Tar This week we tarred the boat. This was not fun.
We also did some wood shop, some rope making and insulating soles making. That last one should be elaborated on. These insulating sole things are to be put into your shoes, kinda like an oder-eater, to keep the cold from sneaking up from the bottom. Not a bad idea. The principle ingredient is cow tail hair that gets mangled up to stay flat and stuff, the mangling process isn't so important here, it's the origin of the hair that we had to deal with today. Somebody needs to make a shirtless cow. These things were covered. Caked. Coated. It was pretty amazing how much shit could cling to a single tail, and we cleaned it out. Sigh. The rope making was much nicer, and actually interesting to see the process.
Back to the boat. It it, as you've seen wooden, and one of the principle motivations of this school is 'it's tradition'. So, we didn't use any newfangled manufactured chemicals to treat our wood. No sir. Just linseed oil and tar. Maybe a bit of paint for color. I had the esteemed job of painting the inside of the boat with this tar linseed mix, and it took me 2 days to do it all. I do have to say it looks much nicer now that it's done, and I now know that I will never own a wooden boat. The ropes, also, in keeping with tradition, are natural fibers and need a good coat of tar to keep them from rotting. This is why 'you don't want expensive clothes on a boat'. I am so glad I shopped at the army surplus store. Posted by byron at November 15, 2002 04:20 PM