Thanks to a great team of staff & volunteers, the Center has a stronger, more seaworthy and wonderfully red new umiak!

Taking part in the project were Amy Johnson, Rob Posey, Brittany Corbin, Gregg Reed, Heron Scott and Tom Baltzell. The umiak was constructed under the guidance of Corey Freedman at his skin boat school in Anacortes, WA (www.skinboats.org). It was built over the course of seven days and will be used for our field trip programs. Each year, we use the umiak to expose thousands of Seattle area youth to water recreation and maritime history. For further information on our field trip program, click here.

Following is a photographic chronicle of the construction of the Center's newest umiak (fall 2005).

(click on photos for larger view)

A traditional walrus skin umiak from the Aleutian Islands.

The center mold. This determines the shape at the midships of our new umiak. We decided on a 6’ beam and about 21 inches of freeboard.

Gregg and Amy cutting out the transom from a piece of ¾’’ marine grade fir plywood.

The stem in the bending jig. We used ½’’ thick strips of yellow cedar. First boiled and bent to shape then glued in the same jig after a day of drying.

Rob with the finished stem.

The transom in place and a small red cedar knee. The end of the keel has a tenon which fits into a mortise in the bottom of the transom.

A close up of the scarf that connects the stem and the keel. This is a feather scarf two and a half feet long. The angled dowels are ½’’ mahogany glued in for extra rigidity and to prevent delamination.

The same stem to keel scarf faired up and oiled.

Before the gunnels go on, they are mortised with a straight router bit to accept the tops of the frames. Gregg has attached some wood to the base of the router to center the bit.

This is a shot of the whole shop and crew busy setting up the breast hooks. The breast hook on the stem is part way installed and Rob is truing up the top of the transom to accept the breast hook aft. The gunnels hang loose in the center mold.

Here’s a shot of the transom with both gunnels installed. These are notched then pegged with large dowels to hold them in place. You can also see the fitting of the stringers to the transom. This is a tricky cut, mostly because of the compound bevels involved in the two pieces coming together. We drilled two holes to start the cut, roughed it out with a jig saw, and then finished it off with a rasp.

All the stringers are installed. Lashings from the transom to the stringers hold them in place.

A frame just being installed. Notice the quick release clamps holding the frames in place. Each station of the boat has two frames that run about a foot and a half over the center line of the vessel. This allows for easy installation in that you only have to fit into one mortise at a time. Also you gain added strength where the two frames overlap.

A close up of the lashings and the boat fully framed. We used #24 gauge tarred seine twine for these frame to stringer lashings. The basic concept is two wraps around the frame and stringer, then multiple “frappings” around those to cinch the lashing together. It is finished with multiple half hitches.

Thwarts being installed at the transom. You want to install the seats before you flip the boat over to give the beam (width) of the boat some rigidity. Once again these are lashed in place as well as pegged with bamboo chopsticks.

The crew rolling out the fabric for its first cut to size. The fabric is what Corey called ballistic nylon. It's a very strong rip resistant nylon that is used as the outer layer in bullet proof vests. As a test of its strength, Corey cut a gash in a piece of scrap and had us try to increase the rip, and even with two people on both ends, we were not able to rip the fabric any more.

After the fabric is cut to length we lay it over the upside down boat. We used small nails to tack the fabric onto the keel, and then pulled against those nails to get an accurate mark on the sheer. The fabric is cut simply with very sharp shears at those marks, then doubled up and sewn on an industrial machine to give the sheer some extra strength.

Just above our stitching, we poke a hole about every foot through the fabric. Then we use a heavy nylon twine to lace the whole inside edge from those holes to the first stringer - like a “football” stitch. This is also how we do our initial stretching of the fabric, sweating (pulling horizontally at a vertical line and taking up the slack in one motion) that twine at each hole to pull the fabric up snug against the stringers.

The transom is stitched at each corner with a needle and thread. We used a synthetic line for the thread and did a simple crossover down and back to seal up that seam.

After all the stitching is done, we made a mixture of nylon dye, water and vinegar and spayed the whole vessel with it. This does two things: it changes the color to a beautiful blood red and it also soaks the fabric which can then be heat set.

Here we are using common household irons to heat set the fabric. We do this just after spraying the thing down with our dye mixture. The material shrinks an incredible 10%, and this really stiffens the whole boat up as the fabric sets up around the frame of the boat.

The next morning was the "gooping" session. We use a two part polyurethane compound that is commonly used for setting asphalt in parking garages. It goes on a lot like thickened epoxy but sets up a lot faster. It took all of us on trowels to keep the stuff smoothed out as it sagged and dripped. It took four hours to put four coats on.

The final product.