The mast-step

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

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

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.