To Build A Shipt - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  One of the problems that morning was that for the first forty-five minutes, Sam did not once use the word plank, which I was sort of waiting for as a clue. He went on and on about something he called "strakes" and "wales," and how it would go when a fellow started messing around with strakes and wales. He even got off a couple of jokes, I think, but it is difficult to fully appreciate humor when you don't speak the language. We smiled, however.

  It was finally Peter Morgan, god bless his unembarrassed soul, who asked the question that seemed essential to the problem:

  "Sam, what's a strake?"

  Sam was at that moment squatted on the sand by the ways, his ever-present calipers serving as a drawing instrument. He looked up at Peter Morgan, then he looked at all of us, finding, I believe, the same incomprehension and hopefulness on every face. Perhaps even Sam had, momentarily forgotten the exact content of our tiny skulls.

  "A strake?" he repeated. "What do you think I been talkin' about for an hour?"

  "Strakes," Peter admitted freely. "But what are they?"

  Sam looked back down at the sand for a moment.

  "'That's what you call a plank when it's on a ship's hull," he said in a low, depressed voice. Finally he sighed, and discouragedly rubbed out the drawing he'd been making.

  "All right," he said patiently. "We'll start again. The first to go on are the wale strakes. They got to be . . ."

  They had to be thicker than the rest, for one thing. The first few planks down from the deck formed the wale, and were of heavier timber to give protection and add vertical stability to her. Sam told us that in the big men o' war there were several belts of wales at different levels on the hull, where reinforcing was needed. Upper chain wale, lower chain wale, upper wale, lower wale. Sometimes a wale at the waterline a foot thick, for protection against enemy balls. Since this seemed one of our lesser worries, only the first few strakes from the deck would be wale strakes.

  I suppose I had the idea that planking consisted of taking a plank—a strake—and fastening it to the side of the Ship, then taking another one and doing the same. I was quickly disabused.

  For one thing we ran into another question of beauty, and Sam initiated us into the 5-4-3 rule. For a ship to be beautiful the planks have to follow certain lines with respect to the deck and the shape of the hull. These lines are determined by the 5-4-3 rule, which told us that the width of a plank amidships is 5/5, the width forward is 4/5, the width aft is 3/5. The planking is thus not exactly parallel, but tapers both fore and aft. This gives you a beautiful line. As far as I was ever able to determine, this is the sole reason for the 5-4-3 rule.

  Sam admitted a little hesitantly that the 5-4-3 was one of the unwritten rules of shipbuilding. An informal agreement with the goddess. There seemed to be two unwritten rules for every written one, and the distinction was perfectly useless. We had to follow the unwritten ones as faithfully as anything else. And in any case we would never have known the difference, as everything we had for rules came out of Sam's head.

  The shape of a hull is breathtaking in its beauty, but it is bitchily agonizing to try and cover that complex curve evenly with flat lumber. We found that each strake had to be individually shaped to fit the curve of the hull, the curve of the strake above, and the 5-4-3 rule. The edge of each also had to be beveled for the caulking seam, and there were half a dozen other rules for each piece of lumber, which I'd had in my mind as more or less rectangular. Fortunately, this calculation was such that Sam couldn't trust it to any of us, and he did it all.

  With his calipers he measured down from the deck at about every other frame, marking off the points on a long vertical batten he called a spiling staff. These points were then transferred to the rough plank, and all of them connected by a fair curve. This gave the top profile of the first wale strake, and she would fit snugly up at the deck. The bottom profile was determined by the 5-4-3 rule. When these curves had been carefully shaped out, the plank was a funny—looking beast, a sort of sway-backed shape that looked as if it had been impossibly warped. But when it was lifted up into place and bent around the frame—she was perfect. The shape itself meant nothing, except as it became part of the curve of the hull.

