Monday, January 1, 2007

Happy New Year!

Headed back into Winnipeg today, so not too much doing on the boat (and no pictures), but there was SOME progress. We cut cedar packing for the centre-plate case, fore and aft of the centre-plate itself, and prepared a bunch of mahogany for various bits of CP-case framing. For those of you unfamiliar with a centre-plate, it's like a centre-board (think of that as a keel that can be raised and lowered), but it's a plate of galvanized steel rather than an actual board. Strong, and provides ballast down low which is also good.

We also prepared some mahogany stock for the sheer stringers. These long strips of wood, one on each side, are set into the tops of the frames and run end to end at what will be the very top of the hull (called the sheer line, hence the name). The sheer stringers form the inner gunwale and anchor the gunwales to the frames. Pictures will make this more clear, but we're a ways from that stage as yet!

About six inches below the sheer stingers are a set of deck shelf stringers, running roughly parallel and set into the frames like the sheer stringers are. These form, if you can believe it, a sort of narrow shelf on which--wait for it--the deck rests. We haven't prepared the deck shelf stringers yet, but we'll be getting to them once the CP-case and the hog* are finished.

And for the clever folks who wonder why the decks are lower than the tops of the frames, a simple answer: the frames have little ears (well, that's what Courtney calls them) that stick up above the deck line to hold the gunwales and bulwarks (the hull above the deck line, basically).

*And if you can guess what the hog is, you win a free pint.

1 comment:

Courtney & Tara said...

Hi Ed - I was familiar with the adjective "hogged" and the verb "to hog", both of which reflect the first meaning you found. The second (the brush) is new to me.

A minute ago I looked up "keelson" (also spelt "kelson"), which is what I would have called the piece of wood our boat's designer calls the hog. Not saying he's wrong, mind you - he's probably forgotten more nautical vocabulary than I know.

Anyway, the word "keelson" is derived from "keel" (duh) and... "swine"? Or some Low German word that was used for both "swine" and "timber", maybe, but that's a stretch. Another dictionary confirmed the swine connection (but primly opined "sense relation obscure").

So much for answers--have some questions. How's your Plattdeutsch? Got an outlandish theory on why swine and timber should be cognates? Where and when should we have a pint?

P.S. The SH flash was great, will pass it on. Cheers!