“Boat,” I fumbled. “Not begin?”
“Yes,” agreed Mr. Yotsuda happily. “Not begin!”
“Ah so desuka?” This is the Japanese equivalent of “You don’t say?” “Why not—begin?”
“Ah—now New Year!” Mr. Yotsuda seemed vastly surprised at my ignorance.
“But, Yotsuda-san, New Year—three days before!”
“Ah, yes!” agreed Mr. Yotsuda. “Also today—and tomorrow—and tomorrow.” His gestures indicated a vast array of tomorrows. “Many, many days.”
So I learned a new thing about Japan—that New Year’s is not a day, it is a season.
However, when we visited the yard again, together, late in January, things looked more promising. Much lumber had been assembled; nearby were many curved logs of keyaki, comparable to oak, from which the frames would be made. Set upon a foundation near the shore was a massive log of kuromatsu (black pine) which the awkward-looking adzes of the workmen were rapidly transforming into a long, gleaming white keel. As I ran my hands lovingly over the fresh, smooth wood, I knew that at last we were on the way.
The methods of the workmen never ceased to fascinate us. In one corner of the shipyard was a sight that was to become very familiar: a solemn little man in a black fur cap who, sawing horizontally with an enormous curved saw, steadily, day after day, reduced huge logs to two-inch planks. Every bit of lumber on our boat was to be hand sawn. All the workmen handled their tools with consummate skill, an ease which was deceptive when one tried to use the same instrument. For example, after the deck had been laid they smoothed it to perfection by removing almost transparently thin shavings with the swing of an adze—an operation in which a fraction too much follow-through would have removed a toe or a miscalculation in depth would have left an ugly gouge. Neither gruesome alternative ever happened.
The men worked mainly by eye, even when operating within the confines of measurements, but the completed job was always amazingly accurate. An example was the fitting of the planking which, forced into position by huge vises, was fastened to the frames with handmade, hot-dipped galvanized boat spikes, through-bolted at the butts, and then, for additional strength, edge-nailed from the inside. The planking was begun from the bottom up and completed from the top down. It remains one of the mysteries of the inscrutable East how that last plank was so cut as to fit exactly into the space that awaited it. No crack of light could be seen between the finished planking, even before calking.