Repair of clinker-built wooden punts

Description

The NJV de Haven (Nautic Youth Association The Harbour) carries out various works on our fleet of clinker-built wooden punts, such as steaming and bending frames and planing and riveting strakes, using mainly hand tools. The techniques and materials used in bending and riveting are traditional. NJV de Haven is an association for Water Scouts. The volunteers who now supervise the work often learnt to do this themselves as youth members, and in turn pass on the techniques and skills to new youth members.

The work performed by the youth members is tailored to the age of the children. The youngest help with sanding and varnishing, while the older youth members help with bending, riveting, sawing and planing. The riveting in particular is lengthy and therefore heavy work, where we have the children work in groups taking turns to do the toughest job (pressing the rivet on the outside of the hull).

Community

The work is carried out by youth members aged 7 to 18, under the guidance of volunteers, many of whom are former members themselves. Now youth members learn these crafts and techniques from their supervisors, and when they join the supervision team themselves at 18, they pass on the knowledge gained to new youth members.

Involved are the board of Stichting Zeeverkennersgroep St. Jozef (Owner of premises, grounds and fleet); the board of Vereniging NJV de Haven (Organiser of the activities); the Bootbouwers (Initiators of structuring the running of the fleet).

History

NJV de Haven has been sailing wooden punts since its inception in the 1950s. To keep these punts sailing, regular major maintenance is needed, and because the club has no money to have this work done by a boat builder, it has been done entirely by volunteers and youth members for almost 30 years now.

By necessity, NJV de Haven has started doing this maintenance and repair work itself, as hiring external expertise is too expensive. By trial and error, the craft has been rediscovered. Youth members have been involved in regular and major maintenance from the beginning, and this knowledge has thus been passed on from generation to generation.

Since 2000, the group has participated in several (inter)national maritime events with these activities; the classic ship fair, HISWA, Maritime Festival in Brest in France and the festival in Risør in Norway.

Safeguarding

2022-2025

• Involve youth members in the weekly activity and go public more often with the work carried out by youth members. Communicate more on internal channels about craft activities.
• Continue the periodic newsletters to interested parties, neighbours and community.
• Create documentation boards/information materials for events.
• Create a structured lesson plan and corresponding diploma line.
• For the archive: record works with photos/video; create a general image archive; create a maintenance file for each punt.
• Participate in external activities to make the heritage visible.
• Keep sustainability in mind: consciously look for (other types of) certified wood and continue to reuse waste wood.