Interview
"The sea taught me patience": a conversation with a boat builder
In a shed at the end of North Quay, Marta Solberg builds wooden boats by hand, as her father and grandfather did. Each one takes about a year.
The shed smells of tar and fresh-cut larch. Half-finished frames stand along one wall like the ribs of a whale, and the radio plays quietly in a corner, always tuned to the shipping forecast.
"People ask why I do not use machines for everything," she says. "Some things you can only feel with your hands: how the wood wants to bend, where it will be strong."
She learned the trade at fourteen, sweeping the floor and sharpening tools, before her father let her shape her first plank. "He said I wasted half a tree that day. He was right."
Today her boats sail all along the coast, and a few have crossed oceans. Each carries a small carved kittiwake on the stern, her only signature.
Her waiting list is three years long. She does not plan to work any faster.
The shed smells of tar and fresh-cut larch. Half-finished frames stand along one wall like the ribs of a whale, and the radio plays quietly in a corner, always tuned to the shipping forecast.
"People ask why I do not use machines for everything," she says. "Some things you can only feel with your hands: how the wood wants to bend, where it will be strong."
She learned the trade at fourteen, sweeping the floor and sharpening tools, before her father let her shape her first plank. "He said I wasted half a tree that day. He was right."
Today her boats sail all along the coast, and a few have crossed oceans. Each carries a small carved kittiwake on the stern, her only signature.
Her waiting list is three years long. She does not plan to work any faster.
