Spring Fever

Its been a busy month. Spring has sprung here in the Pacific Northwest! Its all the way up to 44 degrees, and raining. Maybe I got spoiled during my fabulous spring break visit to Erwin, Tn, and Baltimore, Md. Flowers in full bloom, sunny and 75 degrees. It was an excellent trip. 

Ok, I can't really complain: it was sunny and 65 all weekend as i frantically rigged, rerigged, derigged and re-rerigged the Widowmaker. These things take time, apparently. You may be thinking: "I've heard about all this rigging  before...". Turns out, a gaff rigged mainsail has extra lines I'm not used to, and a pesky 6 foot bowsprit adds an extra line to every jib, therefore, I had to add extra cleats and route all this line somewhere sensible. I mean, are YOU going to climb out to the end of a whacking great long bouncy stick to untie a knot so you can pull a piece of canvas the size of a barn door back into the boat? Me neither. This means you have to tie a line to the tip of the sail to fish it back in. I did, however, during one of our test runs shimmy out to the tip of the boat to untie the "hankie" (a handkerchief sized jib producing little speed, but much stability). Of course, we were headed right for the bank, and Wayne-o had to tack the boat. I had to slide between the jib and the main. It was graceless and tangled, riddled with spitting and cursing, but finally effective.

Pictures? What pictures. I have no photos of all this nonsense, as i left my camera on the beach while we were launching this boat on Friday.

 Its a Whitehall rowing skiff. It was the "water taxi" of the 19'th century. I was responsible for painting it. Again and again and again. We painted it three times as various critics didn't like the color, or the gloss, or the semigloss, or the matte...you name it. Then we scored the perfect coat, and dropped it in the gravel. Best day EVER. After sanding and filling for 3 more days, we got a final paint job that looked great. We stuck it in the water while trying not to drag it on the beach, and then abut 34 people rowed it around and pulled it back up to the dock. Miraculously, not a scratch.
I was very pleased.

Getting our bearings. Turns out, you actually have to move the silly long sticks in UNISON. Who knew?

I got to sit in back and scream "row!" at Jack and Greg. Ok. Not really. I just went for the ride. Turns out, some very kind person put my camera on a t-shirt my pal left on the beach, and he brought my camera back to me. Hence the uploading of these pics.

Monday, we had a whiskey plank party. Yes. We do that a whole bunch.

This is the Grandy skiff. Its the rowing version, while the other shop is making the sailing version. I built the keel assembly, transom, and installed a few planks. My pal Eric made the stem assembly and installed some planks. We figure if we work on frames and furniture inside, we can claim about 75 percent of a boat. Pretty good experience, given class size and number of ongoing projects.

This is my current project. A mast for a Sid Skiff. The Sid Skiff is a boat that ninja Ray drew plans for. Its a beautiful boat, and Commander Wiggleberry and i may build one one day when we actually have a steady job. Hmm. I'm a dirtbag, and likely to remain one for some time to come. So much for a Sid skiff.

Also, in case you want to make a round tapered stick really round, you'll need one of these. It would also be good to have a bottle of ibuprofen, preferably the maximum strength kind, and maybe strong masochistic tendencies. If not, at least a good dose of self-loathing.

Yep. That's a plywood handle screwed to a belt sander belt. Oh yeah. I love sanding by hand. Maybe sometime next spring it will be round. Still beats working for a living! Wait...I'm paying to do this...