The Planking Process: From the Garboard Up

Now that the upper part of the hull is planked, it's time to plank up the bottom, starting with the lowermost plank called the garboard.  Put aside the diminish board, grab a batten, flex your knees, and get down where you can contemplate that section of boat below the tuck ribband. Now, you could close in this section with planks that run thus-narrow enough so that they can easily be shaped to fit the hollow of the wineglass, and not too hard to fit (see Figure 10-1 ). It's perhaps worth noting that the German­built Concordia yawls and the Swedish Folk­boats are lined out thus, and they must be acknowledged as splendid jobs of boatbuild­ing. I won't bring arguments for or against this narrow-plank approach except to say that if the work is done perfectly, this system is satisfac­tory; but if it is not done perfectly, somebody is going to have a bad time a few years later trying to recaulk those frail, sharp ends where they run out on the keel rabbet. Of course, the great Nat Herreshoff used to build this whole thing up out of deadwood, spring a colossal batten keel to the top of it, and start the planking from there-and his boats are still doing very nicely, thank you, some 40 or 50 years after they were put together.  But we are going to do this my way, and let the chips fall where they may.  Plank layout, using stealers  Suppose we draw the map again, and this time divide it into four equal tapering strips (see Figure 10-2). What could be simpler than to fit four planks to these lines, and be done with it? Well, one trouble is that the planks would be unnecessarily narrow at the forward end, with four thin and hard-to-caulk ends running out in the rabbet. The more serious difficulty, however, is that the three upper planks at least would be impossibly wide from station number 3 aft; and if you shaped them out of 3-inch stock, they would still not fit into that reversed curve, as you can tell (see Figure 10-3). If you make them one-half that width, you can get them out of 1 ½-inch stock; and if you make them one-fourth the width, you can use standard I-inch lumber. (You will, I hope, have held out 60 to 80 board feet, random widths and lengths, of good fat ones when the rest of the planking stock went through the surface planer.)  The problem, then, is to have fewer planks at the forward end (two, each 4½-inches wide at station number 2) and at least twice as many aft, where the hollow is greatest. You can accomplish this proliferation by fitting steal­ers, or by a system of butting two against one, or by a combination of the two devices. I know that some experts-naval architects among them-think of "stealer" as a bad word, con­noting shiftiness, if not incompetence, in the builder, and a thing not to be tolerated in real yacht work. Chances are good that they feel the same way about flat frames and wrought-iron fastenings. If you agree with the experts, line her out any way you want to; otherwise, let's get at it.  Draw the picture again, and start with the gar board; but this time let its top edge (back to the first bay forward of station number 3) be the next line up-halfway from rabbet to ribband. The remainder of the garboard can be left