Boatbuilding at the University of Vermont's Green House -- The Auer Livery Boat

This fall I've been teaching a boatbuilding class as part of a seminar for students living at Green House, UVM's environmental dorm.  We are researching a Burlington institution: the Auer Family Boat House, located at the mouth of the Winooski River for almost ninety years.

Auer Family Boat House is now run by Charlie and Christine, the two children of the founders.  They remember when their parents built the livery fleet from scratch.  This is the last remaining boat from the original fleet.  Basically it was just the two side planks with the remnants of the stem at one end, but amazingly, the Auers had their parents center mould from when they were building boats.

To call this a Burlington institution is an understatement.  This place is a complete throwback and one of the most charming spots in the city.  You can find it at the very end of North Avenue, or if you are on the bike trail, you can see it below you just before crossing the bridge at the Winooski River (heading north).

Christine is eighty-eight years old and she said this boat was built for her by her mother when she was five.  She reminisced about using it and we hope to get her in our replica.

Students started construction after first measuring the original.  Without the center mould we would never have been able to replicate this boat accurately, because we had no bottom planks to establish the beam at the chine and no intact thwarts to know the flare of the sides.  

As of our most recent class the boat came off the mould setup, fully planked, bottom seams caulked and puttied.  Now students are starting to layout the thwarts and rub rails and painting.  The of my students are in the engineering program and they feel confident they can create drawings of the boat in CAD and Solid Works.  This will be an important documentation of Burlington's waterfront history.

Trapping Boat Research at Hannaford Career Center

In a reprise of last year's class I am back again co-teaching the Hannaford Career Center's STEM class with Jake Burnham.  We brought two trapping boats into class, these built by different trappers than last year's boats.

Earle Bessette with the trapping boat he built in the early 1960s.  He said he copied the boats of a nearby trapper.  This is the smallest trapping boat I have seen, but Earle trapped a very narrow waterway in New Haven, Vermont.  The boat also has a plywood bottom, because as Earle said he didn't want to deal with a leaky bottom.  Smart man.

The other boat comes from the Mulliss farm in Bridport.  It is believe to have been built and used by Orville Mulliss, but we don't know this absolutely.  Its also the largest boat we've looked at and may not have been a trapping boat but used on the lake for fishing.

Students got right into taking the lines (measuring) the boats in preparation for drawing them in CAD.

Then came lofting, drawing the boats full-size.  This allows students to correct any errors in the lines-taking, fairing the lines to get as close an approximation of the true boat shape.

Once again we invited Greg Sharrow from the Vermont Folklife Center in to give students a training in oral interviewing techniques.  We interviewed Raymond "Bud" Bodette of Bridport on his memories of trapping and fish shooting.  His family had a trapping camp on the back of their farm.

We also visited the Hatch farm in Panton and looked at six of seven historic trappings boats built by Gerald Hatch from the 1950s to the early 1970s.  His son Pat has given us several interviews over the years and we have built replicas of two of these boats.

Our originals and the replicas under construction.  Stay tuned as we finish these boats and the drawings this fall term.

First Reactions

I have a couple of notices to link here, one a magazine the other a ship modeler's blog, both talking about my new book.  Thus far the reactions have been positive from buyers.  Keep an eye out for the November issue of WoodenBoat because the editors hoped to have a review published in that issue.

It is going to be a very busy fall for me teaching boatbuilding here in Vermont.  I do hope to have a public book event somewhere locally and this blog will be one place I will advertise it.

Instagram - Brave New World

Can I be blamed for being slow to adopt social media?  After all, I've made a career of studying traditional boatbuilding, avoiding most new technology along the way.  Alas, with the help of a friend I have started posting photos of my boats on Instagram.  I am going to start with images from my new book (see previous blog post) so if you want to follow along you'll see various boat photos from Japan.

Thanks,

Douglas

Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding - The book!

Last week I took possession of a sizable portion of the print run of my new book, Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding.  This is the culmination of over twenty years of research.  The book covers specific topics such as design, tools, fastening, ceremonies, apprenticeship, and propulsion, followed by long sections detailing the construction of the five traditional boats of my apprenticeships.  The last chapter is about Japan's sole traditional shipwright who has led the construction of four replica Edo-era ships.  To order just visit my website: http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com

If you order the book from me I am happy to sign and inscribe a copy for you.  Buying from me also directly supports my ongoing research.  If you live overseas shipping costs via US Mail can be quite high (at least $25 USD), so you will have to weigh the value of my signature.  I have an agent in Japan with a small inventory of books and he can send you an unsigned copy for very reasonable postage rates (the book is in English).

