The romance of shipwrighting

By Rhonda Dredge

If he had to choose a tool out of the shipwright’s toolkit, Christian Jones enjoys wielding the wedge.

It’s a simple but indispensible tool for shoring up sections and pushing up planks.

“It’s so versatile. I use it everyday,” the shipwright said with an enthusiastic smile.

He has just used a wedge to fit the garboard between the keel and ribs on the Alma Doepel and the job was a tricky one, requiring several decisive steps that distinguish the craft of boat-building from other carpentry jobs.

As one of three shipwrights working on the reconstruction of the legendary three-masted schooner for Darley Traditional Shipwrights, he has to be strong as well as skilled.

The garboard is a long straight plank that is both heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. Christian was forced to hold it up above his head while fitting it in but he did this with grace.

It then took three shipwrights to lift the garboard out again so the edges could be bevelled to make space for the caulking which waterproofs the structure.

“The hardest thing is the heavy lifting,” Christian said. “Everything weighs a ton but it’s the only way in awkward spaces.”

Things didn’t go according to plan. The garboard was fitted but the plane broke while they were working it. The timber is one-year-cut spotted gum and is still green.

Australian timbers are the hardest in the world. Many of the new ribs are made from ironbark as were the originals, some following the shape of the original roots.

Shipwrights wax lyrical about the various properties of timbers with the Aussies claiming several advantages over other nations.

“It’s quite tricky, the timber’s so hard,” Christian said. “I’m from England. Ironbark’s like the end grain of oak. It blunts your tools.”

Christian grew up in Falmouth on the Cornish coast, where a wooden boat-building tradition prospers. He did an apprenticeship as a furniture maker then moved onto boats.

“It’s pretty much the same here but better weather. We’re outside every day. We never have to have a day off. In England you put tarps over everything.”

He said the work was more varied in Falmouth with jobs lasting a week or two and he jumped at the chance of a large project.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity because of the scale,” he said.

The Alma Doepel is 45 metres long and weighs 250 tonnes. 40 tonnes of timber have been shifted and 53 ribs steamed, cut, bent, glued and fitted over the past four years.

It’s heavy work and many volunteers have not lasted the distance.

“Yo! Ho! Ho! There definitely is romance,” he said.