As mentioned previously, Louis Charland built Wiskun on his property almost 40 years ago. We are very fortunate to have contact with him and for him to take his time to scan his old pictures for us. Here I will let Louis narrate and explain his pictures. I have added/deleted some words for purposes of clarity and fluidity to the explanations, but all the explanations are his. Clearly, the pictures don't show justice to the difficult and frustrating work behind building a boat. Only those that have gone through it will understand, but hopefully your imaginations are creative enough to appreciate his work. For sure, we do.
"The first is the mold under construction with Port Moody Harbour faintly in the background. This comes before the cementing of the hull of course. It shows the mold over half finished and the shed is still up. Nearly all the wood is cedar, coming from the local mill, Flavelle Cedar. My neighbour, the good guy (they were both very good and understanding except for the garden episode) was a manager at the mill and supplied me with all my cedar. The posts numbered 28 I believe, all 4x4's, straight and free of knots and 16' long.
I fell off the shed onto the deck while dismantling it to give more light to my neighbour's tomatoes.
These 2 pictures show the layup. The Samson plans called for 1/4 in rebar spaced (I think) every 4 inches whereas I used 3/16th high tensile steel every inch both vertically and horizontally. I believe there was 6 layers of 1 inch chicken wire and 1/2 inch wire as a final outside layer. The result was a much stronger hull with a thickness of 1 inch or less. It took me 2 years to reach the stage where we finally cemented, and I had a professional crew come in for that. That was a one day affair.
This is cementing day. A professional cementing crew of six that specialized in hulls, undertook the operation along with neighbours and completed it in one day. (You really have no choice). Everything was very well organized and no problems were encountered but once we started there was no letup until completed. I kept the hull wet for 21 days to strengthen the 'cure' to
its maximum.
The hull cemented and the shed removed, it was like a big whale in my backyard. At this point about 2 years of labour was involved.
In fairing the hull, I would come out at night and shine a flashlight along the hull so that depressions & bumps would show up as shadows which I would circle with a felt pen and grind and fill with epoxy the next day in the fairing process. At that time epoxy required warm temperatures to set so it was a 2 summer project.
And finally, the day the engine was dropped into place. It is a BMI 4 cylinder which I bought from Samson off the showroom floor, probably in 1971, that sounds about right. I can't remember how the engine was lifted up over the engine compartment (if we can call it a compartment yet) but you can see the bulkheads going in with 4" scarfs. I look pretty proud, I think it was one of the joyous days, it seemed to be a big step towards completion although I don't know what I would have thought if I had known I still had about 5 years to go before launching. At this stage I think the urethane insulation had been sprayed on down to the flooring sole. The complete wooden mold was removed, some boat builders left it in but I was concerned about future rot and the weight factor. It was an awful job, all the staples that held the wire in tight to the mold to keep the hull thin had to be ground off. Somehow I was saved from any serious accidents in the process, the grinder was big, powerful and heavy and of course there was never a level spot to stand, I often slipped while grinding. I only have one scar on my leg that attests to my stupidity. Today I consider myself foolish that I hadn't erected scaffolding inside the hull at the time."
When I commented to Louis that this must have been a real labour of love, this was what he said:
".....[the whole experience] was overwhelming for me. At a time in my life (and youth) when I should have been enjoying other pleasures and spending my money on creature comforts everything went into the boat. Evenings, weekends and holidays and all my cash went into the boat and I resented that. On the upside I kept getting better at what I was doing and in the process I learned some very important lessons in life - patience and perseverance being two. Maybe that was the hidden purpose and not the 'sailing off into the sunset' part. I also learned that there is no problem on earth that doesn't have a solution if you believe and you're prepared to seek."
Addendum: While I wrote this article, Kjartan together with my brother went to visit Louis at his home in Port Moody. Here is his current picture (from left to right: Louis, Kjartan and Sam).
