This week, one of our students from Bodine took the time to write a little bit about his experience with SAILOR.  Let’s see what he has to say!

“Hi my name is Henry I am not the foreman today, but I am one of the people that are helping to build this boat. Today we planed the bottom planking so that it’s flush with the chine log.  We used block planes to plane the bottom plank of this boat and it was a pain in the arms and back. Today was so tiring, but the SAILOR program overall is quite an interesting experience. We have used block planes before but today we were planing a slanted plane that was sticking out past the chine log so our mentor, David, taught us how to plane this surface.

My favorite part of this program is using the band saw... and eating the snacks that we buy at the vending machine before we get to work!

At the beginning of this program we didn’t know anybody. We were all shy at first but we all spoke to each other and became friends. We work well and efficiently together and make a great team. I am so excited for the outcome of this boat and I am working really hard until launch day arrives. We are almost done planing, and we are about to clean up soon and leave. BYE!!!!!”

I couldn’t agree more with Henry in regards to how he and the other students make a great team.  Especially now, as we are about to come up to a major milestone -- being finished with planking the boat!  We are so close, and the students can feel it.  This past week we heard a lot of comments on how the boat was actually starting to look like a boat.  They are starting to see what they’re creating.  There was a little more excitement as they fastened the bottom planks to the keel and planed the outer edges down to the chine log.  Everyone was in good spirits.  The boat will be flipped before we know it!

Jawn makes its big splash!

I apologize for the delay, but June 2nd was a smashing success for the SAILOR program.  We launched Jawn, the 19′ garvey that our students worked so hard on for the entire school year.  I hope that every student is proud of what they were able to accomplish with this project.  We needed each and every one’s help to make this boat a reality, and I am grateful for how committed our students were.  That Jawn look like she was built by a bunch of professionals!  Here are some photos from the celebration!

As launch day looms nearer, our students are working on projects that will help ensure the boat looks great when it makes its big splash.  Some of these projects include: attaching any remaining parts and hardware such as spray rails and cleats; filling screw holes with epoxy putty and bungs; and sanding the surfaces to prep for finish paint. 

Below, our Totall Envolvement students are final installing the spray rails.  We say final install because they covered the inside surface of the spray rail with sikaflex, which helps waterproof that surface along the hull of the boat.  Once that stuff dries it will be very difficult to take off. 

Each student got a chance to fasten a few screws along the spray rails, and we all had to work together to support the rails from falling .

Below, Janiyah from our EAGLE group is attaching a cleat to the boat by bolting it through the inwale, plank, and rubrail.  Those cleats aren’t going anywhere!

Below, Caleb is sanding the hull to prep for paint.  Sanding the surfaces of the wood is important because it removes any imperfections or scratches from the milling process, and ensures that the paint will adhere to the wood evenly. 

Our students also had to fill the screw holes with putty.  Once the putty dried we were able to sand off any excess and bring it to a smooth flat surface.  Next when they apply the paint, you won’t even be able tell where the screws are.  It will seem like the boat is being held together by magic!

We also have a fair amount of painting to do still.  The whole exterior needs to be painted and our EAGLE girls are getting the process started with some primer on the transoms.  You go, girls!

Laying out the floor planks was a project that spanned several days and many of our students got to be a part of the process.

It started out with our EAGLE girls helping rough cut planks to the proper length and shape.  It was tricky to get the planks to lay flat on our floor timbers so we used weights to hold them down.  As more and more planks were added, we used small pieces of 1/4″ thick wood to act as spacers between them.

Then our Totall Envolvement students stepped in to make more planks and we started to fasten them down to the floor timbers.  As Foreman Emmett said: 

​“Since the floor is symmetrical, we made a copy of a plank by flipping it over, tracing it, and cutting it out. Then we placed it in the boat and placed weights on it, put spacers in between the planks, and tightened them together with a clamp. Then we drilled holes in the plank and put screws in it to hold it down.”

The students used a bit brace to fasten the screws in place.  This tool helps students from overturning the screw, which could cause the screw to break.  It also puts much less strain on the student’s wrist. 

The process continued until the planks reached all the way out to the edges of the hull.  Once all of the planks were installed, we got a good shot of what to expect for our finished boat -- and boy does it look nice!

But we were still far from done!  The next thing we wad to do was mark out where our center console will go and cut the floor planks so that the console can fit.  Our Bodine students helped us reinstall the planks once the cut had been made.  While the planks were being fastened I asked the foreman for the day, Nadir, why he chose this program and what he liked about it.  With a smile he said:

“I chose to do SAILOR because it sounded fun and interesting. I love SAILOR because it is fun to see how we work and learn new things.”

Once the planks were installed, the students could look back and feel good about all that they had accomplished up until that point... 

