One more year

A boat's history begins with her construction, but her life begins in the moment she touches the sea. Il gozzo in legno a vela latina della Marina di Alimuri "Santa Maria del Lauro" has been touched already by the sea on November 20th, 2008, when the storm blew the waves into the cave to splash her incomplete hull. And indeed, even before being launched, Mast'Antonio and Michele Cafiero's gozzo has changed the lives of those working on her, and perhaps even Marina di Alimuri's history.
She was to be launched during 2009, but at sea, it's well known, departure and arrival do not depend only by the crew's will. So a new calendar, on a single sheet again, will remind the boat's days to all the sea men, the harbour or shallow waters people that will be interested.
Happy new year 2010 to everybody!

Request from the past

A blog is a two-ways communication instrument: who writes does expect, and sometimes receives, comments and opinion from the readers. To receive an email message is somewhat unusual, but in late September we got arequest that was a really unusual one. I contacted Michele, to make sure he could grant an answer. A carpenter receives many peculiar requests during his career, and Michele was not a novice, even before he met me. Since we began this project, though, his experience in weird requests have been put to hard test. This time, I felt, it was an easy consultancy about the construction technique of an old boat. When Michele heard the reply to his question "But how old is she?", though, a common carpenter would have hang up the telephone. But we are good friends, and in spite of everything, trust is the foundation of friendship. So, Michele believed me without flinching, I transmitted his assent and we organized a meeting.

The wreck of the "sewn ship" of Gela" has been one of the findings that shaked long accepted knowledge in naval archaeology. It has been raised and it is undergoing examinations to unveil the ancient building tecniques, and to realize the reason for such a sophisticated design.
Doctor Alessandra Benini read this blog, and asked to meet Michele Cafiero, in his cave, to ask him to examine the problems presented by the wreck of Gela's odd construction. And the unflappable Michele immediately detected on photos and diagrams of the wrecks on the archaeolgist's laptop, the familiar shapes and joints of the wooden boat construction techniques, as he learned them from his father, Mast'Antonio Cafiero, and as Mast'Antonio learned them from his Maestro, Mast'Antonino "d'o Tore" Cafiero...
As early as in 600 b.C.E., the boatwrights that built the ship of Gela mastered the very solutions that are still at the top of a millennia lasting evolution. Archaeologists will keep working to understand why a sewn ship coexisted with others built in ways so far considered more advanced, and Michele Cafiero's work will continue to preserve and hand down the Mediterranean wooden boat construction tecniques. (the photo has been shot by dr. Marco Anzidei, geologist at the INGV)

A Boat's History on Tele France 3

Friday October 23rd, at 830pm, on Tele France 3, and Saturday October 24th, at 630pm on SKY TV5, will be aired "Thalassa", legendary sea stories tv show, with the coverage of Mast'Antonio's and Michele Cafiero's endeavour.

A great satisfaction for the father and son carpenters, and for all who care about the outcome of their adventure.

Let us hope that "Thalassa" team's professionalism will be able to report their work at best.

Plaster and Paint

When the caulking is completed, the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" looks like a perfect wooden sculpture. Unfortunately, the sea has no mercy for wooden manufacts: in a few months, salt water and sun light can destroy them. And indeed, a striking difference with the boats from the northern seas is that the Mediterranean boats are painted in bright and individual colors.
It has oftne pointed that where the shore rock is limestone, fishermen houses were whitened with lime, while on tuff rock shores houses were bright, different colored, easily spotted one by one from the sea. At Meta, the two marinas, the one said "of Meta", or of the Purgatory, which ruins stand below the tuff cliff, and Marina di Alimuri, wedged between the limestone mountain and the tuff cliff of Sorrento's plain, showed both cases.
But all the boats were bright colored, decorated with apotropaic and religious symbols.
Mast'Antonio recalls that his grandfather's gozzo, the original 1919 "Santa Maria del Lauro" was bright red, a well visible color at sea. Michele little daughters decide the colors of the "frisa".
After the hard work and sharp attentions dedicated to the wooden hull, painting is almost boring, for the carpenters...

Caulking

The caulking is the millennia old tecnique that makes the difference between a wardrobe and a boat: both are made out of wooden parts, connected to serve a purpose and to resist some loads. But if they are thrown into the water, the wardrobe content is soaked, the boat's one is dry.
Even the Bible, when Noah got instructions to build his boat, mentions generically an "ark" (i.e. "a box"), but it dwells on the way to make it waterproof. And the same happens when it describes the basket which is entrusted with baby Moses' destiny.

It's a mostly forgotten art.
When a gentleman, looking for "Master caulkers", is addressed to the boatyard cave, Mast'Antonio replies firmly, giving him an address in upper Meta: the cemetery address..

