By Lorne Swarthout

Today an active crew of volunteers glued and clamped the gunwales to our new gig. (Which needs a name! Who has a good suggestion?) Our  beautiful eggshell hull is now embraced by stout ponderosa pine gunwales. 

The first step was to scarf three 10′ boards together to make them long enough. Then on Friday the student crew steamed the forward end of the two gunwales in order to get them limber enough to make the necessary bend up in the bows. After an hour of steaming we clamped the 3/4 x 3/4 x 28′ gunwales in place around the hull in order to give them a “memory” of where they were going to live..

Then today we epoxied the gunwales in place, using every clamp in the shop. It was a great team effort by a bunch of  Sunday boatbuilding veterans plus a couple of first timers.

Our next boatbuilding sessions will be Wednesday 2/1 and Sunday 2/5.

The next step will be to lift our gig off the “molds”  on which we build the hull, set it in specially prepared cradles, and begin to scrape and sand the glue off the inside. The interior will get the same treatment as the outside before receiving the frames and decks and thwarts.