient. This is seat of the pants marine architecture, so I have to put a sheen on my britches first.

But there's the timing factor, too. If this baby is going to splash in before the sun gets too high, I have to line up my materials so they're handy when I need them. For starters I need a strongback to build on and one-by to puzzle molds out of. Then I'll need frame stock, and planking, and fasteners. Capt. Ken has been a great source of practical advice, even though he thinks I'm nuts to be building a scow, while the boys at the restaurant have been egging me on, and debating details. But at some point I have to fix on a plan and get wheels turning.

In the end I came down to two closely related hull shapes, both recorded by Howard Chapelle, the great marine historian, in the 1930s. One, constructed by a builder from Bath, has finer lines than the other, taken off a hulk in Freeport, of unknown provenance. The first looks sweeter to my eye, but I'm wary of that instinct. When I built Sharpie I stretched her molds to make her look finer to me, and run faster under power, but it resulted in a very tender sailer. This time I intend to spread a lot more canvas in proportion to her hull size, and I'm leery of making her too lean. The fatter boat would be 8 foot at the beam and 24 long. The lean one would be nearer 6 in a 24. I measured up enough materials for the beamier beast, just in case.

Reader (After Barlach)

Measuring old plans, converting to the size you want, figuring up scantlings and fastenings is nervous work for me, as I'm constitutionally innumerate. I don't count so good, either. I made a rough calc, though, and went shopping.

First stop was at Morse's mill in Winnegance. Doing all this reading about the history of the Sagadahoc it felt right to be smelling fresh-sawn lumber down along the Kennebec, where they've been playing this game for 300+ years. You get disabused of your romanticism real quick at Morse's, though. Wander in with a scribbled parts list and a bit of uncertainty and you'll get a tongue-lashing for being an irritating nuisance.

I'd done business there before, however, and expected to be embarrassed about my ignorance as part of the routine. Good to be reminded you don't know diddly. After Morse decided to bother with me, we eyeballed some oak logs. He asked, "Red or white?" and I said I'd always like white if I could get it, and asked if it wasn't a bad idea to mix the two. "I don't know as it makes a difference," he grumbled.

Diddly (After Barlach)

Fact is, Fowler once showed me how you can blow smoke through a length of red oak, because of its open pores, while you can't with white. Which may help explain why the red oak in Sharpie went punky so soon. But I wasn't about to make demands at Morse's. If he wanted to saw white oak for me, he would, and otherwise I was just blowing smoke. Morse took me around the end of a pile and pointed out a stick of white oak, which had a lovely twitch in the end that would suit the skeg to perfection. I said so, and he grunted.

Monks (After Barlach)

We sat on a pile of lumber and he sketched on a board, asked me about construction details, copied my parts list onto a slip of paper. "When do you want this?" "At your convenience. I hope to be setting molds by the first." "Well, maybe next week. I've got a delivery up your way anyhow."

I didn't even think to ask about price, but I know it'll be the going rate, and the measure will be just right. I could have gotten oak up here, but it would be red, and without the twitch. So I've ordered framing in Winnegance. Five-quarter live edge, two-sided to one inch, and finished four inch for the skeg and bowsprit.

I ran into Eric the woodman at the gas station. He was just finishing a logging trick and said he'd be home at the mill later in the afternoon, so I rolled the red lady out the Millay Road and down 201 as the sun declined. When I got there one of the Temples was yarning in the yard, and I got an extended run-down on the old buildings in town and their confused ownership, new insurance requirements for the Knights of Pythias Hall, and the history of local fire engines. The fire department has two old hand pumpers stored away, and they've been talking about asking me to do paintings of them, he said. I said I'd be delighted. Apparently the old Phoenix is one of only two still in existence. He told me when he was a boy the department used to take the other one to musters and compete against teams from all over the state. The crew from Rockland trained like athletes for the musters, and always took home the pumping prizes.

Pulp Loader

I took home a truckload of 6X6s and 1X4s for a strongback and molds, and made an arrangement to pick over some clear pine to run through Eric's planer to make plank this week. Looks like I've got my lumber lined up. I may have found a name, too. In a history of Bath written in 1842 I read that the Indians called Merrymeeting Bay "QUABACOOK". Maybe a good name for this square-toed frigate who'll dance on the Bay.

Model A

Spring fever has everyone turned upside down. They closed the Town Landing for four days this week to start building an apartment into the big lumber room upstairs, and do spring cleaning in the restaurant. It took Jeanine the full rigmarole to get planning approval for the apartment. Not only was she required to submit detailed documentation of plans, septic use, flood plain siting, and letters of OK from the abutters, but she had to endure an examination before the planning board, who have been hostile to restaurant renovations in the past. Back when Bruce and Judy ran the place the board slapped down all the proposed renovations they asked for. Jeanine isn't quite as hair-trigger as Bruce, though, and hung in there through the whole charade.