April 2010

I’ve been thinking lately about craftsmanship—what it is, how we cultivate it, how we appraise it.

In the past month several people have complimented me on my “fine craftsmanship” on Nil Desperandum, and as usual, they made me squirm. As I wrote in The Year of the Boat, I’ve always felt that accepting an undeserved compliment is a moral lapse, like pocketing the benefit of a waiter’s mistake on a restaurant check. Still, I’ve finally trained myself not to swat away the compliment, insulting the bearer. I murmur a polite “thanks,” and try to change the subject.

Imperfect and fitful as it still is, though, my craftsmanship is getting better—even I can see that. And it’s not steadier hands at the bandsaw. It’s cultivation of the mental component of craft—thinking through a problem before plunging into it.

Ever since I started the Winter Wren, I’d been planning to build the cabin 1” to 1½” higher than Sam Devlin’s plans, just to scrape out a little more sitting headroom than Sam’s miserly 42 inches. I had made the forward cabin bulkhead taller when I installed it months ago, figuring I could shave it later if necessary.

When it came time for the aft bulkhead this month, though, I had to make a final decision. So I mocked up a cardboard cabin on the port side and studied it for a couple of days—inside and out, aesthetically and practically.

And in the end, I decided Sam’s design was right. Even one extra inch of cabin unbalanced the boat’s profile. It looked cartoonish, like a cow drawn with an oversized head. Sam’s sailboats are remarkably beautiful and based on traditional lines and proportions—you can barely believe they’re plywood. My proposed modification was a crime against nature.

So I sawed off the offending 1½” from the cabin front piece and made the aft bulkhead exactly to plan. And sitting bolt upright on a cushion in the mockup, I still had ½” of headroom. Good enough; I’m expecting no more growth spurts.

I then made several mockups of the companionway, studying different widths, shapes, and locations. What I finally decided on was a substantial departure from plan. My doorway is skinnier and offset to the port side, so a person stepping into the cabin won’t have to straddle the daggerboard. And I like the bold stroke of asymmetry—it creates a dynamic visual tension against the pure balance of the rest of the boat.

Uncharacteristically, I plopped onto my shop stool and for a good, long time contemplated making the drop boards and the tracks for them to slide in.

My lifelong nature is to plunge directly into a problem, acting on instinct/impulse. It looks like decisiveness, but really is just impatience, and it leads to good craftsmanship only occasionally, by accident. First impulse was to make the tracks with a router. I’m not very good with it, and this would be a character-building exercise. But it would also be a mahogany-wasting exercise. After considerable thought, I came up with an easier way: use the table saw to make the tracks out of two L-shaped pieces, to be glued to the edges of the companionway.

Now the only crafty skill would be taking care to set the table saw for precise cuts. Not difficult; just requires patience.

It took me about three hours to make all six framing pieces for the companionway, but at the end they all fit almost perfectly and I had to make only one of them twice. With  minor touch-up sanding the boards slid smoothly into place.

Although I’m decidedly no Calvinist, I suppose I’ve always assumed that some souls are born predestined to be good craftsmen and others klutzes, and by lifelong

evidence I was one of the latter. But what I’m finally learning is that there’s more to craftsmanship than coordination, and that an innate deficit in eye-hand skill can be compensated elsewhere. A great part of craftsmanship is patience, and that can be learned. Another part is in what we can simply call “opening up”—contemplating the nature of the material, the job to be done, and the resources available to do it.

There’s great value in building a boat, and it’s not simply the big floaty thing you enjoy at the end. There are character-building lessons at every turn, and they all have application in the wider sphere of life.

If it were all fun, all the time, everybody’d be doing it.

But a lot of the work of building a boat is slow, painstaking, rife with potential for ugly mistakes, and likely to keep you awake at 3 a.m.

Nil Desperandum on Nov. 1, 2009

Most of October’s work falls into that lumpy category. I built the berth flat, flotation compartments, and battery hold in the bilge. I perched on my shop stool for hours staring at the blue beast, trying to figure out a (a) cheap (b) strong (c) decent-looking, and (d) buildable compression post. I spent another Big Gulp of cash on goop, literally: another gallon of epoxy and several tubes of 3M’s 5200 adhesive/sealant, the modern boatbuilder’s salvation unguent.

The Devlin Winter Wren plans call for a raised, ½-inch plywood floor from the anchor locker to the daggerboard case. Eventually outfitted with a custom-made, form-fitted foam cushion (whir of money taking wing), this will form the berth flat, or bed.

I complicated the matter by turning the various spaces under the flat into several of the watertight compartments that will keep Nil Desperandum* afloat despite her 700 pounds of ballast if the worst happens, a capsize and total swamping.

Designer Sam Devlin heard about my idea and strongly suggested I not permanently seal the compartments, but preserve access through watertight screw-in deck plates. I bitched and moaned about the extra cost and work, but seeing as how Sam has built about 350 more boats than I have, I figured I should follow his advice.

