Mar 24 2008
Leut Renovation 4 - Wood
These last weeks we have been learning about wood in relation to traditional boats. For the leut, oak (hrast in Croatian) will be used below the water-line. But not just any oak - it must be either from Slavonia (the north-east rump of Croatia) or Lika (the area around Plitvice Lakes) - i.e. hrast lužnjak (in Latin - Quercus robur or in English - common oak). Bosnian oak (hrast kitnjak - Quercus petraea - sessile oak) just won’t do - its not as strong.
Its best to let the oak dry for a year; we were lucky to find first-class oak which had been stored for 3 years. The boards are currently about 5m long, 30cm wide and 3cm thick. They will be cut to replace those on the boat which may have rotted, etc. and will end up being 2.5cm thick.
Above the water-line, local pine is used. It only has to be kiln-dried for 72 days.
The above drawing was done by naval architect Velimir Salamon when he and Joško Božanić were preparing to rebuild the gajeta falkuša - the indigenous boat of Komiža, on Vis Island. The terms are the parts of the boat in Komižan dialect.
Instead of being built the traditional way, as a carvel planked boat, such as our old leut, the falkuša used 3 layers of thinner pine with West epoxy between. This means that the falkuša doesn’t have to be concerned about drying out and the planks shrinking. Kayaking around Dalmatia sunken wooden boats are often seen. This is done if the boat has been stored out of the water and the planks have opened up. After a couple of days under water the boat is retrieved and in the sun it all shrinks back together.
The last picture of me rolling over a boat was taken by Peter McBride when he came to Croatia with adventure journalist Jon Bowermaster on an Oceans 8 kayak expedition.