But Mast'Antonio Cafiero is a modest man. Even if he's a boatwright "only", and not a caulker, he is perfectly able to execute the caulking on his own "gozzo", using the traditional tools inherited by his master.
They are a series of different chisels, apparently almost undistinguishable from each other, but to be used progressively, and a large peculiar mallet. The first chisels are used to enlarge the seams (the spaces between a plank and the other). Cotton weaves (or oakum on larger boats or ships) are then inserted into the seams, and forced in position with the next chisels, blunter than the others, effectively sealing them. On larger boats, like on the "gozzo"'s deck, seams are sealed melting pitch on the oakum or cotton, then sanding it to level it. But on a 7 meters long gozzo , parts are small and deformations due to strains are not significant compared to dimensions of seams, so plaster and paint are enough to complete the caulking.

The closing one

The last piece of the planking, the one closing the hull, is special. Its position on the hull is different from a boatyard and another, and different ways coexist.
In the Cafiero boatyard, on the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro", this plank is the third one from the keel.
It is narrower than the others: while the edges of the other planks are cut to be perpendicular to the ribs in the very point of connection with them, following the rules of the "righella dei cardamoni", the edges of the so called "chiudente" ("the closing one"), and the ones of the contiguous planks, are cut to give it a wedge like section.
This shape is easily inserted between the other planks, avoiding any forcing, but at the same time allowing the "chiudente" to act as a wedge during torsions and bendings of the hull.
This plank too is wet and warmed up at fire, and then nailed to the ribs. And when Michele's last hammer bangs arrange it into its position, the planking on the ribs has become a boat's hull...

Water, Wood and Fire

Along her sides, the shape of the hull of a gozzo is so curve that it exceeds the natural flexibility of a wooden plank. To force it into place can cause breaks or, even worse, sudden failure under stress.

Then an archaic metod is employed, the same for thousands years, probably since Phoenicians and Achaeans built the first wooden ships.

Antonio, the young but experienced apprentice, rubs slowly and carefully the plank with a wet rag, while Michele Cafiero lights a fire with cut out chips in an iron bucket.
The wood of the plank, soaked in water, becomes more flexible. But it is not enough, yet. With extreme caution, Michele put the plank into the flames, and turns it up. The water soaks into the fibers of the wood, warms up and warms the already softened fibers. If the plank seems about to dry up, Michele pulls it out of the fire and Antonio soaks it again, in a game of balance between water and fire. When the wood looks like it's exuding steam, Michele hurries up to Mast'Antonio, waiting for him by the hull of the gozzo: with a few, quick but deliberate moves, they fasten the first plank, the "garboard", still steaming, on the ribs, and enforce it in place against the side of the keel with wedges and clamps. They drill holes, nail it and, when the plank will dry up its fibers will stay deformed into the position enforced at high temperature, but not weakened. Later, carpenters and apprentice will repeat the whole operation with the second plank.

Struts away!

Since the keel has been connected to the prow and the stern, the boay has been growing on it. And since the ribs have been connected to the keel, the skeleton of the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" has been firmly locked with struts in a stand up position, for an easy construction work.
Now, the moment has come to put up the planking, and after the first planks, the hull must be leaned on one side to set the planks from the keel.

In Michele's simple, deliberate moves, taking the cross off the bow to set it free from the struts, there's the awareness that this is the end of the beginning: from now on, they are not going to work anymore on a wooden frame locked in a boatyard, they are going to finish a boat.

The deck

The deck, the top of a boat, is roof, floor and enclosing of the waterproof hull's shell.
On fishing "gozzi", like the ones from Marina di Alimuri, it was only a partial coverage, to protect the inside of the hull from the breaking waves , and to provide a step for crew members working on the bow, or maneuvering the lateen sail.
In modern boats the deck is composed of pre-built panels, in plywood listed with strips of teak wood, imitating the seams, like the ones on which generations of ships boys have worn mops, knees and elbows.
Of course, the "Santa Maria del Lauro"'s deck will be built in the traditional way: over the beams, the robust seams of the deck will be able not only to bear the weight of a walking crew, but they will be forced into the bending of the hull, to improve the decks watertight quality, and to be part of the hull's working structure.
Mast'Antonio's experience with the clamps and the wood's reactions to bending drive the seams into their place, and Michele's accuracy fasten them, and refines the work. In a few hours, the gozzo's deck is ready to be caulked. But for this, it is not the moment yet.

"We came from Malta..."

When I was a kid, family tales seemed to belong to an ancient era. I did not listen much, I was more intrigued by my father's job, and more interested in banging hammers.
Once grown up, and become a carpenter, from those family stories heard as background chatting, I recalled some talks making sense.
The Cafieros were silk merchants, living in Malta. But they still owned buildings in Meta.
After the fall of Napoleon, they chose to leave the island, and to return to their native land.
Probably, Malta under British custom was not a convenient base anymore.
Several years later, they had abandoned the silk business, and had become carpenters and shipwright, like my father and me: towards the half of the XIXth century, Sorrento's mulberries were all but supplanted by orange grooves, and this was the end of local silk production, or maybe, orange were just more proitable cultures. Rebuilding a classic boat (with mulberry wooden framework), child's memories must help the reconstruction of family history.
The sculpture on the prow of the wooden gozzo boat we are building, the "St. Maria del Lauro", on the blueprint of my father's grandpa's boat, will be dedicated to the Madonna from which she was named. But in the inside of it, the builder symbol will be a cross of Malta.

