Here's where you can check out the BC Viking Ship Project in action lofting the Viking Ship (i.e., creating the plans), picking up the lines from the plans on the boat shed floor and making templates.
This is where we started. With the lines of the famous Gokstad Ship.
The original is about 80 feet. We are building a scaled down version to 40 feet.
We made this wall hanging by copying the lines to a transparency. This was then projected on to the canvas and the lines traces out.
Quite a job, but it looks really good. Gives everybody a pretty good idea about what we are trying to do.
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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There are no detailed plans for Viking Ships that you can just rush out and buy. With the Gokstad Ship, we are quite fortunate to have even a line drawing to start with.
To build a Viking Ship we needed some plans to work from. By this we mean that we want to have the lines drawn to full size on the boat shed floor. These lines are then used to make patterns and templates for things like the keel and station molds.
The process of going from a small scale line drawing to full size is called lofting.
Kris spent two days in the sun muling over the scale drawing and finally settled on the right proportions.
It's a little hard to see pencil lines on rough plywood like this. But if you look closely you can see the hull lines sweeping up at the stem. Actually, you are looking at both the stem and stern at the same time - one side for each.
© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen
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The lines on the floor were 40 feet long. Everything was in full size.
It takes a little while to get the hang of interpreting what the lines show. You see, you only get half the hull laid out.
Here I try to capture the gentle sweep of the hull lines towards the stern.
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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The weather co-operated famously and a lot of people turned out to start making patterns and templates for the keel.
© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen
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Making templates uses some of the same techniques as the actual lofting itself. To make templates, battens are laid out on top of the lines and fixed in place with special anchor pieces.
When the batten traces the line perfectly, a piece of plywood is then pushed under the batten and the line traced with a pencil along the batten.
This process is called "picking up the lines".
© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen
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Two lifetimes of boat building experience at work picking up lines. Raymond is fussing with the batten while Kris is starting the tracing with his big pencil.
Are you beginning to get the idea about how to do this? It's not difficult, but it helps to be patient and take your time to do it right.
You can ruin a lot of wood in a big hurry if you mess up at this stage!
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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Here is another view of the batten well laid out.
A couple of people are working in the background making a sawhorse. We didn't have much of anything when we started, so we had to build what we needed as and when we needed it.
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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This is a quiz. Look sharp, now. And no cheating!
How many Vikings does it really take to make a sawhorse?
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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The old masters have a lot to teach us. Here the Digital Norseman gets some analog tips from Raymond.
It was amazing how he could make curved cuts with a skill saw. Much faster than using a jigsaw, too.
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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The Norseman wasn't the only one studying the masters.
"Hey, great back swing! How d'you do that, Raymond?".
One day soon, we'll pull off a show boat stunt like that, too...
© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen
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After the back swing and all that grand standing (just kidding), here's what came of it.
Two templates are starting to show the curve of the keel and the position of a joint in the timbers.
Eventually, we made templates for all seven keel pieces.
© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen
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We found time for some knowledge transfer, too. (Or plain picking Kris' brains, not to put too fine a point on it.)
Here's Kris walking the Norseman through the lines.
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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As the day wore on, we got a late afternoon summer shower. The rest of the crew dawdled under a shelter for awhile before going back.
Peter caught Kris in a poignant moment of deep and solitary contemplation of the lines. We suddenly feel like intruders, coming on one master communing with another across the span of 1100 years.
The concentration is almost palpable. "How did the ancient master builder of the Gokstad work this part of the ship? And how can we make it work in our smaller version without grown timbers for stem and stern?" I can only imagine what Kris was struggling with. But I do know this:
"I adjusted the lines today" he told me later in passing.
So be it. I think I know why...
© Copyright 2001 Peter Jensen
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