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Often enough Dad remarked that the hardest thing about building a boat was the first step: the starting.

Of course,  the building of any boat involves the initial ‘dream’ of boats in general, and thereafter the choosing  of a particular boat – and then the gathering of appropriate materials, the assembling of tools, the clearing of a space etc…but the real start, to my way of thinking, begins on the drafting table – and I well remember a sense of exhilaration, as we watched him draw the first pencil line on a thin sheet of plywood.

That simple pencil mark represented the baseline, and above it would grow (bit by bit) the heights, breadths and diagonals signifying the various moulds of our boat: the chosen and particular boat of three dimensions.

Without the initial pencil line, there could be no boat – and once it was drawn, we knew a wooden vessel had begun to take shape, and that in due course it would  be completed and launched and sailed, according to a sort of irresistible logic and momentum.

I was reminded of that mysterious process recently, while reading our dog-eared copy of Skiffs and Schooners, by R.D. (Captain Pete) Culler.

Pete Culler was first and foremost a craftsman; he was better suited to shaping wood than words – but even so, he wrote a number of inspiring books, in which he combined practical (and uncompromising) advice  with the many plans of small wooden boats for sail and oar: all of his own design; all of them beautiful and alluring.

Here is what he says about Starting.

Any man who wants to can produce a good boat. It takes some study, some practice, and, of course, experience. The experience starts coming the minute you begin, and not one jot before. I sometimes hear the wail, ” I have no experience.” Start. Start anything, and experience comes. Some say building a boat is one of man’s nobler efforts. Maybe so; it’s a lot of fun, anyway. As one of my builder friends says, “It’s only a boat; go ahead and build it.” If the first effort is a bit lumpy, so what? There will be another less lumpy later on.

I like that. It strikes me as an encouraging paragraph for a novice, and  could apply equally to any project: be it the creation of a boat, a lute,  a stone wall,  a manuscript, a song – you name it.

After the dreaming and the planning – start.

Mind you, when it comes to my Renaissance Lute  project, there are times when I feel I have bitten off more than I can chew; there are times when I wish I had ‘learnt the ropes’ in my more youthful days; there are times when I really haven’t the faintest idea what I am doing.

I can only hope that the first pencil line on the drafting table will carry me through, irresistibly,  to an acceptable conclusion.

But more of that anon….

 

Quote from: Skiffs and Schooners, by Captain Pete (RD) Culler
International Marine Publishing
Camden, Maine  1994

 

THE WOODCARVER

Khing, the master woodcarver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
“What is your secret?”

Khing replied, “I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit. I did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise and criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

“By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

“Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
And begin.

“If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

“What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits”.

 

 

”The Woodcarver” by Thomas Merton, from THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU, copyright ©1965 by The Abbey of Gethsemani.

Use by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Two more Full Moon landscapes, reproduced here by kind permission of the Pearse family.

Sam took these photos.

My grateful thanks to Simon Scott: Master Builder and Innovator, for his indispensable help with an ever-growing Mark Pearse Catalogue.

The fine dovetail saw, the jeweller’s saw, and  the wood-carving knife all fall into the category of ‘necessary luxuries’. I could probably make do without them – but they will no doubt prove their worth. They are a joy to use.

The Japanese Plane is an indulgence, pure and simple (I already have a beautiful low-angle block plane for lute-making purposes).

I am now faced with the challenge of setting it  up. It can be a tricky business, so I understand….

I will report further.

 

 

 

Ever-changing contours.

The late winter rains, and recent high tides have carved a way through….

This strange object (below) is my version of thickness callipers, intended to take measurements at various points of the soundboard.

The thickness of a lute soundboard varies from point to point.

Professional thickness callipers can be obtained at great cost – beyond my reach – so I thought to construct one for the Boatshed, using scraps of Ironbark, and a few offcuts from Dad’s special collection of Ebony.

Lignum Vitae, I recalled, was used long ago in the making of watch parts….it seemed to me that Ebony and Ironbark might serve well enough.

If the callipers don’t work, for some reason, I will try again….

A few more Mark Pearse works from the Boatshed gallery….

 

 

 

Finicky work, but it will save time, and spare me potential grief  when I am cutting and fitting the wooden ‘ribs’, or (as I often think of them) strakes.

These will be  about 1.5 mm thick.

I can use both the mould and templates to make a second lute, and no doubt a  third….

I would like to thank my nephew, Roland (who created this site) for restoring the administration page to its familiar format.

Someone with a little brief authority  had ‘updated’ it without my knowledge or consent.

Roland has kindly saved the day, once again….

 

But my books were always my friends, let fail all else….Joshua Slocum

 

 

A few weeks ago I set up the first of four or five shelves in the Boatshed, designed to house Dad’s fine collection of maritime books. It seemed like the appropriate place for the books, which are there for all the family to use as the need arises.

My brothers will recognize this first shelf of specially selected titles -the essence of the Maritime Library – which shaped and nourished our youthful hearts and minds, and (I feel sure) continue to inform  them in ways known and unknown.

The first book I installed was Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone around the World, and I could not resist flicking to the back pages, just to make sure my favorite maritime yarn was still in its proper place.

I have always thought The Voyage of the Liberdade was even more astonishing than Sailing Alone. Here is a quote from the preface:

Be the current against us, what matters it? Be it in our favour, we are carried hence, to what place or for what purpose? Our plan of the whole voyage is so insignificant that it matters little, maybe, wither we go, for the “grace of the day” is the same! Is it not a recognition of this which makes the old sailor happy, though in the storm; and hopeful even on a plank in mid-ocean? Surely it is this! for the spiritual beauty of the sea, absorbing man’s soul, permits of no infidels on its boundless expanse….

Perhaps Dad’s favourite volume was The Wandering Years, by Weston Martyr. You can see it in one of the photos. In fact, that little book  spent more time on his beside table than in the library: often enough perched on top of a battered King James Bible. I like to think of it as a sort of maritime Apocrypha.

Another precious (indispensable) book he kept close at hand was Howard I. Chapelle’s  American Small Sailing Craft. Sam has taken a photo of the inside back cover, where Dad noted page numbers of his favorite designs. The Tancook Whaler, of course, heads the List. Further down you will see South Jersey Beach Skiff, written in crabbed fashion: my own presumptuous entry. I was fascinated by that lovely vessel – which happens to be extremely difficult for a novice to build. One day, perhaps, if I can acquire the skills….

The light-blue Popular Mechanics volume has a plan of the second of our training boats: Silver Mist…. such a charming little craft, lost forever. It was in Silver Mist that my father’s sons ‘learnt the ropes’.

While we are on Maritime Books, I thought to mention an excellent title not held in the Library. It is called Of Yachts and Men by William Atkin. He was a fine designer of small wooden boats, and (like Slocum) had a way with words.

Young men should dream, and the old should not forget this enchanting pastime. For the old, the sequence of the dream may be interrupted because there is left so little time in which to pursue it – but this is poor reason for not beginning the pursuit. Suppose it is not interrupted….

And another quote from the same book (he wrote two or three books, and many articles):

Had you inquired why so much electric light was burning in the Mizzen Top’s cellar workshop, you would have gotten the answer, “Billy Atkin and Alison McIver are making a mast”. The ‘wiser’ and rasher neighbours might add that here were a queer pair finding fun in making something they had never made before. How is it that the ‘wise’ (in the sense of being well-satisfied with one’s own wisdom) never learn? I have found that it is quite easy to make anything, or for that matter do anything, once the spirit and will come a-knocking at the workshop door.

Now that is what a Novice likes to read: most encouraging…..