The Wherewithal

Starting to build one of these boats is easy. Then unforeseen forces weave their skein into the tapestry of reality. The costs mount, the time envisioned triples, the resolute becomes the complacent. Yet there it sits for the world to observe, a monument to your folly. It doesn't take a special person to build one of these. It takes the wherewithal to carry it to fruition.  Going in, you don't know if you have it. You don't even know that you need it. Then suddenly it smacks you in the face. Every morning I drag myself out there and start something. Every afternoon I want to stop. It is my least productive time. I summon the wherewithal to plod on, selecting the tasks that require less cogitation and more autonomic action. I do something. I don't want to, but what's that got to do with it?

And a thanks to the long lost Nick, tangled up in reality, for his comment. Live life today and enjoy it. There is only now.

So onward I limp using the shop computer with an outdated operating system and a browser that in three months will no longer support the operating system either. To prove this to me, it crashes on a regular basis. I guess I'll have to write fast.

Budge worked on the small decks between the motor boxes and the hulls, port and starboard. He laminated two long boards woth a complex angle (don't bother your pretty little heads). Basically he cut this board apart. One piece fits on the bottom of a piece of plywood and one piece glues on the hull so the deck sits flat and spans the gap between the motor boxes and the hulls (Oh, man,don't bother my pretty little head either). 

Hah! There! The deck piece sitting in place while the glue sets. Buckets of water to weigh it down and hold it in place.

See? The two pieces of wood temporarily tacked together so everything is in correct juxtaposition with the universe and each other while the glue sets. What, you cannot see the universe right there before your eyes? This is my universe.

What did I do? Holes, that's what. Mast case holes had to be enlarged a mite so the deck beams would clear the tumblehomes on the hull side. Oh fooey, I made the tops of the holes higher so you can put the beams in at a steeper angle.

I cut some rubber pads to glue to the bottom of the beams to cushion the contact surfaces.

The beams finally fit. I enlarged the holes using a multitool and Rasputin, our Shinto rasp.

I made beams for the aft deck. I'm really good at scarf (scrap) joints. I spent a lot of time sanding the aft deck slats. I'm bouncing all over the place. No that was my week

Budge finished up the port motor box flap lids. We coated the bottoms and coated and glassed the tops.

Budge said that we should have another bow roller cheek so we can have two anchors. I laminated oak and a 12 mm plywood piece together. We got an epoxy coat on one side. I spent a lot of time on the aft deck slats. Routing the edges, sanding and jamming Doug Fir splinters into my hands. Some are in there and won't come out.

Hey, I got a new camera. It's a Nikon S7000 which is a thousand mumbers higher and 2 MP more than my S6000, which has to make it better. It's a thousand more! I turned it on. Oooooooo, it's not coated with epoxy. It doesn't grind when the lens comes out. The lens cover closes all the way. I am afraid of it. I'll put it away until the other one breaks for good.

I got a new keyboard for my broken computer. It's broken. I had an emergency backup computer. It's broken. I bought a cheap garage sale lawnmower to mow around the place. It's broken.

This computer crashed about 6 times while I was writing this. It' mostly broken. I gotta go.

The Music♪: Joe Dulce "Shaddap You Face"

Hey!