  Before each strake could be mounted, it had to be lined off, which was not so difficult. Even I could do it, and it restored my shaky shipwright's confidence. While Sam was laying out the profile of the strake on the raw lumber I was lining out her planking simply by stetching a chalk line along the face of the frames the strake would cover. This rapidly showed up any high ones, bulges or irregularities. These were dubbed off with the adze until the line sighted in a fair, smooth curve, and I knew the plank would fit down snug against the frame and bear evenly.

  The butt joints, where the ends of the planks came together, were also subject to their own rigid rules. These were not complicated, however, and Sam spelled it all out on a piece of wood, which we consulted religiously every three minutes to be sure it hadn't changed. It was a sort of drawing of the side of the hull, with the butt-joint pattern: .

  It seemed like planking wasn't going to be so simple as it looked. Once again I ended the first day of a new phase thinking that when you got right down to it, a man had a hell of a lot to learn in this world.

  But we did learn it, and perhaps in the end that was the greatest miracle of all. We either learned everything we had to know, or did it right without knowing how. She was getting herself built and she knew what she wanted. She wouldn't let us go too far wrong. There is a wonderful confidence in knowing you are necessary to a goddess.

  About halfway through the planking it began to go smoothly and regularly, just as if we knew what we were doing; there was no longer the necessity of the constant meticulous explanations of what She wanted. We were able to take a few of the men off and put them to work on the spars. I was one of them. And again—I might be one of the world's greatest experts on framing and planking, but it turned out that sparkmaking was a bit different.

  The mainmast, for example. I didn't mind the calculation of the length so much, because it seemed so logical. I couldn't follow the logic exactly, but it was based on the Ship herself, and anything that was based on the Ship herself was bound to seem logical. You added together the distance along the deck from stem to sternpost, and the widest beam, which you measured outside the wales. Half the sum of length and beam was the total length of the mainmast, and there was such an intimate relation between it and the other parts of the Ship that it seemed inevitable it should be exactly that length.

  But when we got to tapering the spars, logic disappeared and we followed the ritual because we were told to, without making any effort to understand it. We measured up from the foot of the mast to the exact height at which the deck would come. The diameter there was simple: 7/8" for each 3 feet of total length. But then the rest of the mast had to be tapered off and shaped up to the head, which, needless to say, was not just any old taper. The length from deck to head was divided into quarters, and each quarter had its proper proportions. Sam, with his merciless calipers, allowed no margin for high spirits or fanciful invention. On scrap lumber he wrote out the proportion of diameter at each quarter mark, and this for every mast, yard, boom and gaff in her. We had a separate measuring board for each piece. I still have the board for the lower mainmast, mounted over my fireplace.

  Starting with the diameter at deck level, the mast was tapered and shaped to these proportions, according to my board:

  First quarter: 60/61

  Second quarter: 14/15

  Third quarter: 6/7

  Head, lower part: 5/8

  Upper part: 3/4

  Heel: 6/7

  Thinking back about that measuring board—and all the others—it is clearly impossible that we did it. But somehow, facing little bits of the impossible every morning, with your tools in your hands, it manages to get done one way or another.

  The last stage was the most infuriating: the caulking. Of all the waiting, that was the worst. It
was painful, slow and tedious and unbearable. Only Sam knew anything about it, of course, and he patiently explained how to tamp the oakum down just right in the seams, so the men following behind with the tar would have a good base. Neither too loose nor too tight. The edge of each strake was beveled slightly to take the caulking, the rule being 1/16" of taper for each inch of plank thickness. Sam showed us that by taking a folded two-foot rule and opening the legs 1/16", you automatically had the angle of taper. It was a trifle under the 5/8" rule, actually, and he debated it in his mind for some time before showing us. But it was standard building practice, and he finally accepted it as close enough. If it was close enough for him, it was close enough for us.

  When the caulking crew had finished, Sam went over her inch by inch. When he finally stood back to look at her, we all held our breath.

  "Well," he said reluctantly. "I guess she'll do."

  The cheer that went up then must have been heard all the way to Oregon City. Sam turned and scowled at us.

