People should never achieve their dreams. Perhaps they are the unattainable ephemera of our lives, wisps of smoke, never intended to be grasped. We builders of boats make the terrible mistake of attempting to solidify these wisps, thereby defying the nature of the universe. Renting great swaths through the fabric of the cosmos, much like supernovas, which flare for a brief period, then wane, we begin construction. Maybe this will die out before completion. For some, it does. All are not intended to construct plywood catamarans. The smart dreamers continue to dream, simply moving to new dreams such as hiking the Appalachian trail. We stupid ones latch onto the process like a snapping turtle that never lets go. Hopefully we finish before life hacks off our snapping turtle heads. Ben said this week that the hardest part of this process is dealing with the heartbreak piled upon heartbreak. He discovered that the inadequate tarp covering the port hull had allowed water to fill up the bilges in the central cabin. How long was it in there we don't know. He pumped out 20 gallons of smelly water, dead bugs and detritus. We had a couple days off while tropical storm, Bill, wandered past with a general rainy days. I wonder if it was a full hurricane, would they have named it "William"? As a result, Ben had to pump out another 20 gallons of water.,
That said, we need a break. Things are pressing at home. I need to visit a friend while I can. We are taking a couple weeks off to recharge and work up the courage to press on (wax on, wax off). We mostly worked on the heartbreak items this week. Budge worked on the stern. Rather than attempt to torture a stiff 9mm piece of ply, we decided that two 4mm pieces would bend easier (4+4=9, right, huh, right? Sure!) So he cut two sheets and coated them.
Ben coated the stringers.
Applying glue...
Nailing in the first 4mm sheet
And immediately screwing the second, glue coated panel over the top of the first.
He let that set up for the two rain days.
Then they did the same thing to the other side. The thing about plywood boats is that they are repairable
The Brown Recluse, AKA Boatergirl, emerged to film the process........
Turns out, the other side looked just like the other side..........................................Huh?
We had many opportunities for bowelship language this week. Ben worked on hatch coamings. Inside with the temperature in the shade at 98°.
Most of the time he was inside the hull (well over 100°). He cut some reinforcing blocks for the corners.
Me? I started the week out by chiseling out the mortise for the spline joint.
I decided to repair the second rudder with a lap joint. Same thing, only different.
Here are the two joints side by side.
Ben helped me glue up the two rudders. In the heat, using two batches of epoxy with the rudders fighting us all the way. Much suppressed rage and bowelship vocabulary (a pox on epoxy- hate it).
More things to do on these. The last two days I worked on the starboard hull. I sanded.
And sanded.
And sanded.
Lemmesee, that's 38 ft. long, 2½ ft. wide, 2 sides: 38X2½X2= A LOT! The next process will be a skim coat of fairing compounding followed by sanding the damn thing again/ Oh Boy! My arms feel like noodles! I am itchy from the microshards of fiberglass embedded in my skin. Boatbuilding sure am glamorous stuff, no one in their right mind would do this. Oh, never mind, I'm not.
Every time we want to work on the hulls, we have to take the tarps off. If it looks like rain, we have to put them back on. Ben calls it the tarp Hokey Pokey. "You put the left tarp on, you take the left tarp off and you shake it all about". Oh, yeah, thanks for the comments .....................don't you guys have something better to do with your time than read this feeble attempt at communication................................ like removing lint from your navel?
This is boater kid, "Grin", and I tying strings on sticks to support the six tomato plants in my bucket garden. If they don't grow, then buck it!
And this is the tomato hornworm that ate 2/3rds of one plant. I put him on a nearby tree, only to find him making a beeline back toward the tomatoes. I tossed him further away. So keep doing the Hokey Pokey out there because that's what it's all about.
The Music♫: The Blue Nile "A walk Across the Rooftops"
A pleasant discovery.
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