Now that I’ve done it, I’m glad. The deck plates, recessed into the plywood with router and chisel and sealed with 5200, actually look cool. And besides providing a way to peer in and check for water penetration, they turn the chambers into storage crannies for items like spare rope and tools.

The biggest chamber won’t be sealed. It’s to hold 240 pounds of lead ballast plus two beefy 100 amp-hour deep-cycle batteries (each weighing another 65 pounds).

Bilge with battery compartment and 200 lb. ballast (not yet locked in).

Why so much juice for a small boat? I detest gasoline outboards—honestly, not as much for environmental reasons as for their noise, vibration and general crankiness—so I’m planning a Torqueedo electric motor for auxiliary drive. Clean, quiet, and more insane extra expense. But one of the few defensible reasons for building your own boat is to be able to build exactly what you want.

The compression post literally led to several October mornings awake at 3 a.m., staring at the predawn ceiling and gnawing at the problem. Devlin’s plans are not rich in detail and do not explain what the compression post is supposed to look like or how it’s to be built, only that there must be one. The post obviously has to be strong, since it has to carry some of the mast’s load off the deck beam and into the bottom of the hull. Since the post bursts up through the middle of the berth to the deck, it should be compact and nicely finished, a piece of the cabin furniture.

A friend helpfully donated a beefy piece of stainless steel pipe. But it was an unusual size and I couldn’t find fittings that would help attach it to the berth flat and beam.

I talked to a bronze supply company in Colorado. They had beautiful bronze pipe, of which they would sell me a six-foot length for $240. But I needed only two feet.

A neighbor was walking his dogs past my garage—a Boeing engineer neighbor—and I invited him in for a consultation. Very helpfully and adeptly, he studied the plans, then  picked up a spare wooden stick and demonstrated how the loads would act on the post. For the first time, it made complete sense. A big thanks, Ian.

The solution I’m now making is one of the two he recommended, and it’s the simplest, cheapest and prettiest: A $7.95 galvanized steel pipe from the neighborhood hardware store, to be cocooned in epoxy inside a mahogany post. Here’s a section

Mockup section of compression post

I cobbled up from scraps as a trial, then the complete post ready for bonding together. It’s fairly easy to make and appears as though it will work perfectly.

As I related in my book The Year of the Boat, there

compression post ready for bonding

are endless lessons with wider life   applications to be learned in building a small sailboat. Here was one: So often we burden our lives with systems of excessive cost and complexity. Sometimes we can’t help it—the burdens are forced onto us—but when we have a choice, the simplest solution is also likely to be the most elegant.

And the most conducive to a good night’s sleep.

* Not to Worry

One crucial difference between pro and amateur boatbuilders:

The Winter Wren's skeg with helpful boulder

A pro would not wander out and harvest a handy boulder to weight down a glued piece where a clamp wouldn’t fit. Or if he did, he wouldn’t post a picture of it on his website.

An amateur will improvise recklessly, even proudly, and admit to it all. In lieu of clamps I’ve deployed bungee cords, rubber bands, springy sticks propped against walls and ceilings, Zip-loc baggies of lead shot, and of course, boulders.

My operational philosophy,

A pro-built Winter Wren by designer/builder Sam Devlin

in life and in boatbuilding: Whatever works is good.

This last month the big job was attaching the shoe keel and external stem, which together form an impact-absorbing strip along the centerline of the boat. The keel grows into a finlike skeg near the stern, which assists tracking. The boulder and clamps in the photo secured a quarter-inch-thick oak strip intended to be replaceable after it gets scraped and battered.

The stem is also decorative, as it defines the cut of the bow above the waterline. Since it had to be laminated in order to follow the bow’s curvature, I slipped in a couple of layers of pinkish khala mahogany among the white oak. It turned out nicely, although I’m a little worried about the fragility of the skinny part at the top end of the bow. It will eventually plug into a bowsprit, which may protect it from crunches.

The terrible problem was cutting and trimming the pieces to adjust to the continually changing curvature of the hull. I’ll spare the intimate details, but it required many cardboard templates, router, chisel, and three kinds of sanders.

I made it more, not less, difficult with what turned out to be a dumb idea. To increase the lever arm of the ballast, I wanted to get as much of the specified 685 pounds of lead ballast outside the hull, hanging below like in a full-keel sailboat. I drilled 30 one-inch holes in the 1.75-inch-deep shoe keel and poured them full of lead shot and epoxy. The holes accommodated a total of 7.5 pounds of lead—1.1% of the ballast. Very impressive effort.

Professional boatbuilders, of course, execute dumb ideas, too, and they charge real money for them. Twice this summer I sailed a $200,000 French yacht that had the engine controls—throttle and shift—way down on the cockpit floor. You’re nervously guiding this costly monster into a crowded slip, and you have to keep looking away from where it’s going while you bend down to adjust the power.