  "Don't holler afore you're bit," he said. "You ain't got the wood in her yet."

  "Well, let's get it in, then!"

  Sam looked dubiously at the sky. "Ain't sure we got time today."

  "Sam!"

  "What?"

  "Sam, please. We got the steps in, all we got to do is raise the mast. We got to do it."

  "Foot of a mast makes a lot of pressure," Sam mumbled. "Got to be right. Got to be strong, your step, got to hold."

  "Sam, it's right, you know it is. You checked it all a dozen times. Come on, let's put the mast in, Sam."

  The rest pleaded with him, too. It suddenly seemed terribly important to get the mainmast stepped today. After the long and tedious agony of the caulk-and-tar, we couldn't wait. We were worse than young men in love, we couldn't sit still.

  Nothing would do but Sam had to climb down into the hold all over again and inspect the solidity of the step and peer at the rider keelson where the foot of the mast would sit.

  He Hnally climbed out again and stood on the deck, looking down at the ring of anxious faces that stared up at him, half open-mouthed. We were so tense that Joe I Champion didn't even put his hands on his head.

  "Who's got some money?" Sam said.

  We looked at each other, and there was some fumbling in pockets. Nobody had any money.

  "Sam, it's all gone. We put up every cent of cash money for the running gear," Vaughn said.

  "What do you need money for?"

  "Are you crazy?" Sam said in a tone of disbelief. "We can't step that there wood without a coin under her. Why she wouldn't float a week!"

  "Well, somebody's got a coin," Vaughn said, turning to scan the crew impatiently.

  "I ain't got a half-dime to my name," Thomas said. "I ain't had for a month or better."

  "Me neither," somebody else muttered.

  "Well, get some," Vaughn said, panicky. "We can't hold up for a thing like that, for god's sake."

  "Listen," I said. "Somebody run down to the village and borrow something from the Indians."

  "That's`it, that's it!" Thomas hollered. "I'll do it."

  He was already off, running and hopping over the scrap lumber and junk around the ways like a scared deer. The rest of us fidgeted nervously. I started around the Ship, checking the caulking because there wasn't anything else to do. Somebody came behind me, and then everybody decided to inspect. In a few minutes the whole crew was trooping mechanically around the ship like a school of fish in a pool, staring at the hull without really seeing it. Sam stayed on deck, saying nothing while we circled around and around.

  After what seemed an eternity Thomas came storming back, out of breath and red in the face.

  "What the hell took so long?" Vaughn demanded.

  "I had—had trouble," Thomas panted.

  "Just did you get it, is all."

  Thomas dug in his jeans and came up with a couple of small white shells.

  "Thomas, my god, you idiot! We send you after money and you bring back sea shells? What's wrong with your mind, boy‘?"

  "It's money, it's money," Thomas said. "They didn't have no white money, but they gave me this."

  "He's right," I said. "That's haikwa, that's what they use for money. It just looks different than ours. Sam? Can we use the haikwa?"

  Sam frowned. "Well,'I don't know, I never heard of—"

  "Sam, it's just money that's different, that's all. In England they use English money, don't they?"

  "Yus, but—"

  "And back east they use American money, don't they? It's just the same idea."

  "I don't know," Sam said dubiously.

  "Sam, we're in Indian country, she's an Indian ship, we got to use Indian money, don't you see?" I was really desperate.

  "The mast foot'll smash that damn little shell to powder," Vaughn said to me, but not loud enough for Sam to hear.

  "But it'll be there. That's what's important, ain't it? It'll be there."

  Sam looked around him at the Bay. Off the bar the breakers rumbled softly, lit in red streaks by the late sun. The lumpy peaks of the coast range were glowing warm. Sam looked at it all, letting his eyes caress it almost as they caressed the Ship. The forest that stretched endlessly up into the ridges, range after range of rollers coming massively in from infinity to explode themselves at our feet. For a long time he let his eyes rest in the direction of the village itself, out of sight behind the small hill. It was our country, the Bay. Our country and our Ship and our Indians and our water and trees and ferns and grass and deer and seabirds calling like the distant high wail of souls tormented.

