The Cocoon

In the end, with our neighbor busy supporting his wife as she had their first child - a beautiful little girl - and then staying in the hospital with them until they could all come home on Wed., David was able to turn the boat-shaped-object over himself. I took on the task of covering it with the new tarp. I draped the big blue tarp over the hull end-to-end and then pinned up the sides so that they are off the ground and shouldn't catch water/snow, but still will let air circulate under the hull. She now does look like a big blue cocoon. I'll get out and take a photo and post it.

Now the winter tasks need to get queued up: joining the 2 pieces of the mast, likewise boom, preparing the tiller, preparing the rudder, preparing the daggerboard, preparing the mast-step, etc. We'll get to them, but not immediately After all, it's still fall and warm-ish and lovely out. The best time to walk in the woods, feel frosty air, smell wood smoke wafting from neighbors' homes. Time enough to work on boat items when it's hunker-down-cold out.

Sunday November 8th

We went to Ben's yesterday afternoon and brought the boat-shaped-object back here. We still need to find someone to help David flip it over (because I just had surgery, I can't do that right now) so we can store it for the winter upside down. I bought a new tarp to cover it, but nonetheless, I think it's better if it is upside down, especially since we did have a chance to put another layer of epoxy over the entire outside hull. By keeping it upside down and covered, it will be dry but with enough air circulating under it to help avoid mold, etc.

Ben and Winnie graciously invited us to come back in the spring and use their garage again to finish the boat. They are both generous and very kind people.

Seeing the boat-shaped-object on the trailer in the backyard again, I am struck by how large it seems. Only 15 feet in length, but she isn't a tiny dingy. I see her lines and my imagination stirs; I think of how she will heel in a stiff breeze, what it will be like to sit inside her, hold the mainsheet and the tiller and skim over the water.

Meanwhile, perhaps our neighbor Ross will be around and able to help David flip the boat-shaped-object over. Then I'll set about securing the brand new tarp in place to keep her safe and dry through the coming months.

Fair winds!

Winter is coming

Well, it's October 17 but it's been unseasonably cold. Looks like no more work on the boat-shaped-object this fall. David and I talked about it and decided we'll bring the boat back here, store it on the trailer in the backyard, well covered, over the winter. Meanwhile, hopefully we can complete all of the other piece-work - glue the 2 mast pieces together and then sand, shape, epoxy, and varnish the mast. Likewise the rudder and the daggerboard. Quite a bit of work we can do in the basement.

I want to buy new tarps to make sure that when we bring the boat back here and cover it, it stays ventilated but dry.

That's it for now. Darn winter weather...

October 11 photos

More photos taken October 11, from underneath the upturned hull, showing the work I did the 2 previous weekends.

And another.

Sunday October 11, 2009

First, I took a couple of photos – of the hull and also from underneath the hull, of some of the underneath work I did last week and the week before. This is mid-way in the work we did today.

We (David & I) worked on the boat for about an hour this afternoon. I mixed batch after batch (probably 5?) of epoxy, while David used a roller to lay the epoxy mix on the outside hull panels. I’m a little concerned about how cold it was, and the effect on the mixed epoxy, but David seemed fairly confident that it will set okay. As a precaution, we brought the epoxy containers home to keep them in the apartment rather than in the unheated garage a friend (Ben) is letting me use to work on the boat.

Since Ben’s garage, where we’re working, is unheated, I think we’re just on the cusp of it being too cold to do much more work involving epoxy or paint, etc. David’s suggestion is that we try to put one more coat of epoxy on the outside of the hull. Let that dry. Flip the boat over and put at least one, preferably 2 coats of epoxy on the inside. Then bring the boat home, park it on the trailer in our apartment building parking lot, cover it well and leave it for the winter. (We both think it would be good to move the boat out of Ben’s garage for the winter, so the garage is available to his family, and then maybe borrow the space again next spring for a couple of weeks.)

We can then keep working over the winter on the other parts that need to be finished – the mast, the boom, the dagger board, the rudder, the sprit spar and so on. Some need to be epoxied – like the 2 pieces to the mast – all need sanding and finishing, probably varnish for most except the bottom of the rudder and dagger boards. But all of that work can be done in the basement of our apartment building, which is warm enough (just not big enough for the whole boat-shaped-object to get in and out of, which we learned the hard way, having carried the hull from the parking lot to the basement entrance and tried unsuccessfully to get the hull through: 57-1/2 inches will not fit through a 56 inch opening, in case anyone was wondering about that).

So, although I love crisp fall weather, I am now keeping my fingers crossed for warm days for the next 2 weeks.

July 2 2009

Okay - I haven't figured out this BLOG business yet, and I want to post some pics from the week-long course at Wooden Boat School, so these are going to be out of chronological order. Sorry! Here is the boat-shaped object toward the end of the

week at Wooden Boat School. This is the morning after we glued the rail to the hull and fastened it with clamps. Lots of clamps.

Still, when I got my boat-shaped object home,

I learned that the rail had split at the widest part of the hull. One of the first things we did was to mix a glue-type epoxy (2 types of slow-hardening epoxy and the white stuff), slather it on the split rail and clamp it down. It came out fine.

Sunday October 4, 2009

Boat still upside down from work doing fillets under seats last week. Checked them. Used a file and sandpaper-on-a-stick to smooth the edges of ports into the forward and aft storage areas. Likewise smoothed the edges of the through-way under the middle seat. Cut out some fiberglass bubbles and rough edges and sanded some. Realized I hadn’t done fillets under the breastplates last week. Mixed clear epoxy and used foam brush to coat the smoothed port edges of the storage areas. Mixed fillet epoxy and did the fillets under the breastplates. (Found the smaller fillet stick David had made; worked much better than the ones I used last week.) Meanwhile, David cut out a few fiberglass bubbles from the outside of the hull. I then took clear epoxy and covered the bare areas that resulted. He also did some sanding on the hull.

He did not want to start putting on the first epoxy coat on the outside hull. Said he might come back Monday and do it.