Building the Tocorimé
Where to Start: 14/05/1994 - After 6 years of preparations, finally, starting! When you walk out of the airplane you realise that you´re really going to do it and full of energy & enthusiasme you start organising things. A place to life was first priority. The guy in charge of the beach said we could built the house close to the spot where the Tocorimé will arrise and there you start hammering, not knowing that the landowner is a completely different person!
No worries, in the Amazone life is not so harsh and as long as you don´t take the house with you when you leave, it´s ok! Like this, most of things are solved and gives a tranquilo atmosphere. Same thing when you start talking with carpenters and the wood-delivery-guys. The carpenters think you are crazy when you ask them to work for you. Holding the building drawing up side down, they don´t have an idea how or what you´re talking about! They are used to their normal local river boats and when suddenly two masts are arising 30 meters above decklevel, they are lost. In the beginning there was only 1 young carpenters apprentice who dared to try it out.... Later, after haven seen how things worked out, all of the carpenters wanted to work for "the biggest ship ever built in the Amazone".
To get your wood delivered is a seperate adventure. You have to calculate in palmas, explain them the inmence sizes and weights of each piece and the necessity of bringing góód wood. Not easy and of the first 40 ton of wood for the ribs, we returned almost 15 tons..... No worries again because our sizes are outragious for their standards and other boatbuilders could always use our rejected pieces.
For the bigger and more important parts you go together with them. Calle has spent months in the the middle of the deep rainforest, together with a group of local "materos" looking for the wright trees. If you find a nice tree, the matero makes a cut in the tree and smells if it isn´t rotten; a very effective way of forest-preservation! If the three is ok, the matero climbs in the tree untill the part where it starts to bend. He "palms" himself downward and you have the main facts of the tree. If everything turns out to be ok, the matero calls 20 of his friends and start cutting. It´s amazing how they work with the concienceness of the surrounding trees and plants; a good example for the rest of the world!
The keel of 2,5 ton Ipé (known as "Pau D´Arco" which means literaly "wood of the bow") took 3,5 months and 25 caboclos to pull the tree by hand on a narrow path cut thru the jungle. To transport the keel back to Santarém, you tie it up to the little river boat and pull it alongside but then the keel is too heavy and needed counterweight on the other side.... You have to be inventive when you built a boat in the jungle and like this, every piece of the boat has it´s own story!
Building by hand! - You have got your first tons of wood, the molds are made from the alternative mold-table and the "ichô" (adze) is sharp. You draw every night after dark the simplified sketches and the three carpenters and their four helpers are ready to go. They amaze you with the easy they work with the different species of wood. Their knowledge has been passed over for centuries from father to son and left us dazling once and a while. Their craftmenship is incredible; they use their handtools like you button your shirt and it makes you think about boatbuilding in the 17-th century. That shows in, for example, the connections of the main construction parts which are made entirely on the old-days principles. Nowadays you use stainless steel to re-inforce the connections but in Santarém you do everything with wood and by hand. Moaçir, the first carpenter, turned out to be an artist with the ichô ánd chainsaw and if you see him working with it, your mouth falls open. He cut almost the complete Tocorimé and he must be a re-incarnated master-carpenter!
Work, Sweat & the Amazon - The Amazon has it´s seasons: rain and dry. The entire wood cutting process is based on the water-level of the rivers and with the ordering of the wood we had to follow the nature.
To get your keel for example, you need a high waterlevel to reach deep in the forest. For little pieces (still of outrages sizes for Santarém standards, you can go almost all the year and as we started in May, in the middle of the rainseason and the rivers are starting to fill up, we had to start with the timber for the ribs. We needed 60 tons of rectangular pieces of "Itauba Preta" ('Mezilaurus Itauba'), one of worlds best specie for naval and durable construction. They needed to be almost three meters long; almost 200 kg a piece! Cut by hand, transported by hand, put on the work-spot by hand and smoothened by hand with the ichô and at the end; put together by hand. You make two big huge towers who moves along the lenght of the ship to lift all the -incredible- heavy parts on the keel. And you learn how to fold straw to make the roofs for the little seperate work-spots to get away from the inmense heat and sun. It´s all a matter of no money and creative solutions to adapt to the local situation; no-budget building on the beach!