After we were satisfied with how the floor had taken shape, we were ready to start the finishing process.  We needed to sand the planks to smooth out any imperfections or waves from the thickness planer.  Our Bodine students started us off, and below you can see Henry trying to sand out some burn marks from the table saw when the planks were cut to width. . 

Now the process comes full circle back to our EAGLE students.  It was their job to finish sanding and put our first coat of a 50/50 mix of varnish/tung oil on the planks.  Sanding always feels like tedious work, but they persevered.  Foreman Gekeya affirmed, “WE WORKED HARD!” when we asked what they did that day. 

The real fun started when they got to apply the varnish/tung oil mix.  This mixture seals and hardens the wood to protect it from water and wear once it’s on the boat.  It also does a nice job of making the grain on the wood pop and shine.  One of the students, Alexis, took a lot of pride in this work.  She was very meticulous and told me she wanted to make sure the varnish/oil mixture was applied evenly. 

As we continue our journey with the mock up console panels, our students are figuring out how to wire all of the different devices to connect to a 12 volt battery, which will be the source or power on the actual boat.  It’s also good to note that the boat will run on DC, or direct current, voltage. Our CHAD students were hard at work wiring up all of their positive wires first (in pink) and then wiring all of their negative wires (in yellow).  Changing the color of the wires makes it easier for us to keep track of which ones are which. 

Above, Ny-eem and Aaron are working together to strip the plastic wrapping on one of their wires with a pair of wire cutters.  Below, foreman Rameer is almost done wiring the negatives on his panel. 

And we’re not talking about being accused of a crime.  Unless, of course, that crime is being too awesome of a boat...

Ok, bad jokes aside, the students made and installed the frames of Big Ben.  This is a huge step because it means that we will be planking next.  If you think of the boat as a skeleton, the frames would be the ribs.  These pieces of wood are spaced out every foot all along the length of the boat on both sides.  They are important because they are what the planks are attached to, and their location dictates the shape those planks will take.

Before students could install the frames, they had to make each one fit a unique place in the boat.  Foreman Mikayla from Bodine summed up the fitting process for her group: “Since there was only 6 of us we divided into 2 teams of 3.  We measured the angles of our chine logs and cut the frames for all of our stations so they can fit around our chine logs.  Once they fit, we put wood sealer on the notches to protect them.”

Above: Laying out the angled cut to fit around the chine log. 

Below: Mikayla and Deshauna from Bodine cutting out the notches in the frames.

Below: Our Totall Envolvement students test fitting the frames once they’ve been cut. 

Once the frames were fit, it was time to install!  Our Eagle girls helped us out with this step in the process.  Foreman Janeta said, “​A group of 4 went with Ms. Megan to help her attach the frames. Each person had a turn (☺️teamwork is key!)”

Below: Janeta drilling the hole for the screw that will attach the frame to the chine log. 

Since planking is our next stop on this boatbuilding journey, we had some students help us get ready with milling and scarfing our plank stock.  Milling is when you take rough wood stock and you cut it down to the right dimension that you need.  In this case, we used a big green thickness planer (which students dubbed “The Hulk”) to take our African Mahogany down to the right thickness for our side planking.  In this case, we needed to bring 1″ boards down to about 1/2″ thick. 

Below:  Our CHAD students are working together to get our plank stock milled down. 

Once we got to the right thickness, we had to take two boards and glue them together so that they would make one board long enough to span the whole 19′ of our boat. This process is known as scarfing.  Our Eagle girls knocked it out of the park with prepping and executing the scarf glue up.  As Foreman Janeta said, “​Ms. Megan and her group ended the day off gluing HUGE pieces of wood together. Today was a very achieving day!”  ...If glueing up the boards is an achievement, what a glorious day it will be to actually have the plank on the boat!

The ends of the boards that are glued together have feathered edges and overlap one another.  We used thickened epoxy to glue these ends together.  Below you can see what the cleaned up scarf looks like after we did one pass on the thickness planer to make the new, super long board even and flat. 

While students were out for the holidays, instructors Dave and Megan prepped some of the pieces for our boat’s backbone. 

The keel is the main part of the boat’s backbone.  It is a hearty piece of wood that extends all along the bottom of the boat, from the bow to the stern.  If you think of the boat as a body, the keel would be the spine.  That’s why we call this part of the build the backbone.  Since our boat is so long, the keel is going to be made of two pieces of white oak that are fastened together with bronze rod bolts.  We mentioned before that students were cutting these bolts, while Dave and Megan prepped the rough shape of these keel pieces. 

Above: Dave is using a router to cut out the rough rabbet of the keel.  The rabbet is a shelf that planks rest on and are fastened to. 

Above: Where the two pieces of the keel are bolted together. 

Once the rough shape of the keel pieces were done, Dave and Megan tied them to the dock outside the shop, and tossed them into the Delaware so they can soak up as much moisture as possible.  In addition to being long, the keel is quite thick, so we need to steam bend the pieces to take the curved shape of the bottom of our boat.  The more moisture-rich the pieces are, the easier it will be to steam bend them.

