Kayak Alert

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Earth Alert Segment 1 Kayak

Defining Boat Building Terms

Defining Boat Building Terms

As all of us haven’t grown up around a boat, we may know little about the every single details of boats. The jargon related to a boat may seem confusing to you at first. You may have watched that White’s Stuart Little where Stuart and his sailor friend mock another boat’s owner for not knowing the boat jargon. “…A jib from a jibe…or a luff from a leech…or a deck from a dock….or a mast from a mist.” Here I am bringing some terminologies for you to know that would be useful if you are into making a small wooden boat.

More articles about boat building can be found at www.smallboatplansreview.com

 

Usually Boat-builders say ‘fore’ and ‘aft’ when they talk about front and back on a boat. And they tell left and right as port and starboard. Interestingly port and left have the same number of letters. The middle region of a boat is called as ‘mid ship’. Athwart ship refers to something that is running across the boat, perpendicular to the center-line of the boat, like a thwart.

 

 

They call it bulkhead what is an athwart ship structural member  that compartmentalizes the interior of the boat. You may have watched the movie ‘TITANIC’ where bulkheads were notoriously inadequate. A flat face on the stern of a boat is called transom. They call it Kayaks what are pointy at both ends. Actually stem and bow are used interchangeably. However, bow refers more generally to the front area of a boat. The stem is the extreme bow. The shape, or structure of it – as in, “a sharp stem”, or “a fair curve to her stem.”

 

 

Fair is the term that is used whenever a boat is built. The boat-builder always remains alert about the fairness when wood is bent or curved or cut, or a line drawn. The “fair curve” or line is the one that has to be very fair as it follows the path it must take around the hull of the boat.  And a fair line is free of extraneous bumps or hollows while an unfair line is always needed to be smoothed out.

 

 

 

You will find that there’s seldom any curve that must be more fair than the sheer of a boat. The sheer of a boat is the break in the hull what runs from bow to stern. It separates the side of the hull from the deck of the boat. This is actually a general area and the visual break this line creates. There are some other things around the sheer line of a boat like sheer clamp, rail, or rub rail etc.

 

 

Now, here comes chine what is a lengthwise break in the shape of a hull. This distinguishes it from a round-bottomed boat that is made of some other material rather than plywood. Hard-chine boat consists off just one or two chines. However, a multi-chine boat may get many.

 

 

And coaming is a raised rim that protects the cockpit of the boat. Actually it can be anything that deflects water from the cockpit.

 

When an angle cut in one piece of wood such that it fits against another piece of wood., it is called ‘bevel’.

 

 

In a boat, ‘rabbet’ is a kind of groove cut in a piece of wood to accept another. And a mold is basically a structure that you build to form the shape of a part that you may need. Most “stitch and glue” boats take their own shape and that’s why no jig or mold is necessary for their hull. You must make a jig to laminate the deck beams for many CLC boats. You need to glue together multiple thin strips to achieve a given thickness to laminate something. You may make it possible to bend something to a tight camber. And a camber is a regular curve, a section of a circle.

 

 

Well let me tell you that it makes me recoil when I hear the confusion between paddles and oars. In fact you face forward when you use a paddle. However in a kayak or canoe you can not use an oar. You should not call a kayak or canoe paddle an “oar,”. Moreover, don’t  call a normal locomotion of a kayak or canoe as “rowing.” Usually oars are mounted in oarlocks on the rail of a boat.

 

 

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