Wooden Boat

I made a boat. Sort of. I don’t think it would float. It’s too small for me to get in too, of course.

But I did make it out of wood. Western Red Cedar, to be precise. They make boats out of it in America, sometimes. It doesn’t rot (handy). I’ve been learning to make things better out of wood recently. It’s good, is wood.

I want to float. I’m not in the sea, but it seems mighty close. If it gets to where I am, I’ll want a boat. Maybe one a little like this one.

It’s not on an even keel. I’ll admit, I did cut it to look like that. That was a sculptural illusion. The good thing about boats is that they will rock in rough seas, but they won’t sink, not always, not straight away.

I’m looking at a book right now called the ‘Physics of Sailing Explained’. It used to be my Granddad’s, he liked sailing and that sort of thing. There’s a chapter on keels. Apparently, the keel is the pointy flat bit that pokes downwards out the bottom of the hull. Its purpose is to ‘prevent side-slipping when the wind is from the side... [and] to provide a counterbalance to help reduce heeling’. I don’t quite know what those things mean, but it sounds like it might mean ‘get chucked about less, and don’t flip over’. They can sit at funny angles, given no choice but to be at that angle, pushed to them by weather conditions, but they’ve got their heels dug in and they won’t go any further. They’ll just float like that if they need to.

You can also get lift from a keel. Not just float, lift! That’s quite clever. I’ll have to save that one for the next boat though. For now I just want to stay the right way up, and out of the drink.