Saturday, January 24, 2009
Not much to report lately
I haven't had much to add here since the boat was finished. I added a link to my boat building pictures on flickr. I am thinking about building a rowing shell next, but I am not sure if that will be in the budget this year. There are some other woodworking projects I might tackle first.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Finally Logged More Sail Time
I spent somewhere between 150 and 300 hours building the boat, but until this week I only had her under sail twice. I have had her out rowing quite a bit, mostly at night, but sailing is a daytime activity requiring certain weather conditions and a certain amount of energy on my part to take everything out of the boat house, rig and un-rig. This week I am free from the exhaustion of my regular routine.
Yesterday I took a friend of mine and his dog out in the boat. I had my qualms about the dog. I left my own dog on shore, but Middy the Blue Heeler did alright. It did prevent my human passenger from reaching his full first mate and ballast potential. I think our center of gravity was too far forward, but couldn't be altered much because of the dog placement. We got into some weird wind situations. There was a dead zone near my part of the shore and the wind around it blew away from the shore, it took us an hour of tacking back and forth to get home, and we eventually broke out the oars as dinner time approached. No rain was in the forecast, so I left the mast up.
Today, I looked out on a perfect glass lake. It was dead calm. Leaving the mast up seemed to be a guaranteed method of wind reduction. The day wore on and around 2:30 in the afternoon, I saw tiny waves on the lake. The wind was picking up. I watched the wind and debated rigging the boat for about half an hour, then finally decided to go for it. I hauled the yard, the sails, the boom, rudder, the dagger board, and the ropes out of the boat house and down to the shore. I hoisted the sails, and tied the dozen or so knots.
The wind died again of course, as soon as I tied the last knot. My ability to control the weather though irony was not a comfort. At this point though I was determined. The lake wasn't completely glass like it had been earlier, even though there was no noticable wind. I put the oars in the boat and decided to try. If I ended up drifing around the middle of the lake and looking stupid, so be it.
This was my first solo trip sailing the PMD. Launching was a pain. I have no dock, so I have to puch to boat out, get in the boat, deploy the dagger board, and push down the rudder while managing the ropes. I pretty much immediately eneded up in my neighbor's cattails, but I pused myself out of them with an oar and into the open, but more or less still water, but then miracle of miracles, the boat was actually moving. The performance of the boat in light (almost non-existent) wind with just me and no passenger was amazing. It was actually moving, at maybe one or two knots, but still, given that there was no percievable wind to a dry human being, and that the tell tales were limp, I was just amazed. As I got out into the deeper waters of the middle of the lake the wind picked up just a little, and the manueverability was incredible. People are ok and all (sometimes) but 200lbs less ballast in your small wooden sail boat is a nice thing.
Yesterday I took a friend of mine and his dog out in the boat. I had my qualms about the dog. I left my own dog on shore, but Middy the Blue Heeler did alright. It did prevent my human passenger from reaching his full first mate and ballast potential. I think our center of gravity was too far forward, but couldn't be altered much because of the dog placement. We got into some weird wind situations. There was a dead zone near my part of the shore and the wind around it blew away from the shore, it took us an hour of tacking back and forth to get home, and we eventually broke out the oars as dinner time approached. No rain was in the forecast, so I left the mast up.
Today, I looked out on a perfect glass lake. It was dead calm. Leaving the mast up seemed to be a guaranteed method of wind reduction. The day wore on and around 2:30 in the afternoon, I saw tiny waves on the lake. The wind was picking up. I watched the wind and debated rigging the boat for about half an hour, then finally decided to go for it. I hauled the yard, the sails, the boom, rudder, the dagger board, and the ropes out of the boat house and down to the shore. I hoisted the sails, and tied the dozen or so knots.
The wind died again of course, as soon as I tied the last knot. My ability to control the weather though irony was not a comfort. At this point though I was determined. The lake wasn't completely glass like it had been earlier, even though there was no noticable wind. I put the oars in the boat and decided to try. If I ended up drifing around the middle of the lake and looking stupid, so be it.
