It has been all go on the Experimental Archaeology front. Assignment two is pretty much done. It was already way too long when I came across a key article. Said article turned out to be 247 pages of great stuff – now, what to cut out?

I thought I’d grabbed a bargain and got a really interesting sounding book, which usually retails for £180+, for £30. You know that ‘If it sounds too good to be true …..’ thing? Sadly, when it arrived I realised that instead of the hugely expensive Handbook of Sensory Archaeology, I had inadvertently ordered a Handbook of Collective Intentionality – not a clue – Sensory Archaeology was going to be challenging enough. If anyone wants to find out about Collective Intentionality there will be a copy for sale on an internet auction site near you shortly.

The real excitement though is that I skipped this week’s lecture to take part in some experiential, if not experimental, archaeology. A fisherman (and boat restorer) of my acquaintance and I set off at silly o’clock to watch the sunrise over Bodmin Moor and drive to the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth for a Ghost Ship Building workshop. Regular readers will know that I’ve been steering clear of peopley places. This is only the fourth time I’ve been indoors with a static group of people apart from my immediate family since February 2020 but it was so worth it. I was also taking comfort from the fact that there were only eleven mask-wearing people in the room and I am probably as protected as I will ever be, having just been boostered.

The hugely talented Gail McGarva, who was conducting the Disappearing Lines workshop, builds traditional working boats, to try to preserve historic local boat-building styles. She uses the term ‘daughter ships’, rather than replicas, as they represent a new generation of the endangered boats. I am familiar with the Clovelly Picarooners and the neighbouring Bucks Ledge Boats, both of which were designed to suit the beach from which they were worked. The ghost ship we were to build was based on the Dorset Lerret, a beamy boat, ideal for working on the pebbles of Chesil Beach.

The ‘one I made earlier’ looked pretty simple, surely this wasn’t going to take six hours? Oh it so was. First, we steamed and bent oak strips and laid them in place in a pre-prepared frame. I learned that making even quite thin strips of wood do what you want them to is not easy. Then came the copper riveting. This involved my partner in crime holding the oak strips steady and me drilling very close to his fingers. I waited until afterwards to tell him I’d never used an electric drill before. I am not sure why; spending most of my life in all female households, I’ve done DIY since I was a child but only ever with a hand drill.

Next, time to insert the rivets. There were only thirteen of them, plus the few that had to be redone because they bent but each one involved plenty of hammering. You have to drive through the rivet and then seal it with a series of taps. This was all fine at the time but two days later my arm still feels like it has just had a Covid vaccination. I have decided against a change of career. I do not want to be a riveter and historically, I can see that the repetitive strain and the noise would have been serious occupational hazards. It is inciteful to try these things to gain a better understanding of what is involved.

In between the riveting there was plenty of adjusting, to create pleasing lines. At one stage I was channelling my Norfolk ancestry and my gunnels developed what is apparently known as a Yarmouth Hump. I managed to minimise this and I am pleased with my resulting ghost ship, although I am not quite sure what I am going to do with it. All in all, this rates right up there with the best things I’ve done this year.