Great week here in Rockport.  Spring is asserting itself a bit more, though we did get four or five inches of heavy, wet snow Thursday morning.  Still, it is sunny and a balmy 43 degrees as I write this on Saturday morning.  Melting snow is running through the woods behind the house, filling the streams and flowing down to the river and into the harbor.  There are fifty and sixty degree days in the week’s forecast.  And bits of green are pushing up through the increasing spots of bare ground.

In the barn, we started things out by bringing the stems and the inwales together, then shaping the decks out of a piece of maple, and fitting and securing them in place.  Between this and the sizing of the thwarts we put in at the end of last week, the final shape of the boat (beam, bow profile, tumblehome, etc.) is determined and locked in.

I build my seats from ash.  The frames are joined with mortises and tenons, then drilled for caning.  I use medium-fine cane in a traditional, six-step pattern, then bind the edges with medium cane.  This takes way too much time, but it is satisfying.

The next few days were spent finishing the planking, and installing the seats and the carrying thwarts.  The hull weighs 47 1/2 pounds at this point.

Now it is time to set up the shop and prep the hulls for canvassing.

The crew on one of many breaks.