December 2009
Chingadero. Spanish, a language much richer in maledicta than English, supplies the perfect word for this month. I’ll loosely translate chingadero as “a small, extremely annoying boat part.” Check an online dictionary of Spanish slang for the more universal rendering.
I spent too much of November making chingaderos for Nil Desperandum.
Most of them are minor out-of-sight structural pieces made from scrap wood, such as the bars that lock the lead ballast ingots in place, or the fir stringers that support the cabin floor (“sole” in boatspeak). These things don’t need to look elegant, but they do have to fit. All have to be rot-proofed with a jacket of epoxy. And be strong enough for whatever work it is they have to do.
Failed chingaderos, destined for scrap.
I first made the four
Bilge with ballast, depth sounder, and bilge pump
ballast-locking bars from scraps of fir. As soon as I split one while screwing it into position, I knew they were all too flimsy. I threw all four away and pawed through the scrap-wood bin for hardwood. The new editions are oak and mahogany, and they seem much more substantial.
You don’t want 60-pound ballast ingots rolling around when the boat heels.
The cabin soles need all kinds of chingaderos underneath and around them for support, and each one needs to be shaved to a precise thickness and bevel angle where it meets the sloping “V” of the hull. Cut and try, cut and try. The curving fir pieces that meet the outside edges of the sole were the most excruciating. I made the one for the port side four times.
Still, there’s character-building value in this work. I’m finding that I feel no anger or frustration, and only moderate impatience, when I throw away another two-hour investment in a misshapen chingadero. What’s the choice? As any Zen cadet knows, get angry and you’ll build that quality into the boat itself. And make your own life miserable besides.
Emotional reactions to misjudgments and mistakes can be a matter of choice, not instinct. And building a boat is terrific training.
November’s rewarding project was making the cabin soles.
I first cut and fit
Cabin sole pieces in bathtub for drying
cardboard templates, then used them to shape ½-inch plywood floors. Then I used the table saw to rip ¼-inch-thick planks of khaya mahogany. I laminated the khaya to the plywood, separated by pencil-thin fir strips. They’re sealed with epoxy and will eventually wear four or five coats of varnish, the top one a non-glossy finish that shouldn’t be too slippery when wet.
They’re not perfect—this was the first time I’ve ever built anything like this—but they’re pretty,
Cabin soles in place, temporarily
and I feel a satisfying rush of accomplishment every time I look at them. They’re serving as the antidote to the slog of all those chingaderos.
This is something I’ve learned about boatbuilding—or writing a book, or taking on any sweeping challenge that’s going to go on for years. It’s not necessarily best to do everything in its logical order. To preserve morale, you’d better create a system of rewards interspersed with the inevitable drudgery.
And creating a thing of beauty is always rewarding. That’s why we go to the great bother of wooden boats.
Nil Desperandum, a Devlin Winter Wren, on 12.1.09
Martha, a 102-year-old schooner based nearby in Port Townsend
