Back at home he began cobbling together a rudder out of planks leftover from the supply he’d used to build the shed. At first it seemed straightforward: saw pieces into shape, nail and glue them together, emulate the rudder he’d sketched in the boatyard. But he couldn’t achieve the right shape; the planks were of varying widths, and no matter how carefully he measured them against each other, he couldn’t cut them into complementary segments. Chiselling their ends after they’d been sawn made it worse. He had no aptitude for the delicacy of the work, the carefulness of it. Toothy wounds splintered all over his creations.

He tried tracing an outline of a rudder on the floor of the shed, so he had a guide to cut against. This made planning easier, although his sawing refused to improve. Eventually he thought he’d brought something useful together, something that might work. But when he lifted it from the floor he saw that it was misshapen and ugly. The combination of its planks had looked sound, but when tested against gravity they began to come undone. Light showed through wide gaps. The nails holding it together creaked against cracked apertures.

He was holding the rough mess of it in his hands when Jackbird returned, now in the company of his father. They were approaching the shore through the scrub. With them was Ned’s own father. Ned put down his tools. Straightened up. Thought about saying something, but didn’t. Chose to let the boat speak for itself.

Both fathers went straight to the shed. Jackbird’s rubbed his chin, whistled like his son had, swore that it couldn’t be the same boat they’d seen at Falmouth’s. Ned’s father only lifted an eyebrow. After their inspection they agreed that the boat seller was right: the wood could only be Huon pine. It must have come from the far southwest, the only place it grew, a great rough place of screaming winds and wilderness kings. The best kind of wood for building boats on the planet, Jackbird’s father said. Ancient and slow-growing, uncorruptible by salt or water, impervious to the attention of insects, ever moist with oils that repelled all elements. Not a true pine, as definitions went, but something older and rarer. A species whose trees could live for thousands of years, if axes and fire didn’t find them. A light timber, almost airy in weight, that nosed through water like a hunting shark. A treasured material only master builders were given access to. Loggers had another name for it: green gold.