During August I also finished fairing the outside of the hull—smoothing the surface in preparation for painting—and engaged another bout against that old latent demon, perfectionism.

The Winter Wren, ready to have her bottom painted

Professional boatbuilders need to finish every visible square inch of a boat to a high standard; it’s evidence of a deeper attention to detail. And they know how to do it efficiently.

I know some amateurs who, though less efficient, hold themselves to the same standard. A mediocre square inch, even in a place that won’t ever be seen by anyone except mussels and salmon—the bottom of the hull—is a testament to their failed dedication. It’s practically a moral issue.

I was working long and hard, grinding away with sandpaper on the Winter Wren’s bottom, carefully surveying each section with fingertips, and despairing of ever finishing the damn boat, when I suddenly straightened up and said (almost out loud) “Hey! Do I want a usable sailboat or a bloody moral testament?”

At that, I gave myself permission to sand the bottom to a lousier level of imperfection than the topsides.

I explored this issue in The Year of the Boat, where among other reflections on perfectionism I quoted designer/builder Sam Devlin: “As you’ve learned, you can work on these things forever. There’s no end to how far you can take it. The place where we stop is the place where it’s better than what we did on the boat just before.”

This makes perfect sense for pro or amateur. And yes, this boat is—so far—better than the daysailer that came before it (named, affectionately, Far From Perfect).

For an amateur, whose time and boatbuilding chops are necessarily limited, a boat should not be seen as an avatar of one’s moral character, but simply a chart of personal growth in skill and values. For me, at least, that seems more realistic and manageable.

And it sure as hell relieves the pressure.

A BSO — Boat-Shaped Object—has now taken residence in the shop:

The wire stitches are still holding the panels together, awaiting epoxy (the next step). The four planks spanning the hull are temporary spreaders, necessary to force the hull sides to the correct span apart. They’ll be taken out when the bulkheads go in.

Alert readers may note that the stitches were supposed to be removed and the epoxy/fiberglassing done in November. But as usual—no, always—when an amateur builds a boat, seemingly simple steps consume prodigious amounts of time, bungled pieces have to be remanufactured, processes have to be rethought.

Case in point: the transom.

Before sawing into a $110 sheet of marine plywood, I made a trial transom from a sheet of $12 Home Depot pressboard. Of course it didn’t fit: 

I measured the gap and angle of the hull bottom and transferred this information to the marine plywood. By all the laws of physics and mathematics, the resulting piece should have fit perfectly, which it didn’t. But it was at least close, and with a couple of cheating shims epoxied in, I was able to stitch the real transom in place.

Notice in the photo above there’s also yawning daylight between the two-by-four building cradle, which is supposed to be supporting the stern, and the hull.

Back in October I had built four such cradles, extrapolating their height and support angles from the boat plans. None of these fit, either. So I spent a full November week taking them apart, rebuilding them, and leveling the hull. It’s essential that the boat be perfectly level—projected waterline parallel to the shop floor—because the only way to install the bulkheads so they’re precisely vertical is to use gravity as a measuring device, lining each bulkhead up with a plumb bob.

 Here’s one of the remanufactured  cradles. 

 Note that I had to dedicate several of  my c-clamps to the cradles, because  the middle two turned out to be too  cramped to be able to install wood  screws in the triangle supports. A  right-angle drive for the drill would  have solved the problem, but Festool, if I recall, wants a stunning ransom of $115 for that accessory. Eight C-clamps at $5 each were a more palatable investment.

Finally, I also had to do a lot of the stitching over because the first attempt didn’t pull the hull side panels into the correct alignment. I’d imposed on a kind neighbor to torque them into place while I stitched, but I was so concerned about his discomfort that I rushed through a sloppy job. For the second attempt, I cobbled up a ridiculous contraption of stepladder and clamps to simulate a human grip. Although I had to move and adjust it after each stitch, this worked better because it exhibited infinite patience. 

Which is something I don’t have. All through November I felt irritated because of the mistakes and retracing of steps, and the drudge work of rebuilding the cradles. But if your prime character defect is impatience, as mine is, boatbuilding supplies an excellent way to work on it. I can’t think of any other enterprise where patience is so tangibly rewarded, and impatience so directly and forcefully punished. 

One final thought as we enter the season of glad tidings, epoxy and fiberglass: 

In building a boat, as in taking on any big and intimidating project, it’s important to be prepared for the inevitable peaks and troughs of emotion you’ll encounter. If you expect the discouraging times, it’s easier to slog through them, preserving vital momentum. They don’t last forever. I think there is, however, a correlation between the size of the boat and the span of the troughs: the bigger the boat, the more you should plan to endure.

Winter Wren, at a shade under 19 feet, is looking colossal.