A boat's history

At sea!

2010-09-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

September 13th, 2010.

A boat sliding into the sea is the feeling of a triumph, and the pain of a separation.

The launch is the accomplishment of an idea, turned into a project, that through time, work, disappointments and satisfaction becomes a boat, going at sea.

From this point on, the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro"'s history is not drawn anymore on a project from 1919.

Ahead of her bow is the Sea, adventures, perils, the future.

But, that's another story.

The rigging

2010-09-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating things in a sailing boat is, until sails are unfurled, the apparently tangling amount of lines and ropes, each of them with a defined duty, perfectly symmetric around the mast.
Position and length of standing or running rigging must be accurately studied and tested to balance safety, performances, manoeuvrability and hundreds more factors that can only be tested under sailing.
Fulvio Cafiero and his friends of the "Circolo Nautico Marina di Alimuri", that will train the crew of the lateen rigged gozzo “Santa Maria del Lauro”, assist Michele Cafiero in the rigging work. The splices, simple joints of ropes of unparalleled elegance, are winded, the mast is erected in the highest point of the cave, the bowsprit is connected to the prow.
When this task will be accomplished, the boat will be ready for the launch, at last.

The Yacht Club "Marina di Alimuri"

2010-09-08T09:50:00.001-07:00

Back in 1983, sailing was a distant memory at Marina di Alimuri.
Wooden oars boats and “sandolini", traditional canoes, were slowly giving place to fiberglass ones, the last, ignored “Cap Horniers” met by the sea overlooking the sunset, telling each other memories that would never share with anyone else.
But meanwhile, an engineer collected relics from the golden age of local sailorship, Italy learned of America’s Cup while United States lost it, and a regional tv’s documentary rediscovered the history of the tall ships built at Marina di Alimuri.
In that year, and in that climate, a group of young men, aided by the occasional advises of old seamen, gathered their sailing boats and founded a yacht club, right on the beach where once the tall ships masts were raised.
It was the start of an era: tiny wooden dinghies, to that point considered ready for the fireplace, were proudly restored and painted, old “gozzi” owners found masts and yards for lateen sail in their attics, and young boys showed up asking to be taught “how to sail”.

A few years later, almost as a joke, the club, now affiliated to the F.I.V., summoned five or six of the oldest boats, some with improvised sails, and set up an almost windless “regatta” of “historical boats”. Since the trophy they ran for was a painting in the style of an illustrious local XIXth century marine painter, the race was dedicated to his name. It was the “Ist Eduardo de Martino Trophy”, that in 2010 will reach the twenty-second edition, and has become one of the most crowded and well known classic sailing boat races of Italy, and it’s the only sailing event in Sorrentine waters.
Fulvio Cafiero, founder, president and soul of the “Circolo Nautico Marina di Alimuri”, that in time relocated to the nearby Marina di Meta, will select and train the lateen sail gozzo “Santa Maria del Lauro”’s crew. Together with the associates of the club, he will help Michele to rig and man a lateen sail boat, at the Marina di Alimuri.

The Rudder

2010-09-06T09:24:00.001-07:00

"Boat with no rudder, can hold no course", old sea men said to explain the need for authority.

And the rudder is indeed the one element in a boat that could nullify any of her good features, or favourable conditions if unproperly made or handled.

Either under sails or oars, a well designed rudder can provide the boat with the right compromise of manouvrability and directional stability.
Michele Cafiero has chosen two different shapes for his lateen sail gozzo's rudder, and so he makes two different ones, the first wide and deep, the other shorter, for different settings. A large surface, and a deep draught of the rudder's blade, assures a quick response in the tacks, at the cost of a heavier weight and loss of speed, a light and shorter blade makes the boat harder to handle, but faster.
But, as reminded by the old seamen's saying, even more than the rudder shape, the boat's behavior is decided by the helmsman's ability. So after cutting and painting the rudder, and before rigging the "Santa Maria del Lauro", it is time to find and train a crew.

Giovanni Caputo

2010-07-30T03:22:00.001-07:00

"To rig" a boat, that is to say to provide her with sails and rigs, is a difficult and delicate task. Small variations, insignificant to an uninitiated's eyes, can set great differences in terms of performances, reliability or safety. The position of the mast, length and angle of attach of the "standing rigging", holding the mast steady, and of the "running rigging", maneuvering the sails, are the product of centuries old, mostly empiric experiences, that once were passed from father to son, and now are kept by the "rigger", the man who "tunes up" the boat. The English word is the most used nowadays, because the job of "attrezzatore", though very much sought-after in the sailing world, has almost disappeared in Italy.
But Giovanni Caputo, a man who made a job of his passion, and an art of his job, is one of the very last classic boats "attrezzatori", specialised in lateen rigs. One day he came to visit the Cafiero's boatyard, to meet for the first time the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro", bringing in a pocket a surprise gift to Mast'Antonio, Michele and the boat: one of his blocks in wood and copper, custom made according to the size and shape required by every rigging need. And during an extraordinary encounter of surviving skills and experiences, a cooperation is born between the carpenters and the rigger, who will donate to the lateen sailed gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" all the blocks she will need to be rigged with a lateen sail.

