The keel

They can say what they want about the keel of aboat: that it is the backbone of the boat, that it is the only, or at least the oldest man built structure made to resist orthogonal forces, etc.
But truth appears clearly to me when I see it on the racks in Mast'Antonio's boatyard, ready to be refined, and it is a truth demoted from any poetic or technical rhetoric: it is a beam.
A simple big beam, made out of stone hard and stone heavy wood, on which the ribs, the stempost and the sternpost, now waiting in a corner of the cave, will be arranged.

It looks all too easy, and there must be a trick indeed, because Michele and his father are entangle for endless time in accurate measurings and drawind obscure (and esoteric?) signs along the "beam. Then they begin to cut and polish (with the adze!) the two ends, to make the "palella" joint ready, where prow and stern will be. It looks like they are making a proof, but no the contrary, the keel (the beam...) is ready. Now the wooden parts, beams and planks, will become a boat.

"If they do not lay down the keel..."

Since I began to cover "Mast'Antonio" e Michele Cafiero's work, I have often been surprised by disenchanted, incredulous or openly skeptical comments about the effectiveness of the "Santa Maria del Lauro", 2008 edition, construction work.
The most often heard comment sounded like "If they have not lay down the keel, the boat is not going to be made", almost always pronounced in sincerely sorry way.

But...

But work went on, sometimes briskly, sometimes lazily, tracing a curve that mirrored Michele and his father's mood, the quality of their relationship and the bad attitude of the Sea, many times arriving to wrestle with the cave's gate, rolling over the remains of the beach, eroded by the modern "harbour".
I could exclude that my photos were delusions, and that Michele's and his father's merry spirit had concocted an elaborate prank. The boat was cominng to life, indeed, under my own eyes, and my own lens.
But what about the keel?

Most of the boatyards begin a boat from the keel, then they build the ribs on it, using wooden half rib models.

This boatyard has little room, it's inside of a cave that's used to shelter and hauling of many kinds of boats. More, Mast'Antonio learnt his job from the old shipwright building barks and barquentines in Alimuri shipyards. Here they do not need to lay down the keel first, for they follow the drawn lines of a real size plan, every part must correspond exactly to the plan, so the part building sequence is unimportant. As soon as the ribs, the stempost and the sternpost will be ready, the keel will be laid down, and then, like overnight, the boat will be seen. perhaps this is going to be Michele and Mast'Antonio's prank...

Bow and Stern

The keel, the stempost and the sternpost are the primary structures of a boat. All the stresses that the hull will endure will be applied to them, as to the keystone of an arch. Therefore, the wood to make them must be first choice quality, well seasoned: as the "old" shipwright taught us, the keel will be made of holm oak wood, stempost and sternpost of elmwood.
These three pieces will be connected through a special joint, the "incastro a PALELLA di primo ordine con tacco di forza e caviglia ferma acqua" ("first order palella joint with strenght dent and waterlock pin"). The main feature of this joint is to be able to spread all the stresses along the wood's bent, and not to load them directly to the joint parts, that could break apart. On the contrary, this way all the forces that will "attack" the boat will push the different parts against each other, keeping them joint and improving its resistance capability.