This morning I had the opportunity to visit a boat yard close to where I live. Having done some internet searches for boat repair/builders and telephone calls to the Dock Museum it quickly transpired that Barrow does not have a history of boat builders despite its shipbuilding heritage. Historically wooden boats were built between Ulverston and Greenodd area of Furness whose location benefited from the local woodlands and beaches. The waters in this area were more sympathetic to launching wooden boats than at Barrow where regular dredging was necessary.
I met Greg, owner and maker, who kindly spent 2 hours of his time explaining in detail the construction of a wooden boat. Recommending further reading: Clinker Boatbuliding by John Leather and Ship (5000 years of Maritime Adventure) by Brian Lavery and well as recommending the National Historic Ships organisation for additional reference material.
In a few months Greg will be starting a commission to build a 22ft wooden boat by traditional methods which I hope to document the process, over the next twelve months as part of my research. In the meantime there were boats in the yard I could photograph which were in a better state of repair than those in the Walney Channel. This allowed a better visual on the construction of boats.
There was a lot to take in particularly the terminology: Load/light water line, lofting, farring, stringer, riser and keel to name but a few. In carpentry the dovetail joint is commonly used to make furniture but in boat building the most common joint is known as the scarph joint. Greg drew some drawings of various kinds of scarph joint which I thought would be good to include in my sculptures especially if I need to join modular elements together and make a feature out of them. The Hook Scarph Joint had more detail to it (but maybe more technically challenging to construct) and would visually look appealing on my form (bottom diagram in righthand picture below).
Other bits of information about pencil marks, numbering, makers mark, ironmongery and the structural drawings provide a series of layers which add to my research helping to inform my work. I found it intriguing that the date of the boat is linked to the date the keel was laid down not the date when the boat was finished or launched. What soon became apparent was the engineering considerations of boat building, its not just about hammering bits of wood together.
Greg shared some of his technical drawings for the boat commission mentioned above together with a few sketches highlighting important elements in construction, see pictures below. There is also a picture of his makers mark.
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