There's more territory for the planking to cover towards the aft end of this boat as on many carvel-planked boats. A stealer plank is one that is let into a host plank so that the combined planks can cover more territory. The first plank after the garboard tapered from almost 8"wide at the sternpost to just under 2"wide at its forward end which was pretty much amidships, but I would still refer to it as a stealer. The stealer I have just fitted is the one that many boats have, a short plank (5') that is shaped to fit into the tight hollow under the tuck. Because of the tight radius, this plank had to be cut out of thicker stock. There is also a roughly 20 degree twist from one end to the other, and the thicker stock will also allow for this. There is also a slight bend, and I was able to carve some of this into the plank, but the rest was easy to push in by hand so no steaming was necessary. The stealer tapers from just under 4" wide aft to 1 1/2" forward. The oversize plank stock was roughly shaped to the curve to fit the ribs and tuck, and clamped on the hull where I marked the high spots in the way of the ribs and scribed the mating edge to the host plank. There were many trips between the boat and the bench as I slowly whittled it down. Once I was happy that the fit was good against the tuck, ribs and host plank I trimmed the top edge to width, and trimmed the thickness of the plank to just under 1". The after end of the stealer is of course hollow on the outside, and I roughly shaped this. Final fairing will happen when all planks are on. You will notice that the plank protrudes beyond the tuck (transom). This will eventually be trimmed back a bit. It is a local tradition that the planking runs past the tuck, about equal to the thickness of the planking. I made a short video while fashioning the stealers. While machining the next batch of Huon Pine planking (on a friend's farm on the outskirts of Sydney -as you can see in the photos I don't have a lot of room in my shed) my old friends the Huon Pine fly turned up. That's not an official name but I only ever see them when working with Huon Pine, they love it! But they are definitely flies, so the entomologists tell me. I put a post up on Facebook and there were many and varied opinions as to what they were, flies, bees or wasps but the consensus from those that knew the Latin name of the order was that they are flies. That's a 6" plank that will fit on the flatter sections of the hull between the reverse curve to the keel and the turn of the bilge.
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AuthorIan Smith, Boatbuilder (ret'd) Archives
January 2024
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