The team from the US is making great progress. Chief instructor, Sean, has posted on the NWSWB Facebook about their involvement in the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart and the progression of the two Haven 12 constructions in the Wooden Boat Centre’s workshop…
“Plenty busy here the last week, and all is well. We're closing in on the Festival Haven 12 1/2- less than 3 weeks to go! 1 week worth of woodworking, 1 week worth of finishing, and 1 week worth of hardware and rigging remains. We're trying to have the boat all but done a week prior to the Festival. The week of the festival we'll be packing containers and prepping all our boats and demos for the Festival.
Planking has begun on the Franklin Haven. It's been a great teaching tool for those alums who haven't had much time with traditional boatbuilding. It'll likely have the majority of planks on it in the next three weeks. From there we plan to use it extensively as a demonstration tool during the Festival presentations.
Festival planning and activity is well underway. We're helping to plan three demonstration stages; Shipwrights, Woodworking, and Sailing and Rigging Stages. All in all 6 sessions per stage per day, over 4 days (big gulp!). On the Shipwrights stage, myself and the interns will be presenting five demos, very similar to the demos we do at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. Here's the current plan:
Friday-10am-11am: "Steam Bending Tricks for Boat Building".
Friday-2pm-3pm: "Small Boat Hardware and Rigging Installation" (I'll co-present this with Sean Rankins, NW Sails and Canvas.)
Saturday-11am-12pm: "Building the Haven 12 1/2-A Nathaniel Herreshoff and Joel White Masterpiece"
Sunday1pm-2pm: "Carvel Planking Techniques"
Monday-10am-11am: "Chopping Rabbets: Step by Step"
Betsy and I are also presenting at the Wooden Boat Symposium on Saturday afternoon.
Tonight the interns and I put on a dinner for over 80 folks from the Franklin area. It was our way of saying thank you for all their hospitality and support over the last couple of months. We figure it would be easier to do this now, than after the Festival. At 6 pm they all attended Kaci Cronkhite's talk on PAX, and afterwards the mob headed over to the Living Boat Trust for chili, cornbread, and strawberry shortcake! The interns organized the entire event and prepared all the food-and nailed it!”