At four in the afternoon on the twenty-third day, the cutting of the first main flexible sleeve began on the long floor of Weaving Barn Number Two.
Pella used Jo Saye’s cardboard templates. She and Master Dima traced the six curved cone-shaped segments onto the heavy reed canvas with white soapstone chalk. Behind them came eight master seamstresses armed with heavy iron cutting shears, the blades crunching through the six plies of resin-scented cloth with crisp, steady strokes.
The pieces were laid out along the floor, fitting together with clean, steady care into a tapering metal tube twenty-four inches in width and twelve feet long. The women knelt on leather pads, their copper palms driving the heavy three-sided sail needles through the layers. They set the thick Bulldog Seams in rhythmic, timed together rhythm.
Pella walked the line with her brass measuring tongs, checking the overlap on every joint. The smell of hot pine pitch, beeswax, and damp reed fiber was rich and comforting. It filled the stone barn with the clear air of a royal shipyard preparing a fleet for sea.
‘Sleeve Number One is sewn,’ Master Dima announced, cutting the final thread with his teeth and smoothing the thick waxed seam with a bone folder. ‘Twelve feet of sound reed cloth, heavy with sixty yards of Bulldog stitching. Take it to the high-pressure test bench, lads. Let’s see how our bulldog swims.’
