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I'm on a Boat!

A real, honest-to-god boat. Not in the water, though—we were making repairs and doing maintenance work on the Fyrdraca, a reproduction Viking boat who lives with a member of our shire.

She's beautiful.

A shot down the center inside of a clinker-built Viking ship, with benchases spanning the hull, a box of tools on the nearest and next-furthest bench to the photographers, and a man sanding a brand-new rail with a sander connected to an orange extension cord. The boat is in dappled shade, with tall trees all but filling the background.
Normally there are decks, but we pulled them out.
She's also in need of some work to make her lakeworthy (we don't...have any oceans nearby...) by the summer, so we descended upon her to sand and vacuum and tar and generally fix up small issues. And to replace the stringers and rails. I don't speak boat, but I'm fairly certain stringers are narrow pieces of wood that help hold the upper edges of the boat in the correct shape and support the rails, which are the broad flat pieces that go on top of the upper edges of the boat. Mostly I just hold things where I'm told to, and complain about being too short to be terribly useful.

Two men working on opposite sides of a new rail on a clinker-built Viking ship, one inside and one outside the boat, with several clamps holding the rail in place.
Need help peening rivets without an anvil? Phone a friend!
For example: I cannot hold the really incredibly heavy whatsit we used as a portable anvil for driving rivets against. I can pick it up, but I'd have my arms well above my head to put it against the stringer, at which point I would have negligible mass to lean on the thing. And that defeats the whole purpose. Instead I took pictures and moved clamps and helped drill out holes occasionally.

A clinker-built Viking ship on a trailer in a sun-dappled clearing, with a bright new rail clamped on, a man leaning over the rail from the inside of the boat, and a redheaded woman leaning over the rail from a ladder on the outside of the boat.
Me being super helpful by holding one end of the new outside stringer in place.
As you can see, I am lazily sitting on a ladder to be helpful. Mainly by saying things like "is this supposed to be level?" and then people groan and start unclamping bits.

A clinker-built Viking ship on a trailer in sun-dappled clearing, with a bright new rail clamped on, a man working on the rail from inside the boat, and a redheaded woman and another man standing outside th eboat, holding the rail in place.
Moderately less helpful because you can't put much force into what you're doing when you're on tip toe. Just sayin'.
And a demonstration of what happens when I'm being helpful from the ground. This was the easy part, only about five and a half feet up. Later I spent some time literally hanging off the side of the boat, squeezing the new stringer in place before it was clamped. It was a good time.

You may also have noticed my extreme reflectivity. That's as tan as I get. Sunscreen is my friend, my god, and my nemesis (although thank goodness they've stopped putting coconut scent in every sunscreen ever. It took years not to hate that smell).

And next week, I probably get to crawl under the boat with tar and smear all the seams underneath, where it's hard to get to if you're not fun-sized. It'll be grand.

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