The mast and the yardarm

2010-07-21T10:06:00.001-07:00

The lateen sail rig has been typical in the Mediterranean until a few decades ago.

In spite of what has been mantained for a long time, its origin is undoubtedly Mediterranean, and the "reversed" etimology from "vela alla trina" is now known to be wrong: depictions of lateen rigged ships dating back to the I century BCE have been found in Antony and Cleopatra's Alexandria. Its diffusion and improvement in the Arab world and into Indian Ocean saw it described at the "latine" sail, that is to say the sail of the former roman Mare Nostrum peoples.
But the fishing gozzi of the Bay of Naples used the lateen sail only in special conditions. It was high, heavy and cumbersome during the rowing. The most used sail was a fore and aft sail, the sprit sail, a tiny, less proficient one, but very easy to maneuver and taking little room when folded.
And right like the original gozzo, the new "Santa Maria del Lauro" will sport both riggings.
Michele has chosen to have a very long and flexible yardarm, in white pine wood, and a tall mast, still in pine wood, to take more wind.
From two square planks, they saw corners off, then taper both ends, and then, by plane and sandpaper work, corners are refined until the shape is almost circular.
They will define the shape of the sail, and the speed of the boat.

The mast-step

2010-04-16T01:31:00.000-07:00

It is easy to imagine how a sail can move a boat: the wind blows on its surface, and since the sail is tied to the mast, that is connected to the boat, the boat goes. But to convey the wind energy to the boat's hull, and to do it in a proficient manner, is a serious problem to face, to avoid that mast and sail fly away while the boat stay still.
So the mast cannot be a simple pole, but a whole system due to resist strains while absorbing shocks potentially harmful to the hull. The first element of this system that Michele Cafiero assembles on his gozzo "S. Maria del Lauro" is the mast step.
It is a wooden pedestal that is tightly connected to the hull, with a hole where the bottom of the mast will fit in, after passing through another hole in the mast-hole, a plank placed at deck height. The position of the mast-step, that is to say the position of the mast, will affect the manoeuvrability of the boat, her trim during different reaches, and the centre of maneuver itself.
The lateen sail was seldom used by Alimuri fishermen: the Bay of Naples' winds are whimsical and changing, but who knew how to exploit them had a remarkable aid to the hardships of rowing. To save room, the mast was close to the bow, even if this arrangement made the boat quite unbalanced and hard to be kept in course, under sailing. With a concession to evolution, the lateen sail mast of Mast'Antonio's and Michele Cafiero's gozzo will stand in a more central position than the original 1919 boat.

The coaming

2010-02-26T03:58:00.002-08:00

Classic boats' charm mostly lies in the finest details. Tiny particulars grant the fair refinement peculiar to the ancient seafaring.
But only real seamen can spot in each one of these details the practical utility of fittings making life and work at sea easier, and a boat safer.
The coaming, on the version of the sorrentine "gozzo" traditionally built at Marina di Alimuri, is a simple wooden rail, strong enough to resist the harshness of daily work at sea, but with no structural function, built around the cockpit, where nets or payloads, and "if God is pleased", taken fish, were carried. Its goal is to prevent the seawater coming from sprays over the sheerstrake or from nets and ropes just weighed on board, to flow into the hull, filling the bilge and loading the boat. The characteristic shape of the caulked deck, and the very rolling of the boat, make the water flow along the coaming and to the sides, where scuppers carved into the sheerstrake let the water out.
By now Mast'Antonio and Michele Cafiero's job is focused on small details of their lateen gozzo. The "Santa Maria del Lauro", caulked and painted, is an accomplished boat. But she's not ready to sail yet, and Mast'Antonio, used to complete a new boat in little more than six months, and now must content himself to work during Michele,'s free time, champs at the bit. The sea is there, two steps away.

One more year

2009-12-26T11:27:00.002-08:00

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

2009-12-15T00:56:00.003-08:00

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

2009-10-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-14T05:54:00.002-07:00

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

2009-09-19T04:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

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..."

2009-09-01T10:23:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-12T01:03:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-13T09:57:00.001-08:00

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.

Shape up

2008-12-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

Once connected to the keel, the ribs are only fastened by nails: that is to say, they are not really fastened, they can rotate or loosen, anc cannot play any structural role. Now a whole set of structures will be build around them, to connect them to each other and to the keel, in a way that no part will have to endure any stress only by itself.