By clicking on the images below they should open large enough to read, particularly the Japanese order form.  You may contact my agent in Japan at: ahmoore@hotmail.com.  But if you have any questions or need more information about the book or how to order please email me at douglasbrooksboatbuilding@gmail.com.

Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding
320 pp,  8.5 x 11 / Hardcover
378 Color photos,  36 Drawings
Map, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary-Index of boatbuilding terms & regional usages
Boatbuilding / Woodworking / Japanese crafts
978-1-891640-63-6
$75

Goodbye Tokyo

Just a connecting flight away from home.  It was a great trip all in all, an amazing boat built and some interesting old boats measured.  And a belated thank-you to the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History for being the fiscal agent for the grant funding for this project.  Thanks to Angela Robins for all of her help.

She and I are now discussing some sort of publication detailing how the isobune is built.  It will require more fundraising, perhaps crowdfunding, so stay tuned.  Some final images from Tokyo:

Who would have thought reptiles could be tamed?  But you can get right up to these fellows in the canal park in Koto-ku, Tokyo.

What a civilized place!  The Tokyo International Forum, where I could get good coffee and wifi.

The plaza outside has funky eateries.

An old Taisho-era building clad in copper in the Ueno district.

Right nearby a similar vintage building in Western style.

This antique shop had two gorgeous inklines, both about $275.  This one carved of keyaki, the other in ebony, both unused.  Tempting, but no...

In another antique shop I found this.  Its four feet long...

 has a plane blade....

and a rounded bottom....

Its a specialized cooper's plane, for reaching inside a barrel to smooth the inside.  About $125 but I decided if I wanted one that badly I'd just make it myself, but a very unique artifact.

A gallery of contemporary craftspeople and artists in a warren of studies built under the JR train line just north of Akihabara Station.

Waiting to board my flight home.

Research: Hobikisen and Sappabune

I spent yesterday talking to Tagami san about his life building boats, along with two researchers from the Tokyo area who are involved in documentation work on the hobikisen.  Then Tagami san's son, wife and my friend Tominaga san traveled to a smaller lake to measure a sappabune.  When we returned I was able to ask the elder Tagami about building these boats, getting some interesting background on them as well as details of their construction that I couldn't see.

Ichiro Tagami standing, at center, discussing hobikisen with visiting researchers and two staff from City Hall.

Professor Masaaki Kon of Kanazawa University, right, talking to a retired fisherman about the sailing rig of hobikisen.  Behind is an architect who is doing the drawings for Kon san.

At the mast storage shed near the boatshop, pulling out one of the masts.

The masts for these boats are bamboo.  These boats unstep their masts every day so they need something light but strong.  The masts are 11.4 meters or about 37' 4" long.  The top yard consisted of two pieces of bamboo slipped together and reinforced with a wooden bar.  The yard was 15.25 meters or just over 50'.  The mast at the base is 15 cm diameter or about 5-1/2" in diameter.  The fisherman said the bamboo masts crack and only last about two years.  He said its become increasingly hard to find proper bamboo, but they do harvest it locally.  The massive sails are made of 20 vertical panels laced loosely together.

Later we drove to a smaller lake and a small harbor full of defunct boats.  This sappabune was sunk.

But I came here to measure this one.  It is 18 shaku long (roughly 18 feet).  

Later, Tagami san explained these boats were made in set lengths of 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, and 25 shaku.  There were the most common small fishing boat of the region, and traces of their design can still be seen in some of the smaller tourist boats.  He also detailed for me the joinery where the bow and stern planking attaches to the bottom, something I couldn't see because the outside of this boat has been fiberglassed. (Photograph by Ms. Minako Tagami)

The bow planking is slightly peaked outward.

This boat was later adapted for an outboard motor, with a transom inserted in the stern and a hole cut in the hull aft.

A common type of joinery used in the rub rails of Japanese boats.

A view from the stern.  The small post visible on the aft deck is for a sculling oar.

As we were leaving I noticed this sitting on the wharf, a funadana, or a Shinto shrine carried aboard a boat, set in the boat upon launch.

Inside were coins and two dolls depicting a man and a woman, along with seeds wrapped in paper, all common motifs for these onboard shrines.  My friends and I debated whether it was good luck or bad luck to take it.  Since I would like to build a sappabune I proposed giving it a new home aboard my boat.

The harbor and its derelict boats.

This looks like the remains of a hobikisen, and we theorized the funadana may have come from this boat.

Me standing in a grove of mosodake.  You can get an idea of the size of mature timber bamboo.

Away from the lake widely-spaced farms have quite a variety of vegetables under cultivation.  If you have ever flown into Narita Airport you probably noticed these islands of higher land set among the flat rice paddies.  We were up on this higher ground and it was just a beautiful setting.