Forcola Repair

photos by Nereo Zane

While shooting photos of the pupparin project at the GSVVM, Nereo noticed a broken forcola in the process of repair.

Sometimes it's a flaw in the wood,
sometimes it's a flaw in the oarsman,
but for whatever reason, now and then these things can break.

I've often said that the most crucial piece of wood in Venetian rowing is the naselo de soto, which is the only thing standing between you and spontaneous baptism.
Without that little upward-jutting piece at the base of the morso, we'd all be falling in the water.

So what do you do when you've lost the most important little chunk of wood on the boat?
you scarf one in. First you cut out some of the forcola, in a way that's easy to replicate with your replacement wood.
Notice that Sr. Marcuzzi has chosen the ever-popular triangle as his shape.
I like to call it the "wedge of cheese" cut.
Next he devised a clever way to use clamps in order to force the new piece down into the cut while the glue dried and hardened.
After that came the sculpting.
And to finish things off, some drilling, screw setting, plugging and faring.

And here's the result.

I've seen a lot of these repair jobs, they don't always come out looking good, but this one is beautiful.