Small things make big differences and can change the direction of what we do with the project.
The initial pin-point plugging work on the expected “keeper planks” was very slow and tedious. So, it was very discouraging to see that more than half of the planks that we’d tediously pinpoint plugged were removed from Mahdee by the yard carpenter as he worked on and around the boat. Unfortunately, the yard carpenter who did the sawn frames (every other frame forward of #17) didn’t completely fair them before installing them. David and I didn’t really understand the problem this would cause until it was too late: One day, the yard carpenter, (we assume in frustration as he worked at the task of fairing these installed frames) cut back and removed numerous good planks from the bow of the boat before we could intervene. They were cut back to a straight line which would make it very hard to have a proper butt-block schedule as we tied in new planking.
This happened months before the actual planking started. It was about this point that David and I both became much more active in “managing” Mahdee’s “assets” before they all vanished into the trash bin! Like the laminated framing, the planking itself turned out to be a project that we performed ourselves instead of having the yard perform it. In the case of the frames, it was primarily because of a shortage of skilled yard labor–the yard carpenter working on Mahdee had his hands full just working on the new stem, cutting floors for David to install, and shaping the new tailfeather.
In the case of planking, it was because we had become increasingly frustrated with our interactions with the yard and finally resorted to DIY as our best option. Though we were very pleased by the knowledge and friendly attitude shown by the yard shipwright in most all of our interactions, throughout the project we found the yard repeatedly disregarding our wishes regarding careful, logical, and efficient work on Mahdee. For a couple months before the planking started, the carpenter appeared tired and worked more slowly and with more mistakes each week. We’d had several discussions over a couple month period with the yard owner about this since we really liked the carpenter and felt he was capable of good work but just wasn’t performing for some reason. Finally, the “straw” came when the yard carpenter working on Mahdee spent the better part of a week simply making four replacement butt blocks (This equated to a cost of about $400 per butt block made); installing only two of those made; and requiring the assistance of John or David to install those two. In comparison, David, working alone, made and installed about 40 well-made butt blocks in one week in mid-May. The carpenter followed that week with an unsatisfactory job of hanging his first couple planks on the boat; unfortunately, the shipwright would not acknowledge any problems with the planking work. At that point, we made the very hard decision to move Mahdee out of this boatyard as soon as possible and in the interim time to stop using any yard labor for Mahdee other than the yard shipwright (whose work we had seen on other projects around the yard to be of high quality).
Ignorance is bliss though sometimes a problem.
We didn’t want to cut-off Mahdee as an income source for the owner of this small boatyard. As such, we offered to the yard shipwright that he was very welcome to work on Mahdee himself anytime before and after the move to an independent boatyard. Unfortunately, he was busy enough with other yard projects that he could not assist us with Mahdee planking and didn’t want to work on Mahdee once we moved her. So, David, who hadn’t planked anything before, worked with John, who’d done repair planking for fishing boats 25-30 years ago, to plank up Mahdee.
They’ve done a great job so far and we’re very pleased with the progress. John’s extensive woodworking background again came into play and allowed him to quickly pick up where he’d left off 25 years ago in terms of planking. The yard carpenter, who only hung a couple planks before he was removed from the job, had been hanging the planks with an extremely tight outgauge on the planks–this is something we knew little about but had read that our outgauge should be about 3/32″–but the yard carpenter was managing to get an even tighter one of about 1/32″. We though it was too tight, but when queried about the yard carpenter’s work, the yard shipwright told us that the yard caprenters’ work was fine but that the outgauge John was using was too wide that it should be more like that which the yard carpenter was doing. We had John tighten up the outgauge he was using and David followed as well when he started working on the planking. John was reluctant, but with good cheer said something about maybe he was too used to those big fishing boats and then dutifully tightened up his seams.
Lucky for us, John and David never did manage to get seams as tight as the yard carpenter because a few weeks later, after numerous strakes were on the boat, the shipwright informed us that he felt the outgauge was way too tight and it would now be very difficult to caulk the seams. Though John and David had never managed to get an outgauge as tight as the yard carpenter’s “exemplary” outguage…it was too tight. So, John and David went back to trying to make a bit larger outgauge similar to that which John had started with weeks before. Lesson learned for us–trust the guy who’s worked on the fish boats! John and David chuckled a bit about this and we’ve now started the process of “learning” about hawsing open “too tight seams” with none other than a “dumb iron.” David, John and I have all managed to keep a good attitude about what has been a frustrating experience. Luckily, when you’re on a learning curve, each experience contributes to that learning and you can just move on to the next of life’s lessons.