Meanwhile, they must be locked in position, shaping up the hull as depicted in the 1919 blueprint.
By accurate measurements, the waterlines are transferred from the "garbi" to the ribs, and the latters are locked to long wooden strips, then nailed into them.
The rigid and symmetric skeleton has to be locked in a perfectly leveled position, according to the cave slope, with its vertical axis exactly plum-lined, propped up and fastened. In that position, it will be possible to work freely to remaining frames, and to the planking.

Framework, and here the boat is!

2008-12-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

The day has come: after endless measurements, marks on the keel, and infinitesimal changes to their joints, the ribs are connected to the keel. The reply to criticism of the ones who "didn't recognize" Mast'Antonio's way of working, to build the structural part of the boat first, and then to assemble them to the keel, is in front of people peeping through the gate into the half-light of the cave: in a few dozens of minutes, strange shaped parts of wood are connected to be the "fishbone" of the boat, still staggering and irregular, with the ribs only fastened by long zinc-coated nails, rough "bialà" holding them, but undoubtedly a real wooden boat.
Michele, Mast'Antonio and young Antonio, good-will and oppressed apprentice, drill into the keel, fasten the ribs and riveting the long nails into the wood.

now everthing has changed, what was a lazy job to be done in free time acquires the sacredness of a wait that will only end with the christening and launch of the boat.
Not by chance, the first thing, after the fasteinng of bow and stern ribs, has been to nail a cross to the highest point of the prow, as the old boatwright did, more devout, but mostly more sensitive to supernatural influence.
The wooden pieces scattered around the cave have been assembled, and have become an attraction. Kids' eyes outside the cave are dreamy. Cynical Mast'Antonio's eyes are wet.

Prow, stern post and "palella" joint

2008-11-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

The keel is is the backbone of the boat, it is the only, or at least the oldest, man built structure made to resist three dimensional forces.
Even if somebody only consider it as a "beam", when it is connected to the stempost and to the prow it becomes the center of the hull, able to resist the joint force from waves, from the load, from the oars' or sails' (or engine's) push, and its own weight.
From the very moment these parts join up, they will not be anymore just "parts", but will eventually be a boat.

Now the keel must be accurately fastened to the cradle, plumbed to the slope and level, in order to put in place any remainig part with required accuracy, to be sure of the boat's simmetry.

The keel

2008-10-21T05:55:00.000-07:00

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..."

2008-10-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Wooden bones

2008-09-21T05:51:00.001-07:00

The boat's framework will be made of "ribs", and a keel that will be the "spinal column". Differently than bones, ribs and keel must be connected to be rigid, to avoid that the boat will be deformed or shattered by the forces encountered at sea.
But at the same time, stiffness must not be stronger than resistance of her materials: in a classic boat, different woods, with different resistance or elasticity.

Taking advantage of shapes and veins of the wood, cut and joint following lines and hollows as done for centuries, the parts of the framework become a wholesome, a machine built to meet forces and loads that will stress it from every direction, and resist and react with resistance and flexibility, stronger than any single piece.

The framework

2008-09-20T07:54:00.001-07:00

The classic picture of a wooden boat under construction is the one of a wooden skeleton, on which skin and tissues slowly grow up.
Before this, though, to cut the bones out of raw wood requires patience and accuracy.
"Mast'Antonio" Cafiero has the kind of skilled empirical accuracy that only his generation's masters commonly had.

Working with the "righella dei cardamoni", the instrument extracted from the "tracking" drawing, ribs are freed from superfluous wood that enclosed them, with shape and inclination of the boat hidden behind the drawing lines.
The smell of the mulberry wood being sawed, unfortunately, cannot be photographed, nor filmed.

Woods and dreams

2008-09-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Why dreams are not fulfilled?
For the very same reason that "makes the world go round"! At the beginning of every plan, specially construction plans, one must check his balance... against reality.
To build a boat is expensive. It already was at granpa's times, and it is even more nowadays. The wood to "make" out the "gozzo" must be good: mulberry and elm for framework, holm oak for the keel, pine for planking, mast and yard of the lateen. Some of these woods are difficult to find, others have become of too poor quality for naval construction purposes. All of them are expensive.
And I started to grasp why "it's not possible anymore to build boats like in good old times"... If wood is expensive, craftmanship is not cheaper, specially the specialize one. And more, many information are needed, hard to find, and harder to understand, and even harder to be put into practice.
For the construction of "S. Maria del Lauro" some sponsor have proposed to participate. But she was my father's grandfather's boat, and dad still remember her, built in this very same cave, on this very same beach... And I am the one who wants to see if it is possible to do it! To accept contribution to the construction means to renounce part of the responsibilities, and part of ownership.
Craftmanship is us, wood can be found, with time and money. Some good wood has been stored by my father for a long time: mulberry, elm, holm oak, and pitchpine for mast and yard. Unfortunately today's pinetrees are too infested with parasites and illnesses, so the planking will have to be in mahogany, but the oars will be made of beech, as they have to. We'll make the boat with our own means, if she can be done, then, maybe, we'll look for sponsors!

