Lofting Death Throes

So. I've read countless books on boats over the years, and they all unanimously agree that transoms suck. Or at least that they are difficult to build correctly. Now i know why, as our last lofting task was the development of a curved transom. The transom is the flat part at the ass end of the boat that happens, in this case, to curve in 2 directions.

Our instructions were as follows:





I know. "What's the big deal?" You must be thinking. That's what i thought after Tim talked at us for 2 hours about the finer points of transom development. How hard could this be? I figured at least some of it sunk in. The results:







If you look closely you will see the following: white out, pencil,red ink, green ink, blue ink, orange pencil, blue pencil, yellow pencil, blood, hairs, (long and short, of various colors), eraser shavings, dirt, broom bristles, and splinters. We were not the best at keeping our drawing clean, or at organizing our lines. Neat and tidy draftsmanship hopefully comes later in the process of lofting. Our drawing looks like someone tried to murder a couple of preschoolers with #9 finish nails.

Lessons learned:

• Choose your lofting partner wisely. My partner spent the last 2 weeks sick, hungover, tired, and otherwise disengaged. I meant to take a picture of him asleep in the middle of the loft floor at 3pm, but forgot the camera. He has mostly been engaged in a blossoming amorous affair, as evidenced by the presents left on his bike, and the blond girl working on my drawing during lunch. He's a great guy and i really like him; he just made a week's worth of decisions that impacted both of our educations negatively.
• Mark your point, then nail to the side of it so the batten fairs through it. We did a little of both. Not so good. Pretty lumpy.
• Don't buy the crappy #2 pencils from Target. I ran through a whole box of them. Literally. Like 20 pencils. They suck.
• Make 6' triangles and get a 8' straightedge. Like, today.
• Loft somewhere quiet. Or take ADD medicine. I wanted to kill people by the end of week 1. People love to talk just to hear their head rattle.
• Make a t-shirt that says: "Personal bubble 3' Diameter, Minimum. Do not enter. 5' diameter if you are fu&*^%g annoying." Wear shirt every day. I couldn't tell you how many people stepped on me or my battens, swung their battens around and swatted me with them, or generally tried to stand in the middle of my drawing and bullshit with me while i was trying to concentrate on something complicated. Similar to the drafting exercise, except now instead of standing over my shoulder looking at my drawing, they could stand IN my freakin drawing and ask me how i like my hand plane. I paid 200 flippin dollars for it. I like it fine. What's that got to do with this 20' stick I'm trying to wrangle???
• Research the boat you are going to loft. It helps to know what the hell you are drawing. I didn't. Now i do.

Though you might not believe it, given the volume and vehemence of this last rant, i really enjoyed lofting. I've been wanting to understand it for about 7 years, and now most of the mystery is solved. I'm sure I'll pick up tricks for years to come, but at least i have a great foundation to build upon.

Monday we actually get to start building a BOAT. Seriously. A 14' skiff of simple construction. Of course, we were told that the dudes who started the boat school, the Prothero brothers, could build one of these in a DAY. At age 10. Then i asked, "how long is it going to take us?"

Tim says, "About 2 weeks."

Nice.

But first...we have to loft it.