The first step to covering the boat was to get the basket out of the ground and tidy up its edges!
Traditional boats were covered in animal skins that were applied white they were still wet, fresh from the body! they would then shrink during the drying process to create a hard water tight covering for the boat. The cow skins that we used were washed and cleaned prior to handing. How many cow skins does it take to cover a Neolithic boat?
The larger skins had to be sown together using traditional methods, but first the smaller skins had to be cut into strips so that the skins could be tied onto the boat.
The next step was to stitch the large cow hides together to make enough to cover the whole boat.
Now it wasn’t easy getting those cow hides to come together! We had at least one needle go through a finger! and a had to take turns getting the stitching done. At first the cow hides were also quite smelly (not in a bad way but smelt a bit like a butchers!). Luckily the smell clung to everything so you soon got used to it!
Now to cover the boat!
Part three? what we did when it was finished!