Alimuri, the boats' place

2008-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

The tuff rock cliff of Sorrento's plain is connected to the limerock hills of Mts. Lattari in two places on the shoreline. One is Marina Grande, at Sorrento, the other one is the Marina di Alimuri, in what now is Meta.
Despite fantastic and misleading etimologies, mostly based on imaginary victories on Barbary pirates, it seems that its name comes from greek words, like many other toponyms in Magna Graecia, indicating a waterfall flowing, or the absence of a harbour. In any case, this names pointed out what ancient seafarers could value.

The width of the seaside, some hundreds meters long, and some fresh water springs, made it possible to haul ships for repairing and resupply, and later to establish shipyards. until the end of XIXth century Alimuri's shipyards were famous, and Meta's seamanship one of the richest and best in Italy. Nowadays, seamanship has decaded to the last, a hotel stands on the shipyards place, attesting the shift to a touristic economy, and a witless and fanciful project has buried the harbour and eroded the beach, threatening what once was a seamen's hamlet.
There only remain the wooden boats, hauled on "Meta" beach, just below the cliff from which the town took its name, and the caves carved into the tuff, hosting the "monazzeni" where boats are recovered, and where Michele Cafiero's boatyard is.

A name for a fishing boat

2008-09-14T05:47:00.001-07:00

Antonio Cafiero's "gozzo", in 1919, was a working boat.

Work at sea is affected by unpredictable matters, often unrelated to sailors' and fishermens' skills and good will. And only supernatural powers can control the unpredictable.
Seamen's faith and superstition have always been proverbial, and to entrust a boat to divine protection was the only possible insurance against danger and misfortune. Naming a boat after an onomastic Saint, or a sacred image, meant to identify her with it, calling the Saint to share her fate, while renouncing a part of the owner's pride.

The very existence of the hamlet of Meta was due to the presence of the "Lady of the Laurel", a statue worshipped as the seafarers' protectress. Dozens of votive offers from returning seamen attest the importance of the cult for local people, and even the main church, originally dedicated to "the Savior", is known as the church of the Lady of the Laurel.
Antonio Cafiero's fishing "gozzo" was named after her, too, like many other boats, and the replica that Michele will build will respect the tradition and bear the original name.
She will be named "S. Maria del Lauro".

"To make a boat like in good old times..."

2008-09-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

My one, it wasn't really a dream.
A kind of curiosity, though: I am a carpenter, I am a fishermen and carpenters' son, and I work on wooden boats. In my boatyard we do maintenance on wooden boats, and often we also repair them, better, we "restore" them, as now they say, like talking about grannies' furniture.
We don't know much about boats construction theory as it was at "good ol' times", and many scholars have understood ancient techniques from our daily job.
What intrigued me was something often repeated: "it is not possible anymore to build a boat as they did in good old times". But why? I wonder to myself.
My father's uncle had left a scheme of the "gozzo" he used to fish with, and a friend had made a model out of that scheme.
My father is the last shipwright still working at Marina di Alimuri, and he remember well even what he hasn't taught me yet.
And so, with so many restored or rebuilt "gozzi" racing in lateen sail races, why could not we rebuild the "S. Maria del Lauro", 1919?
"It is not possible to build such a boat with old times techniques". I have called a photographer, and I have told him "Let's see if it's true".

Birth of a boat

2008-09-04T01:55:00.000-07:00

Wooden boats have always been extraordinarily fascinating to me. I think it is from many reasons, some of them definitely personal, like my family history, as it was told, or my boy's readings.

But many of us endure the spell of old boats, and it's intriguing to look for this seduction's magic: their aspect is what strikes photographers' hearts, and their non-euclidean rigorous geometry, obviously complying to rules hard to be sensed by our right-angles-addicted eyes.
In a cavern, on the beach where so many of us have grown up by the sea, the smell of brackish tuff rock and just sawed wood takes the breath off, as to remind that this is a different world's entrance.
For as long as human memory goes, this cavern has housed boats, even its shape has been carved according to the sea crafts' evolution. Galleys, feluccas, gozzos, speedboats, lateen sails and outboard engines, and the whole paraphernalia of equipment used for their construction and maintenance, have required adjustments, carvings, reinforcements or modifications.
The vault still shows pickaxes scars, in some point blackened by oil lamps smoke, where now pipes and wires hang loosely.
As sleds remaining from a ice age, cradles are queued along the cavern's slope, that was accurately carved for them, loade with boats of any kind.
In such a place a friend of mine, a carpenter, has called me back to my forgotten childhood's feelings, and to smells, efforts, initiations from others' forgotten lives.
He told me about his dream, and asked me to tell how it will come true.