In Their Own Words: Student Boat Builders at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum

By Rebecca Burns, Expeditionary Programs Manager

Since the beginning of the school year, two groups of students from the Addison Consortium Program (ACP) and Middlebury Union High School (MUHS) have been coming to Lake Champlain Maritime Museum 2–3 days per week to participate in our boat building program known as Champlain Longboats. The boat is almost done and will be launched this week! Before we launch, we wanted to take a moment to share a little bit more about this journey and a bit about the boat building process from the students themselves.

Champlain Longboats began in 1999 when a group of students in an alternative education program at Vergennes Union High School built a six-oared rowing gig, the first of the Museum’s fleet, Spirit of Otter Creek. Since then, the Museum has built a new rowing boat every year with a group of students. The core of this program is to give students a chance to experience every step of the boatbuilding process from tree to boat. Students go to local forests where the trees are harvested and we even bring the milling to the Museum so all can witness the process. Students measure each piece of the boat and learn traditional boatbuilding methods such as clench nailing and riveting. During this process, they become the experts and we want to give them the opportunity to demonstrate their new skills.

This spring, the boat building students, their families, teachers, and staff from the Museum gathered for an open house so students could share what they’ve learned over the course of this project. Each student chose their own topic and stage of boat building to explain. Below is a glimpse into their presentations, in their own words:

Stephen from MUHS began the presentations with an explanation of the different parts of the boat. This included the keel and planks which give the boat its shape, as well as the ribs and gunwales, which give the boat strength and structure.

Heath from MUHS demonstrated how to row and be a coxswain, the person who steers and commands the crew of rowers. Since the weather at the time of the presentation was not ideal for rowing on the water, Heath adapted and commanded his crew through some air strokes in the boat shop.

Logan from MUHS described the different types of wood used in the building of the new four-oared rowing gig. The planks are made from white pine. The gunwales, ribs, and keel are made from white oak. And the stem and transom which give strength and structure to the bow and stern of the boat are made of black locust. All three types of wood used are strong, resistant to rot, and are locally sourced. In boat building, we need to be picky about the quality of wood used in the boats to ensure they can hold up in the water for many generations.

Carter from MUHS and Chance from ACP explained the process of creating scarf joints and gains in each plank. A scarf joint is used to connect shorter planks into one long plank. To make a scarf joint, the last six inches of the plank are measured and then shaved down on a gradual slope using a block plane. This increases the surface area of the space being glued by the scarf joint to increase strength. A gain is used to ensure the planks are flush with the stem and transom.

Chance from ACP and Landon from MUHS demonstrated the process of attaching a plank to the boat and fixing it in place using a technique called clench nailing. A sticky marine adhesive called 5200 is spread along the lap, the top 3/4 inch of the lower plank. The new plank is set in place using bar clamps and lap clamps. Then the clench nailing begins! Holes are drilled three inches apart along the lower lap line to ensure the copper tack passes through both planks. The students work in teams of two where one student hammers the tack into the planks and the other uses a clenching iron to fold the tip of the tack back into the plank, creating something that resembles a staple. There are over 2,000 clench nails in the gig that is being built. A highlight of Chance’s presentation was being able to practice clench nailing with his mom.

The next presenters, Ayden and Eric from MUHS and Zoey and Tenley from ACP, demonstrated steam bending ribs into the boat. Ribs run perpendicular to the planks and provide strength to the boat. The ribs are heated in a steam box between 185 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes. The boatbuilders have about one minute from the time the rib is removed from the box to bend it in place in the boat before it starts to cool. Each rib is temporarily fixed to the boat using screws so the rib will hold its shape as it cools.

The final presentations by Keagan from MUHS and Callie from ACP exhibited riveting, which holds the ribs to the planking. The students work in teams of three with one person inside the boat, one person on the outside of the boat, and the third person communicates between the two since it can get very loud. For each rivet, the person inside the boat drills a hole through the rib and the lap of two planks. The person outside the boat puts a copper nail into the hole. The person inside the boat sets a rove, a small copper washer; then pulls the nail until it is flush with the outer plank. The end of the nail is snipped off, so a small portion is left. Then the person on the outside of the boat holds a clenching iron over the head of the nail while the person inside the boat hammers the nail so it flattens over the rove. There are just about 1,300 rivets in the new gig, as Keagan noted.

Gaining technical skills in boat building is only a small part of the Champlain Longboats program. Each group of students must come together as a team to accomplish the lofty goal of building a boat. Every aspect of boat building requires teamwork and communication skills. When these students aren’t hammering away at clench nails and rivets in the boat shop, they are on the water learning to row together. Over the last few months, it has been heartening to see each group of students grow into a supportive team. Launch day is scheduled for May 25, where the students get to celebrate their massive accomplishment with friends, family, and the community. We can’t wait to see the finished boat!