Half-Inches

My brother and I have a little motto that has carried us through the tough parts of our Bolger Teal build.  It goes like this: "Anything error smaller than a half inch doesn't matter, because it's small enough to fill with epoxy, caulk and/or paint."  It was quickly shortened to the comforting mantra "Half-inches, half-inches" that we'd mutter reassuringly at each other whenever something lined up a little awkwardly.

I'm not sure the basic premise there is true, at least not for an "Instant Boat."  The Teal is almost done, and it's a bit asymmetrical.  Presumably, there were a couple half-inch errors somewhere along the way that actually did matter, but it's too late to go back and correct them now.  There are a few lessons to garner from this:

1. Not all tasks during a boat build are equally critical.  A half-inch error drawing the hull shape might matter a lot more than a half-inch error in the placement of a thwart.  Some errors affect a whole chain of subsequent steps.  I suspect that an experienced boatbuilder has a very keen sense of which errors matter.
2. The second lesson is that some building methods are more forgiving than others.  In a stitch-and-glue boat, I think the "half-inches" line is more true because there's the opportunity to adjust the shape of the hull during the "stitching" phase, before you lock in the shape during the "glue" phase.
3. Finally, there is the important lesson that most of the asymmetries and wrinkles in our hull won't really matter when the boat's in the water.  Phil Bolger, the Teal's designer, drew up boats with ugly, boxy lines or even off-center masts, for crying out loud, and they all reportedly sail quite nicely.  As long as we produce a water-tight hull, it's unlikely that we'll ever notice the performance impact of the flaws we have introduced.

Still, I've gained a lot of confidence from the Teal project.  At the outset of the  build, it would have been paralyzing to hold myself to a millimeter standard.  Now, I'm willing -- and believe I'm able! -- to work more carefully, so I'm trying to drop the "half-inches" mantra and do the best work I can.  I'm not sure how much better than a half inch I'll manage, but I'm going to find out, at least.

As I traced the stem and stern posts for my Melanesia this evening, it was gratifying to see that I was operating (so far) within an error tolerance of around a half millimeter, rather than the half inch we allowed ourselves on the Teal.  Hopefully, this level of care will show in the finished boat, and will allow me to grow as a woodworker.