Lot's of Clamps


These two pics show how I glue on one complete row of strips. This is row 15 from the edge of the plywood. As you can see in the right hand picture, the stern end of the strips is approaching the sharpest bend in the inwale. I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to lay the strips in this area. There is a transition point somewhere where these strips, which glue to the bottom of the inwale, meet the strips (not in place yet) coming up from the outside face of the inwale.

And to make matters even more challenging, the two pieces of Ash that I got for the outwale are not long enough to go from the centerline of the stern all the way to the bow. Since they have to go to the bow to tie them to the stem (the front piece of the hull) they will stop somewhere near or short of the sharp bend in the inwale at the stern. This means the strips that go along the outside of the inwale will have to taper to zero so they "disappear", but then what to do with the end of the outwale? Right now I'm thinking it too will taper in either the vertical or horizontal plane (or maybe both) somewhere around that sharp bend. Then I'll make the fantail stern be very thin (short) -maybe.

Here are pictures of the fantails of fantail launches in storage at Mystic Seaport Watercraft Hall. These boats are two to four times longer than mine will be. The pics show how the strips (they're actually boards in these boats) end at the fantail stern. The boats all have a relatively tall gunnel face (made up of the inwale and outwale). The red one is maybe 6" and the varnished ones are about 4-5". What I'm thinking is a little different from these. The fantail part would be short, maybe as little as an inch tall. This would be sort of to scale since my boat is about 1/3 or less the length of these three boats.

The bottom picture shows very clearly the transition from the vertical part of the side of the boat tapering, twisting, and going up to meet the fantail. I'm hoping mine will come out as cleanly and elegantly as that!





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