Knees and gunwale

Beams and thwarts, connected to the hull to enclose the half shell against the external forces, are reinforced by typical structures. The "knees" extend the connection between two parts, and allow them to distribute the charge on a larger surface of wood, minimizing the chance of sudden breaks.

With the knees, the structural framework of the hull is nearly completed, and then it is time for the construction of the deck, that will make the boat a livable place. A typical characteristic of Alimuri's "gozzi", like all Sorrento's ones, was the so called "frisa", the gunwale, a thick strip of wood with no other structural function than to rise the board, and to endure the endless attrition of nets and loads paid out or weighed.
Close to the prow, the gunwale is higher and thinner, turning into the "falchetta", held by stanchions, to act as a breakwater, and suddenly it ends up with the "schiocca", a strong transversal board that will hold the bowsprit, and more, will act as the first rib, absorbing the crashes of the waves into the bow. The "schiocca", as all the boats since Greeks and Phoenicians times, was decorated with images of tutelary deities: the one on the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" will be the same.

Beams and thwarts

The framework is the shell shaping the hull to displace an amount of water weighing more than its own weight, allowing thus the boat to stay afloat.

In fact, it is an half shell, since the upper half of the hull is open, of course, being unnecessary to buoyance.

This is not completely true: if a boat is supposed to stay at sea for a long time, it is not reasonably probable that the sea will stay calm, and the waves will not rise inboard.
Accordingly, a boat due to resist bad weather and rough sea is completed with a deck, that is to say a watertight cover to close the hull. The lateen "gozzo" "Santa Maria del Lauro", like all 'gozzi' from Marina di Alimuri, was a fishing boat: she was not conceived to face sea storms, nor to sail off shore, but being a working boat, a tool for subsistence and economic survival, she would be much more competitive if able to ride the typical short and broken high waves from North West wind, the Bay of Naples' "Maestrale".
A typical feature of this side of the bay is that it is a lee shore: when the dominant wind blows, the sea gets rough. So the fishing "gozzi" had a tall prow to break the crest of waves and a rounded stern to avoid sinking in the through. More, they sported a short deck on the bow, with extensions along the boards, to drain overboard the sea water sprays. And more importantly, behind the beams supporting the deck, they had three strong thwarts, connecting the sides to avoid deformations and to absorb the constant bumping of waves. Mast'Antonio Cafiero and his son Michele have cut beams and thwarts in solid elmwood, and connect them with impressive precision between the sheer strake and the dead beam. Their XXIst century wooden gozzo is a step closer to the sea.

One year later...

On January 24th 2008 the fist photo was shot on the plan of the lateen gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro", just "tracked", and Mast'Antonio and Michele Cafiero's adventure began.

It sounds absurd, but only a few really believed that a boatwright and is son, also a boatwright, could really build an out of time boat.

366 days later, the boat, worked on in free time, is not finished yet, but Michele has won his first challenge: with Mast'Antonio's invaluable help and guidance he has prolonged for one year more the centuries long tradition of Marina di Alimuri's boat builders, turning it into a chance for revival.

Angelo Esposito, the young and passionate naval engineer that encouraged them, shot the photo on the right, where father and son are with the model of the boat, made by a friend of theirs along the original blue print. The boat did not exist yet, but she did in their eyes, as an indifferent promise.





Now the very same model is on the bow of the boat, the boat that one year ago was still enclosed in the wood.

The wish, after one hard working year, is that the lateen gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" has a future as a living boat in a living Marina di Alimuri.

The sheer strake

Now that ribs have been connected to the keel, shaped up by temporary frames, it is possible to begin to lay out the planking. In wooden boats it is not only a (desirably) watertight skin covering the framework of the boat, but a lifting structure itself. The first plank, called "sheer strake" in English, and called "cinta", "belt" in our dialect, is paramount to distribute stresses all along the boat, and to make it stronger, it works with an opposite inboard plank called "dead beam", "dormiente".

Soon after the cut, the mahogany plank is submerged for a few hours in warm water. Then, still wet, the stern end of it is connected with clamps to the stern, and then, rib by rib, it is bent and clamped along the side of the boat, thanks to elasticity due to the immersion in warm water. At this point, after checking that ribs are in the right position, the plank is drilled and nailed to them, and becomes the "cinta", the sheer strake of the boat. The same operation is performed on the opposite side of the boat, checking accurately for symmetry, and the two sheer strakes join to the stem.