gozzo

Joined
17 Jul 2009
Messages
235
Visit site
GOZZO2009009-1.jpg
GOZZO2009009-1.jpg

should anyone be interested, i am building a small open pleasure / fishing boat
 

Is that deal planking by any chance... and are you in the central Mediterranean?
The reason I ask is that the first pic reminded me of the framing of Maltese il-Luzzu fishing boats which are heavily framed and invariably planked in red or white deal.
I think the smaller boats, the dghajsas use steam bent frames, but then they are for harbour work, not open sea and have very low freeboard, more like gondolas.
Very interesting. I will be interested to learn how she turns out.
 
the frames are normally ash or red deal, although whatever is available will be used as there is virtually no timber grown on Malta, most coming from Sicily or imported from further afield.

That is correct, although it is mainly ash that is used. It is not unusual for some frames and, more often, the knees to be cut from limbs of the local carob tree when they can be found in the correct approximate shape. The carob tree is now protected ... not that it would make much difference. ;)

Steam bending was never very popular locally, old builders preferring to cut frames from timber that had the grain going in the right direction. Pre-war there used to be schooners coming from neighbouring Sicily with cargoes of natural crooks for boat building. Very few boatbuilders are left now. The larger Maltese fishing vessels, if wooden, are built in Sicily. It is more economical.
 
... Very few boatbuilders are left now. The larger Maltese fishing vessels, if wooden, are built in Sicily. It is more economical.

Hi, Puff.
Perhaps you could confirm or dispell something told to me by the skipper of a sicilian fishing boat operating out of Xemxia Bay.
His story was that the boat's fastenings are iron which during construction would be heated in a brazier. When driven the resin the pine planking is drawn to the hot iron, encapsulating it and forming an anti-corrosive glass.
Myth or fact?
 
Myth or fact?

Partly fact. Iron fastenings would be warmed in a brasier before being driven into pitch pine, but not heated to the extent that they would char the plank.

It was more common practice to dip the heated fastenings into molten pitch before being applied to the planking. The last time I saw this being done was by an 84-year old Sicilian at the delightful village of Marzamemi, almost at the SE tip of Sicily, near Pachino and Porto Palo. I can still recall the scent of that shed, right on the beach!

That was some ten years ago; I must have spent a couple of hours with him comparing boat part names in Sicilian and Maltese. In reality, most of them had a common root, French, which was the basis of the lingua franca of the Mediterranean until the beginning of the twentieth century. Through this 'language' sailors and shipwrights of the Med basin, from Algeria right eastwards to Greece and Turkey, could communicate adequately.
 
very nice
the Malta harbour boats are called Fregatina
my grand father had one and its wer my love for the sea started, they stole it for him in 1985
he used to venture offshore with it out of the hardbour for fishing powered by its Evinrude 2.5hp, lovely times I remember at the time Marsamxetto harbour had still crystal clear waters inside
Maltese luzzo and kajjik are still build locally, and I have never seen heard anything about them being exported, there is some craftsman who do this if you go in Grandharbour three cities area, and in Marsaxlokk
nice pictures for the Gozzo keep them coming please
 
Top