Mike Boiduk grew up in a house where sailing boats were a sensitive subject.
Boiduk, one of the triumvirate building the Spiteful Lady, was warned by his mother as a child not to mention his father's boat.
Boats have always held a firm grip on the hearts of men.
Boiduk's dad bought the small wooden sailing boat before his first son was born - he had dreamt about it for years. But on his first trip out on the Northumberland Strait the boat took on water - she was rotten all through and Boiduk's father bailed his way back to shore. Boiduk's father burned the boat and has spent the last two decades not talking about it.
Planking is the moral of the story.
Planking must be tight, free of ugly knots and properly beveled.
We began planking the Spiteful Lady in November and each one is a separate project.
We begin by pouring old furnace oil gunk on some wet slabs in our jury-rigged stove before setting it ablaze. Our next step is to curse when our heat source fails and we have to retry the process.
We milled our own planks in the fall from black spruce - juniper would have been preferable but there wasn't enough in our cutting area. The planks are 3/4-inch thick and vary in width. Each new plank is clamped over the one below it and a line is drawn along the bottom of the new plank, showing its intended curve.
The plank is then removed and clamped to the work bench where we begin to shape the wood using an old draw knife and hand plane. It's satisfying work - by the time we've gotten to the hand plane the kettle has boiled on the stove, a glorified steel barrel, and we're having a hot toddy.
Our boat is better than most - it grows like a tree - according to Ray Elliott, the brains behind the Spiteful Lady. He works at her during the days and instructs us in our tasks when we arrive in the evening. At about 11 p.m. Boiduk and I amble down to his house for a game of auction 45s.
The next morning, while Boiduk and I are at work, Ray fixes the mess we made the night before.
(Aaron Beswick is a reporter with the Northern Pen).
The painstaking process of planking
Each plank is an individual lesson in patience and frustration. A draw knife and plane is used to shape a plank.
-
- Published on January 7th, 2008
- Published on July 8th, 2010
-
Aaron Beswick
Mike Boiduk grew up in a house where sailing boats were a sensitive subject.
Boiduk, one of the triumvirate building the Spiteful Lady, was warned by his mother as a child not to mention his father's boat.
Boats have always held a firm grip on the hearts of men.
Boiduk's dad bought the small wooden sailing boat before his first son was born - he had dreamt about it for years. But on his first trip out on the Northumberland Strait the boat took on water - she was rotten all through and Boiduk's father bailed his way back to shore. Boiduk's father burned the boat and has spent the last two decades not talking about it.
- Number of views : 428
- Rate
- Top of the page
.jpg)
.jpg)
