—by Kate Slocum, Wooden Boat Building ’20/Second Year Independent Study ’21
Ed Note: Kate has stayed at The Landing School for a second year to build a 17' Nordlandsbåt, a traditional double-ended row boat used for fishing in northwestern Norway since about the 16th century CE. As Kate explains, “In design and build techniques it is a descendant of Viking age ships.”
In July when it became clear that my plans to attend boat building school in Norway were not going to work out due to COVID-19, Richard Downs-Honey [School President] suggested that I stay at The Landing School and build a Norwegian boat here. Once I got over my initial shock, I began thinking through what it would take for me, a novice boat builder, to accomplish something like that in one academic year. I knew that I would need more specific expertise than even master boat builder Rick Barkhuff [Wooden Boat Building Instructor] could provide. Nordlandsbåten are built right-side-up, by eye with a few rules of thumb but no plans. Nothing like it has been attempted at The Landing School before.
I reached out to potential mentors in Norway and the United States, including a boat builder named F. Jay Smith in Anacortes, WA, whom I had learned about via WoodenBoat magazine (issue #269). Jay--as he prefers to be called--apprenticed in Norway and is recognized as the North American expert in this type of craft.
He graciously agreed to speak to me on the phone about my project. We talked for almost an hour while I paced in the parking lot and took notes. It was Jay who recommended Eastern Larch as a suitable species for the "grown crooks" I would need for the build. These boats are usually built with oak, pine and/or spruce but Norwegian boat builders have always used whatever species were local and best suited to the application. Using an American species with the right characteristics would be no departure from tradition.
"Grown crooks" or "knees" are sections of a tree that have naturally grown into a shape that is needed for boat building. Typically, these are L- or V-shaped intersections between roots or branches and the tree trunk. Grown curves are stronger than wood that is either bent or cut into a curve because the grain of the wood is running parallel to the entire curve and the wood has grown specifically to manage the stress of that load. Traditional Norwegian boat building uses grown crooks and so, in keeping with the goals of my project, I knew I would need several sizable and specifically shaped grown crooks.
When school started, I did not have my heart set on Eastern Larch. I looked at Black Locust and White Oak as well, but as time went by it became clear that finding the crooks I needed with enough dimension to build a 17' boat was going to be very difficult no matter what species I chose. The Nordlandsbåt has two very sharp curves at the forefoot and heel (where the stems meet the keel). Beyond practical matters, these curves are--to my eye--what make the boat itself. Approximating them simply would not do--they have to be just right or I'm building a different boat.
For weeks my days were filled entirely with hunting down this wood. I reached out to instructors at IYRS [International Yacht Restoration School], The WoodenBoat School, the historian for the USS Constitution, boat builders in Nova Scotia, house builders in Pennsylvania, sawyers in Georgia, Maine arborists and friends of friends of friends in a dozen states and five countries. After a ton of legwork, the same name kept coming up again and again: Josh Swan. At the end of September I called him.
Josh Swan is owner and proprietor of J.W. Swan & Sons and J.W. Swan Boatworks of Ashland, WI. One of the many services he provides is to find, harvest, mill, and ship naturally grown Eastern Larch knees. He is a boatbuilder himself (a graduate of IYRS) and he understood exactly what I needed. After weeks of dead ends, Wisconsin didn't seem that far away.
I express mailed Josh the patterns for my five backbone pieces (keel, forefoot, heel and stems) and the eight boat frames. He prioritized the pieces I'd need first and went out into the woods on his property and found them. Now, Josh refers to himself as a "one man band"--he has no staff or employees and so does all the digging, cutting and milling required for his businesses himself. He is also a father of two young sons who are being homeschooled due to the pandemic so he is a very busy guy. Between his responsibilities, (Jury duty!), equipment delays, freight driver shortages, and Murphy's Law--it took nearly 11 weeks for my wood to make it to Arundel [the location of The Landing School in Maine].
On the day it was scheduled to arrive I couldn't concentrate on anything else. Every student driving in or out of the back lot sounded like an arriving semi-truck to me. I stood in the foyer of the Lastavica building for a while before the old "watched pot" adage sent me back upstairs. It was Judy Huxtable, a student in Yacht Design, who saw the truck first and came to tell me. Robert Blocker [Program Assistant] was already there as he receives the school's deliveries. I was pleased to note that the truck driver was a woman--not such a common thing. I was strategizing how to get the wood off the truck--it was palletized and way too heavy to move as-is--when Judy came outside with two other Yacht Design students (Shane Davis and Randy Jagoe) to help me unload. Their support was no surprise: they have been generous and curious and stalwart in the face of my wood-related venting from the beginning. I was still deeply touched that they had left [Dean of Education] Sean Fawcett's Naval Architecture lecture to stand out in the windy cold and help me. It was their participation--not only the extra hands--that meant everything to me. Wooden boat instructors Rick Barkhuff and Jake Jacobsen also came out to help.
So the wood is here and I've begun. I joke that boat building is turning big pieces of wood into little pieces of wood and then turning those little pieces of wood back into big pieces of wood. So far, this project is no exception. A good friend of mine responded to a photo of the wood that I sent her with this question: "Do you feel/see/hear/smell your boat in it?" Oh yeah. She's in there, alright.
***
Boat type: 17' Nordlandsbåt (traditional double-ended row boat used for fishing in northwestern Norway since the at least the 16th century CE. In design and build techniques it is a descendant of Viking age ships) (Ref: Nordlandsbåten Trebåtbygging, Ulf Mikalsen).
Wood species: Larix laricina (Eastern Larch), also known as tamarack or--especially to boat builders--as hackmatack.
Wood characteristics: Eastern Larch is a softwood that grows chiefly in Canada, New England and the Lake States. Mature trees reach 70' in height and 20" in diameter. Moderately strong and decay resistant, Eastern Larch is often used for ship "knees" and is an alternative to pressure-treated wood in applications such as outdoor decking. (Ref: Wood: A Manual for its use as a Shipbuilding Material, US Navy)
Wood origin: Ashland, WI. J.W. Swan & Sons http://jwswanandsons.com/knees