  "All right," Sam said. "Let me have it."

  The mast went down and crushed the shell and was tied into the step. It was pure joy. She stood a thousand feet tall, spearing up into the sky like a fire. She seemed to fly, she seemed to shiver and want to spiral off like a hawk riding the wind. The life ran through her and made her so beautiful it gave me a kind of joy I'd never known. The sun made her gold and orange and warm and you could hardly bear to look at her.

  Eb Thomas, old butt-head Eb Thomas with his nature's wonders, sat down on the ground and began to cry.

  It was the 29th of September, 1854. We had done it in 103 days. One hundred and three days that were worth a lifetime. Nothing would ever be the same again, not forany of us. We knew what a man could do, now.

  2

  The launching itself was delayed for two days. It clouded over during the night, and by morning the sky was ininite Oregon gray, and a steady drizzle enveloped all the Bay. It looked as it had looked the first day I saw it, shifting behind a moving curtain of rain and mist. The rains had held off until we got the mast in her, but now they were impatient to soak the land, and we would have them for seven or eight months.

  Even the coming of the rains seemed good to us. The summer had been long and fair, one stretch of sixty-seven days without rain. The world had conspired this year to let us work and we could only be grateful for as much as we had had.

  There were small things to do yet, trimming up, finishing off, and we hoped at first that the weather would break, so we could launch under the clear skies, as we had built. But after the second day, we were back in the familiar pattern of rain, our winter-thinking. In Oregon after two days of rain it seems as though it has been raining since the world began, and you cannot remember the last time you saw sun. We decided to go ahead anyway, or we would likely have to wait until next spring.

  There was a good deal of argument about the launching. Sam said we had to grease the ways; it was absolutely essential, or she wouldn't go down. But since we had no grease, it was obviously not essential. We would have to find some other way.

  "Somebody's got to render out a cow, that's all there is to it," Sam said.

  We were sitting in Vaughn's cabin the evening of the second day of rain. Sam, Vaughn, Thomas, myself, and a couple of others.

  "Well, Eb," I said. "You got the most cattle of anybody in the Bay. Looks like it's up to you."


  "Listen, I didn't bring my animals in here to grease ways with," Eb muttered.

  "Sam," Vaughn said. "You just got it in your mind it has to be done one way, is all." It had been so long since any of us dared argue with Little Sam that I think Vaughn was enjoying the sensation of disagreeing for its own sake.

  Sam clasped his hands between his knees, and looked worriedly at the floor. "Well," he said finally, "you just show me how to do it without grease."

  "Listen," Vaughn said. "I got a plan."

  "I don't want nothin' to do with it," Eb Thomas said suddenly, sitting up straight. "Somebody'll get hurt."

  "Listen," Vaughn said in a hurt tone. "Has anybody ever got hurt by one of my plans?"

  "No, but Eb's right," I said. "People come awful close. Trouble with your plans, Vaughn, they go so smooth in your head and they never seem to work outside of it. And one of these days . . ."

  "Well, hell, then," Vaughn said, settling back sullenly. "Figure it out your ownselves, then, if you don't want to hear my plan."

  We all thought about it silently, and it was obvious nobody had any ideas. Finally Eb, who could clearly see one of his cows being butchered, said discouragedly, "All right, what is it?"

  Vaughn leaned forward, coming to life again, with an excitement in his voice. "Listen. What's slipperier than mud? Nothin'. And particular the mud from the Bay bottom. We'll grease the ways with mud from the Bay. It's sort of—fitting, anyway."

  "Won't work," Sam said softly.

  "You know, Vaughn," I said, "I think the best thing about the Ship is that you didn't have any plans in your head for months. Sam had all the plans. But they come out of his head, and they worked. That's the whole difference right there."