A Jungle Beast - During the fabrication of the ribs, the huge keel is being prepared. One of the historical moments is when you mounted the first rib on the keel and when it sits fine and firm, after two days blood, sweat and tears you allow yourself a few ice-colds beers!
Whatta mighty view and whatta a mighty feeling, your first rib is on! Then it goes relatively quick: after the first one, comes the next and the next and the next one. With every rib you see bit by bit the shape coming into the Tocorimé; and what a marvelous kind of a shape!
At the end you put all the ribs on the huge keel and it seems like a gigant dinosaurus in the middle of the trees..... This is where you have been dreaming about for so long! This is what has driven you all the time; all the problems, headaches and sacrifices instantly turn into a smile from ear to ear, Oh Gloria!
Also with the bow and mirrow, it´s a matter of "just doing it". A lot of studying and drawing, recalculating and drawing again. You have to have courage and faith to make a mirrow in three dimensions round, without the necessary experience but you rely on yourself, on the carpenters and on the stars. When you finally mount it, it looks like the dino went thru a facelift and looks better then ever and with everything you put on, the Tocorimé looks sharper and sharper.
Hull Finished! - With the bow and ass on, you can start with another historical moment: planking. Whow, the carpenters make their bends and twists on the planks only by their eyes... a thing you really have to get used to: upto the last plank you´re still suprised when a plank goes on without having it cut twice! It´s really amazing...!
The biggest advantage of building in the forest is the supply of incredible wood. It´s also hard to work because when you have the opportunity to get planks from 12 meters you go for it, thinking only of the quality of the planking process but not of the weight of each plank! Holy Mo, they are heavy, especially when you have to carry them up the scarefolding, a piece of local art without too many thoughts about stability or whatsoever.
All those planks (more then 2 kilometers) went up there, together with the more then 40.000 nails and screws and you see one of the best movies of your life: planking the hull of the Tocorimé! With self welded steel clamps to keep the wood on the right places, sledgehammers to drive the nails, drilling the screw-holes by hand, and and and... Spielberg couldn´t think of it!
Floating! - The four men couldn´t hold it any longer and couldn´t be stopped anymore: after planking the hull, the date was set for the launching: 14 may 1999. Exactly after 5 years of building the Tocorimé would have her first taste of the sweet and warm water of the Tapajos! YES!
The group worked like ants to get it all on time because the river would be on the highest level during that period and prosponing a month could mean prosponing a year. The caulking and painting, the deckbeams on and making the structure for the deckhouses, entrances and maststeps. They calculated their "entire" budget to the last penny, only to get the Tocorimé in the water: it´s now or never!
They invited family and friends, sponsors and press, vip´s and official persons and organised a launching-party not to forget anymore! A priest to baptise the Tocorime and a folkoric dansgroup filled up the huge crowd on the little beach during the launching. National and international press registrated how the Tocorimé pushed the three bulldozers till their limits to push her in the water. Family cried of happiness. When she went, the shoutings and chears where heard in Manaus, the nearest city 800 kilometers upstream...
She went well but wanted to show that´s she is a lady to treat well: for two hours she stayed stuck, didn´t want to move an inch. Then she decided it was time and slided like a princess in style to her new surrounding; whatta incredible experience!! And yes sir, she floated. She floated so beautifully, exactly the way the guys had guessed she would! The waterline can´t fool nobody but nobody had to be fooled: straight on her mark!! Everybody hugging, crying, laughing, shitting their pants, pissing their undies and I don´t know what a human can do of happiness... the 4 men finally could hop on their boat and float. Not sailing yet but finally floating, after 11 years...