Above: The keel pieces are in the water! 

After a week or so, the keel pieces came out of the water, got bolted together, and were put into a plastic bag for steaming!

The rule of thumb for steaming: for every inch of thickness in the piece you want to bend, steam it for one hour.  Our Keel is almost 2 1/2″ so we had this guy getting steamy for quite a while. 

Above:  The keel is clamped into place and we have a Spanish windlass at the forward end to hold the bend of the keel at the front of the boat. 

We’ve also started to construct the bow and stern transoms.  The transoms are flat panels of wood that make up either end of our boat’s hull.  Garvey’s specifically have two transoms (one at the bow and one at the stern), while most boats only have one at the stern end, and some boats don’t even have them at all because their hulls come to a point at the front and back ends (like a canoe).  

We had to glue up multiple boards of mahogany to make these transom panels.  Students got to help with the epoxy glue up for the bow transom.  It’s important to make sure the glue seem is minimal and that the boards are all flat.  This means lots of clamps!

Above:  The bow transom after the glue up. 

And in order to strengthen these joints, Megan cut notches in the edge of the boards for a spline.  The spline is a thin piece of mahogany that will nest in the notch of two surfaces being glued together.  The benefit of this type of joint is the increased surface area for the glue up, which makes for a stronger joint.

Above:  You can see the little rectangle of the spline on the edge of our roughly cut transom.  That rectangle runs all the way across the joint to the other side. 

The stern transom had a spline joint, but it also had two butt joints (where the edges of the boards are flat and glued up next to each other).  To strengthen this glue edge, we installed a bronze rod that runs through both pieces and helps hold them in place. 

Above:  The stern transom after the bronze rod glue up.  Notice the holes on the edges of the top transom board.  Those holes were drilled about six inches into the middle board and we hammered the bronze rod into them to stiffen the joint. 

Above:  A rough cut for our stern transom.  The notch in the center makes room for where the outboard motor will be mounted. 

Once the transoms were rough cut, Dave and Megan worked to fit the keel, bow transom, and bow transom knee so that they all could be fastened together.  Our Eagle girls made the pattern for the bow transom knee and they did a great job scaling the dimensions from our lines drawing to the actual size. Below you can see a mock up of this joint before the final installation. 

The three parts were final fastened off of the molds and then put back into place.  

We used sikaflex, an adhesive sealant to help bed the joint between the keel and the transom.  This will help waterproof the joint, too.  It kind of looks like marshmallow fluff, but once it’s dry it is easy to clean up. 

Now that our molds were cut out with the correct angles, it was time to assemble.  Students worked together to line all of the pieces up to the right spot, pre-drill for the screws that will fasten the pieces of the molds together,  and drive the screws in with an impact driver (no screwdrivers for this activity). 

Using the impact driver was, to use the words of our Eagle student Janiyah, “an experience.”  These girls had never used an impact driver before and it took some time for each of them to get the hang of how it works, and what it should feel and sound like when the screw is being driven into the wood.  They each took turns and supported one another with words of encouragement, which is what this whole program is all about!  Gaining confidence in oneself and one’s teammates is necessary in order for a successful and fun experience.  

Below you can see Salome pre-drilling to fasten a mold together.  In the background you can see the completed molds being set up on the strong back. 

Once a mold was assembled, we handed it off to another team of students to set it in the right place along the strong back.  It was important to make sure each mold was plumb, or perpendicular, to the top edge of the strongback ladder.  In general, if the molds are set up at a 90 degree angle to the strong back, they will match the orientation of the station lines from our lofting and ensure the boat has the right shape.  Below CHAD students are working on making the molds plumb to the strong back.  The level helps them check to make sure each mold is set up correctly. 

After the molds were attached to the strong back, we needed to add supports, aka cross-bracing, that would connect the molds to one another and make the whole set up more secure and rigid.  Below, CHAD students were measuring and cutting the stock that would make up this cross-bracing.  Once the stock was cut, they were busy installing the pieces. 

These guys make mold installation look good. 

Below additional cross-bracing is being installed in a peaceful way. 

Overall, mold making and strong back setup was a positive experience.  As the process unfolded, students were able to step back and say, “Ohhhhh, I’m starting to see the shape of the boat now.”  Who knew our two dimensional lofting could help us make such accurate three-dimensional shapes.  As CHAD foreman DaVon would say, “#science.”  Enthusiasm was high because students could appreciate that what they were doing is helping build this boat!  You may not see Aaron’s face under his dust mask, but he’s all smiles. 

At the end of the week, we could stretch a board across the molds in different areas to see if they were ‘fair’ to one another.  We were pleasantly surprised with what we saw.  These students are doing a great job!