September 2021 – Alexa Boat Building

“Well, What is Lofting?”
“Lofting is when we enlarge the lines from a plan to the actual size of the boat. With these full-size drawings, we can then make the moulds which will act as substructures to build our boat upon.” -John Thompson (My Professor)

“What did you do?”

What my classmates and I did for the lofting process was create a smaller scaled set of plans for a boat similar to the duck-boat we will be actually making for the course. The plans we made were smaller than the ones we will build but the exercise helped us gain insight to the entire process. We started off with a large piece of plywood that was painted white, and created a basic grid of all the straight lines seen. This grid helps us to determine the different stations/sections of the boat (vertical lines) and the water lines (horizontal lines). This grid is made to follow a “table of offsets”, which has the actual measurements for the boat to follow.

Once we made the grid, we then mapped out the following lines onto our grid:

Sheer-line is the line that determines the top curve/line of the boat
Baseline is the line that determines the bottom or base of the boat
Center Line is the line to help create the planview of the boat to determine and see the width of the boat. It physically represents the center line of the boat so that we can draw and measure out the top half of the boat.
Transom is the line that determines the back end or edge of the boat, its usually a sharp diagonal line

After finding these lines, we mapped out the following lines:

Waterlines are the horizontal lines that mark the height of which the water will reach the sides of the boat. These lines are usually squared off to help determine the points for the curved buttock lines
Buttock lines are the curved lines that create the shape of the boat’s body. To achieve these curves, we measured the points of the curve by following the table of offsets and using specific tools such as icepicks, hammers and batons( a bendable piece of wood) to help draw the curves onto the plan.

Profile and Plan View Our Class Worked On

Marking Points & Baton

“What did you contribute to the project as a whole?”

What I contributed to the project as a whole was to help create the fundamental plans for the boat. It is about being accurate to the actual scale of the boat so that we as a whole class can have a reference to look back to while physically building the boat. It’s essentially creating the “blueprints” of the boat as I like to put it. So in order to be as accurate as possible and to avoid mistakes, my group and I all worked together as a unit to make sure we all were doing the process correctly and double checking each other’s work. To achieve this, we designated roles to each other such as hammering the icepicks, calling out the measurements needed for each point and a checker to make sure the measurements and points were lined up together.

“What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?”

The challenges I faced while doing this process was making sure to have the correct measurements. For instance, a section of the measurements for the table of offsets involved being in 8ths fractions so we had to make sure we were simplifying and using the correct fractions when mapping out the points. So for instance when we had 4/8ths we had to make sure it was simplified to ½ and so and so forth. Due to sometimes getting confused about this, our instructor Dave helped us make magic rulers which simplified the process of understanding how to measure fractions out. I still have my magic ruler to this day in my journal for the class!

Another challenge I faced was breaking multiple batons last week when mapping out the body plan of the boat. My classmate and I were trying to mark the points of the buttock lines with our batons and icepicks when I accidentally broke a baton, which led to us trying again and again to bend the baton to match the curve but they each broke when we were trying. It turns out we were using the wrong line for our point which caused our batons to have too much tension when curving that led it to eventually snap in half. This is a prime example of always making sure to double and triple check your measurements to ensure it’s accurate and correct. After fixing this, our batons were able to hold the curve without snapping on us!

“Look At All These Broken Batons”

“What did you learn?”

I learned so much from the lofting process. I learned that the process takes a bit of time but it’s important to be patient and as accurate as possible to avoid mistakes occurring when building the boat later on. If something goes wrong in the plans it can cause a drastic problem with the wood measurements and create shortages by accident. So as a team it’s best to take our time and work together as a unit to create the plans. It may be tedious but it’s worth it in the end! There are so many aspects to know and understand about the lofting process that it can be easily confusing but breaking it down and learning how to do the process in a few days is a great way to learn.