Sailboats Galore!

I know this blog is supposed to be about my fiber-craft related items, but I just have to tell you about some crafting that my Fiance and friends got up to recently. I am so stinking proud of them.

Two weekends ago Fiance and I went to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. Fiance is an incredibly talented wood worker whose area of expertise is wooden boats. He and three of our friends entered a competition to build a wooden boat in two and a half days. They had from 9:00 to 23:00 Friday and Saturday and from 9:00 until 13:00 Sunday at which time they had to put the boat in the water, put one of them in it and get from the launch point to a designated end spot.

They didn't have to, but in order to further challenge themselves they decided to use only hand tools for their build. This means, no power saws, no electric sanders, no battery operated drills, nothing. Because one of them is a sawyer they also milled all of their lumber themselves before the competition.

I had to work on Friday, so I was only there on Saturday and Sunday, but I took a ton of photos. In the last fives years I've picked up a little bit about Fiance's work, so I tried to act as an intermediary between the boys and the crowd because it took a lot of time for them to stop and answer questions. (which is why I can recite in my sleep that the sides of the boat were Port Orford Cedar, the bottom was Atlis Cedar, the transom and stem were Ash and the side support thingies (not their technical name (I've now been told they are frames)) were Black Locust.)

Here are some pictures of the boys at work. I took around a hundred photos, so here are my absolute favorites:

Our sawyer holding a piece of wood in place (I'm sure he will just love that I shared this photo)

Fiance using a drawknife to shape the stem:

Giving a rough cut to one of the pieces for the bottom:

Attaching the bottom of the boat:

Screwing in the frames:

Fiance making the bench so the rower has a place to sit:

Attaching a piece to the stem:

And posing in their boat after successfully completing the competition: 

They did a wonderful job, and they came in second place! I am super proud of them. 

I wanted to get in on the boat related action, so I made a nautical dress, which I will post about tomorrow.