Getting everything in place.
Over the last couple of weeks Stuart has been busy cutting and planing planks whilst I've been working on the sternpost. The stempost is now up and I could get the sternpost fitted today, but I've noticed that Janet, our neighbour, has just hung a line full of washing out in the sun. As I will have to heat some chalico on the stove to fit the post and the wind is blowing in her direction I think I'll put it off until tomorrow.
We've a new volunteer, a retired sheet metal worker called John. He's been grinding the knobbles off the knees, which are now back from being shotblasted.
For several weeks "Hazel" has been looking very bare. Her new bottom is in place and the moulds are up to give a skeletal trace of her shape, but she has no sides and only the apparition of a cabin propped up on sticks to remind us of the boat that she was, and shall be again.
Soon we'll be putting the knees back in place, then steaming the bottom strakes or garboards to shape, and so a new boat will rise from the crumbly rottenness of the old, new wood, but the same shape and the same spirit.
Talking of wood, we don't have quite enough of it. To make up for the shortfall I've found some oak trees that are to be felled in Cumbria. I will be able to plank them with the chainmill, but transporting them is proving to be a problem. They never completed the famous Taunton & Carlisle Canal. In fact, the nearest the canal system ever got to Appleby where the trees are was Kendal. Now that waterway is truncated by the M6 at Tewitfield, and anyway, our boats are all 10' too long to access it. There'es really no choice but to use lorries, and they're expensive. So, if you happen to have a lorry long enough to carry 30' lengths of timber, give me a ring on 07931 952 037.