This was my first solo trip sailing the PMD. Launching was a pain. I have no dock, so I have to puch to boat out, get in the boat, deploy the dagger board, and push down the rudder while managing the ropes. I pretty much immediately eneded up in my neighbor's cattails, but I pused myself out of them with an oar and into the open, but more or less still water, but then miracle of miracles, the boat was actually moving. The performance of the boat in light (almost non-existent) wind with just me and no passenger was amazing. It was actually moving, at maybe one or two knots, but still, given that there was no percievable wind to a dry human being, and that the tell tales were limp, I was just amazed. As I got out into the deeper waters of the middle of the lake the wind picked up just a little, and the manueverability was incredible. People are ok and all (sometimes) but 200lbs less ballast in your small wooden sail boat is a nice thing.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sail
I finally got the sails on the boat a couple weeks ago. I have a harrowing tail of maritime adventure that involves turnbuckles, and some strange stories about the dagger board. I am way too tired from rigging the boat, sailing the boat, unrigging the boat and building another large wooden thing in my garage to elaborate on those things tonight.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Don't Buy Foam Brushes at Walmart!
I bring you this warning as a public service. Not all disposable foam brushes are created equal, and the foam brushes from Walmart are absoulte crap. I put on my first coat of varnish yesterday with my last two foam brushes from Home Depot. That evening, I went to my local Walmart store and I bought 8 foam brushes, which I thought would get me through the next two coats and then some. That was incredibly optomistic.
The heads start to fall off the sticks after you cover about two square feet of surface. I was able to extend the life of them a little by almost ignoring the stick entirely and gripping the foam protion in my fingers. Even the foam would start to break down eventually. I went through all eight brushes for one coat.
Tonight I went to the Home Depot and stocked up. I think their foam brushes are a whopping 5 cents more than the ones at Walmart. It is typical of Walmart to provide the absolute cheapest product in every way, in the form of the lowest price and the lowest quality. I feel a full blown 1,000 word anti-Walmart rant coming on, so I will stop now.
The heads start to fall off the sticks after you cover about two square feet of surface. I was able to extend the life of them a little by almost ignoring the stick entirely and gripping the foam protion in my fingers. Even the foam would start to break down eventually. I went through all eight brushes for one coat.
Tonight I went to the Home Depot and stocked up. I think their foam brushes are a whopping 5 cents more than the ones at Walmart. It is typical of Walmart to provide the absolute cheapest product in every way, in the form of the lowest price and the lowest quality. I feel a full blown 1,000 word anti-Walmart rant coming on, so I will stop now.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sanding and Varnish
Sanding the interior before the first coat of varnish was a lot of work. I put in about 6 hours of sanding today, and that was with the seats, bulkheads and most of the strakes already sanded. The bottom was messy, even worse than the exterior. I definitely didn't get it perfect. If I had gone after every little imperfection, I would have really ate into to the fiber glass. My fiber glassing skills need improvement. After all that sanding, I took a nap.
After I woke up in the late afternoon, I called my Dad to help me take the boat outside to hose off all the epoxy dust. That wasn't too difficult.
Then I started applying the varnish. I poured some varnish into a plastic cup grabbed my foam brush, and got to work. At first it was peaceful, calm, and controlled. I started at the back of the boat. I set the cup of varnish down on the back seat. I leaned over to work on the bottom and then disaster struck. The boat tilted and the cup of varnish spilled. I grabbed a towel and started mopping it up. Then I quickly tried to spread out what was left over with my foam brush. I got varnish all over my hands and my quick, brutal brushing took a toll on the brush. After I recovered from a varnishing the boat perspective, I tried to get the stuff off of my hands. Latex gloves would have been in order for varnishing.
After scrubbing the varnish and a few layers of skin off of my hands, I finished the varnishing. The insident through me off though, and I was hurried and frustrated. It was also getting dark. After I was done, I noticed I missed a few spots. Fortunately it is one coat of many.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Paint
I have two coats of paint on now in addition to the primer. I bought two one quart cans of Interlux white paint, but I have only used one of them. I have been considering a 3rd and/or 4th coat or saving that can and seeing how it holds up then using it for a minor refinishing if needed. I hate to waste anything that costs $34 a quart. Maybe I will split the difference and just give the bottom panels an extra coat, since they will be getting the most wear and tear.
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