I volunteer with the small boat conservation team at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s. Every Tuesday we scrape, paint, clean, repair, outfit, and float traditional small craft. We’re putting the final touches on Cinnamon Girl, a two-sail crabbing bateau built by Kevin Brennan in 1993. I was assigned to fashion cleats for her spars.
I found an article on making cleats in the Summer 2013 issue of TSCA’s Ash Breeze magazine, here.
My sequence was:
- Mark the positions of holes that will guide the right curve shown above.
- Mark layout lines based on the positions of those holes.
- Drill the guide holes.
- Rip the stock to separate the pairs of cleats.
- Drill the holes for the mounting screws.
- Cut lines on the backsaw.
- Shape with block plane and rasps
- Sand smooth.
Will I make cleats for my two-sail bateau? Or buy them? At the start of this project, I was thinking it is not worth the trouble. But as I finish up, and I have picked up a new skill and feel more confident, I feel like I will fashion cleats for my own boat also.
Working on these at home between my Tuesday shipyard workdays.
Finishing up at the CBMM shipyard.
Small cleat onto the sprit on the left, to secure the snotter. Large cleat on the mast on the right, to secure the halyard.
