Silva Bay Shipyard School Blog

Welcome to the SBSS Blog. The following posts will document the building of William Garden’s Tomcat by the class of 2006/07.

Silva Bay Shipyard School - Trim

Things are moving pretty quickly under the 10 hour day rule. Here the deck is painted (Bristol Beige) the coaming is in and being glued up , the rub rails are on and the coaming trim is installed.
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Silva Bay Shipyard School - Spars coming out

David has been working on the mast – 16 sides in this picture! All hand planed!
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Silva Bay Shipyard School - Fairing the hull

The boat is finally planked! Whiskey all around. Trevor graciously provided the drink for the whiskey plank. This shot is after the edges have been planed off the planks and the fairing of the hull begins.
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Garboard and Broadstrake installed

Here is the garboard and broadstrake installed with silicon bronze screws. The orange paint is red lead primer – which will help prevent rot. Planking will continue for at least 2 weeks and then we can start fairing the hull.

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The Keel and the keelson are put together

Looking aft, this is the keelson prepared with Sikaflex (nasty) which will act as bedding compound between the keelson and the keel/deadwood.

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Strongback setup

Today we built the strongback. The station moulds will be attached to the strongback and the boat built on the moulds. This step requires a very solid frame and precise leveling so that the boat and the moulds do not rack.

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Silva Bay Shipyard School: Shop space

Here is where we will be building the boat. Notice David’s fine, fine half model in view.

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