Shipwrights at the Hardanger Maritime Museum in Norheismund, Norway, always have an interesting project or two going on in the boat shop, but their latest project — a gorgeous church boat — caught our attention on YouTube this week.
Instead of using oakum (a hemp-based product) or cotton to seal up the gaps between the wooden planks, shipwrights visited a local dairy farm to harvest some bovine fur. This video shows how they twist the hair into caulking before setting it in pitch between the wood planks.
History tells us that animal fur has been used in boatbuilding since Medieval times.
