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       Before presenting the results of the Serçe Limanı hull reconstruction , it will be helpful to summarize the contents of the field catalogs and drawings. The ship had a small keel—a very simple, rectangular keel made from elm. The keel had no false keel to protect it and no rabbets to seat the garboards, and its forward end curved upward without the usual keel/ stem scarf. Everything else was made of softwood, although this pine was not very soft. It was a good, strong grade of shipbuilding pine, the type that has been favored by Mediterranean shipbuilders for millennia. The curving sternpost was rather small too, without hardware to attach a rudder and without the bulk to support one. The frames were the most curious feature—and the most interesting . Of the forty frame stations represented in the hull remains, a few crossed the keel as V-shaped crotch timbers, possibly a few more as half-frames, and the rest as floor timbers with one arm turning the bilge and the other stopping just short of it. Throughout the hold area, these floor timbers shaped a bottom that was completely flat, had little deadrise, and was connected to the sides by a very short, sharp turn of the bilge. Planks were attached to frames with straight iron nails and small treenails, and were formed into strakes with scarfs and butts. Wales girded the sides, a big keelson provided most of the backbone strength, and the ceiling planks spanned the bottom of the hull in an athwartships direction. And that was all of it: a little merchant vessel that was full chapter 10 Construction and Analysis of the Vessel J. Richard Steffy and flat and simply built. But it was built in a way we had never seen before, one that suggested preplanned body shapes, geometric proportions, and various units of measurement. Here’s how we believe it was done. The Shipyard The hull remains revealed nothing about the place the ship was constructed or the nationality of its builders. There was not much archival information about shipbuilding techniques in this period; that was one of our reasons for undertaking this project. There were, however, some clues about the scene surrounding the vessel’s construction. A lot of pine logs were on hand, awaiting conversion into planks, frames, and other structural members. Many of them were not simple logs, however . There were at least one hundred tree crotches of various lengths and angles; these would become floor timbers, futtocks , and knees. Quite a few curved logs were on hand as well, for frame and wale timbers in the ends of the hull. There must have been elaborate sawing facilities, too, for this vessel was basically sawn to shape. Never, in a long career of examining wooden hull remains, have I seen so many saw marks and so few signs of axes and adzes on the surfaces of a hull. Whether by pit, stage, or some other method, these marine sawyers achieved many finished plank and frame shapes by sawing alone. No doubt the flat bottom in the hold area #   ,  ,    and easy curvatures elsewhere contributed greatly to this production shortcut. Many other tools were used in building this hull, some of them probably very similar to those found in the shipboard tool kit (see chapter ). Tool usage will be mentioned from time to time in this chapter, as construction methods are defined . There was at least one tool that did not survive, although its presence is displayed everywhere—the shipwright’s ell or measuring device. That device bears further discussion. Measurements Even though the remains of the Serçe Limanı vessel had eroded badly in many areas and disappeared in others, there were still fragments with opposing surfaces in good condition. Although such areas were not large, they occurred on a variety of timbers over a wide area of the hull. And because so many finished surfaces were sawn without additional trimming or dubbing, it was possible to determine what dimensions the shipwright intended for a particular hull member. In other words, where inner and outer surfaces of a plank survived in good condition and only well-defined saw marks are present on those surfaces, it can be assumed that the recorded thickness was very close to the intended thickness. Even the frames, which had to be selected and shaped for deadrise, bilge angle, or side curvature, had areas where survival was excellent and intended dimensions were apparent. Where original dimensions...

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