Copper

Copper covering is not used universally on boats throughout Japan, but its often seen, particularly in more urban area.  I’ve been told this had mostly to do with how wealthy the fishermen were, and whether or not they could afford it.  The chokkibune I built in Tokyo had a lot of copper covering: the nail heads, any exposed endgrain, beam ends, and most seams above the waterline.

As far as authenticity, we may have gone a little overboard with our copper here, but what we did does represent what is done in Japan.  We cut shallow mortises around the nail heads for copper, and I covered the steam rabbet.  We covered exposed endgrain in the framing at the stern and also capped exposed beam ends.  Its a nice affect, and the next time you look at Japanese wood block prints you will immediately recognize what the rows of neat rectangles are.  In those days they were often painted black with ink.

Tsuda san

Tuesday Koji, Takumi and I, along with our recent volunteer Shiten, drove over to mainland Japan to see Tsuda san, the 84-year old boatbuilder I first met in this region ten years ago.  In many ways he is responsible for my being here, because when I learned that the Setouchi Festivale was looking for foreign artists to collaborate with local craftspeople I wrote him requesting his help.  He had aged considerably since I first met him, but he finally agreed.  Our project was accepted but then his health deteriorated to the point where he had to move to assisted living.  Luckily the festival organizers decided to keep the project.

Our trip took us over the Seto Nai Kai Bridge, at the time it was built the longest bridge in the world.  I last crossed it twenty years ago, not long after it opened.  The views of the Inland Sea are gorgeous, and we had a beautiful day.

Almost from the moment we sat down with him Tsuda san was asking about our boat, how it was constructed, and making sketches explaining how he built boats.  It was an interesting conversation and we learned several things.  Tsuda san would have been great to have at the project for his expertise.  

I quizzed him on how he conducted his launching ceremonies.  The local museum curator has been advising us, but interestingly Tsuda san’s traditions varied from what the curator had been describing.  I have decided that in his honor, we will follow faithfully Tsuda san’s protocols.  I will describe that in a future blog posting.

We have a typhoon bearing down on us, so our Saturday launch is in jeopardy.  Nevertheless I am responsible for installing certain shrine objects in the boat, so that will happen regardless.

Light of Day

We are in the final week of work before launching.  Now its all about tiny details all over the boat.  One of the main details is covering our nail heads with copper plate.  I got the rubrail and caprail on the last couple of days and today we put plate over those nail heads.  We will probably get all the nails at the chine done tomorrow.  

I decided to move the boat out of the shop and onto horses in front.  In part because we borrowed a ro (a sculling oar) and I needed space to see how it fit.  Its basically too short and of funny proportions (its OLD).

We enlisted the art students from Nihon Art University.  They are here polishing several cars to a mirror finish.  We had three bars under the boat and they ganged up on either end and had no trouble carrying the boat.  One photo shows their professor and a student.

Just before we wrapped up an elderly man stopped by whom we have seen regularly.  He asked who was going to scull the boat at the launching and he was quite surprised that I am on the only one among us who knows how to do it.  Then he idly mentioned that he used to scull his boats, and that he still had a ro.  I pressed him and found out he has three of them, so we’ve made arrangements tomorrow to go to his house and check them out.  He seems very amused that we might borrow one.

Bits and Pieces

Anyone who has built a boat knows that once the hull is finished there is far more work to be done to finally finish the boat.  And its time-consuming.  Japanese boats are remarkably straightforward in many ways, but nevertheless things still take time.

Takumi spent a couple of days fitting beams and floorboards.  We left them rough sawn for traction and arranged them in the traditional way, though we got creative at the stern where the hull narrows.

I installed the rubrails (koberi) and caprails.  We used clench nails for the koberi, or properly I should say we clenched the nails that we had.  In my experience clenched nails in Japan are copper, made of flat stock like the steel nails.  We were given some small steel nails and so I decided to treat them the same way.  

They are set in a shallow mortise on the outside that gets a copper cover later.  Inside the hull I cut another mortise for the nail to lay in so it would stay flush to the inside face of the planking.  If we had copper nails I would have bent the tip and sent it back into the planking, but the steel nails were pretty stiff so I omitted this step.  

Also forward I built a steeply sloping foredeck called a kappa.  In this part of Japan there are commonly seen on small boats.  I need to get an explanation for this arrangement, which is pretty unique.

Two Suns

Today I had an inspiration for a bit of political/artistic treatment of our boat.  I installed the toko today, the large beam that spans the transom and is used to haul boats like this  ashore (or up a marina ramp) at the end of the day.  I was thinking about various ways to deal with the ends of the beam, and I have seen geometric patterns and painted designs on other Japanese boats, as well as copper covering.  

Then I realized the rectangular ends were perfect for the Bengali and Japanese flags.  Both flags feature a red circle in the center, the Bengali with a green background and the Japanese white.  

I asked one of the interpreters, a Japanese woman who lived in Bangladesh, to ask the artist painting the bus if he would paint the flags for us.  He stopped by with his paint and within ten minutes the job was done.  

The Japanese flag is a red disk on a white background, the Bengali a red disk on a greed background.  The Japanese flag represents the sun, while the Bengali flag represents both the sun and the blood of those who died in their war for independence, with the green background representing the fertile land of Bangladesh.

Just as the artist finished I noticed a gorgeous sunset breaking over the harbor.  As we packed up in the dark that same part of the sky was streaked with lightning.

Bengali Launching

Last weekend saw the launching of the Bengali boat.  We had a good crowd with the Bengali craftspeople there singing and dancing.  The Bengali ambassador, Mr. Masud Bin Momen, flew down from Tokyo and made some excellent remarks.  Fram Kitagawa, the organizer of the Setouchi Festivale, cut the ribbon and then the two Bengali shipwrights did a series of blessings for the boat.

They also invited us to do a short Shinto blessing.  

You will note the bow of the boat is unpainted.  The Bengalis believe the “head” of the boat is sacred, and therefore should not be covered in any way.  Their launching involved washing the bow of the boat and offering prayers to that spot.  The full ceremony includes a series of candles that are lit and placed around the boat, but because the proper candles were not available the Bengalis omitted this part of their ceremony.

They paddled their boat across the harbor and then sailed back with the prevailing breeze.  They spent the next hour giving spectators rides around the harbor.  The shipwrights and their interpreter left the next day, and we miss them.  It was wonderful to get to know them and learn about their amazing traditions.

These photographs are all by Professor Kurakake of Nihon Art University.

Uwadana

Uwadana means “upper shelf” and refers to the top plank, or sheerstrake.  Like all of our planking these are taken symmetrically from the log.  The thick keel plank was from the center of the tree, the kajiki were the next two planks taken from either side of the center, and now these two planks are the adjacent ones to those.  I oriented the root side forward to give put the clearest wood toward the bow, both for looks and bending, with some knots aft.  

There is quite a sweep aft in this plank given how the stern rises.  Like lapstrake boatbuilding, we just put the whole plank up against the boat and just traced off the bottom edge from the kajiki.  The top edge we will scale from our drawing.  The triangular piece we cut off at the stern is nailed to the top edge to give us enough material.  

We struggled to get these planks on at the bow.  There is quite a twist at the lower edge and we finally had to resort to bolting a temporary butt plate to the plank and pulling it in with a Spanish windlass.  This actually worked quite well and we also used this at the stern.  Pipe clamps were also an enormous help.

Two sets of beams are mortised with through tenons shouldered on the inside of the planks.  The tenons were wedged and the ends sawn flush to the outside.  The nails take an extreme angle toward the bow.