Boating Plan: a

Showing posts with label a. Show all posts

Pleasant Bay and a simple rig adjustment

Last week I returned to my old stomping grounds off Harwichport / Chatham to see how the boat would strut her stuff in a little breeze. I was able to sail out to the whistle, bell, and back in no time as well as do the three harbor cruise.

Issues with the way I rigged the boat crop up gradually as the wind increases.
1. There was no way to cleat the mainsheet in without using two hands as I had failed to put a fairlead in just ahead of the clam cleats, leading to a poor lead to the cleat and too much work on the part of the skipper. Easily solved with trading out the fairleads from the rudder head for the uphaul, and the one I put on the sprit.

2. The mizzen sheet kept getting hung up on the motor, necessitating the use of a paddle to keep pushing it off the motor cowl. I added a ring on a bungee cord to the sprit and ran the sheet up through it. As the sheet tries to move outboard, the shock cord tensions and brings it inboard, thus avoiding the motor! When the sheet is tensioned, the ring moves out to allow for trim.

12 miles under the keel in a nice breeze. Looking forward to the next sail.

September 8th -

Great sail in Pleasant Bay today with another retired educator. We sailed out of Areys Pond (small fee for the ramp, but they put it in and retrieve it!). Owner, Tony Davis, and his crew run one of the best sailboat yards on Cape Cod. They specialize in Cape Cod Catboats, and have a special place on Areys Pond. It is a first class establishment.

Throughout the day, we sailed through some very skinny water only grounding out a couple of times. Lifting the board and backing the main allowed us to carry on.

The ring on the shock cord worked wonderfully! No hang ups on any of the stern fittings or motor. No stress sailing. I do need to change the clam cleats for the main to cam cleats for a more positive grip on the mainsheet. Next project!

We sailed upwind for about 2 hours, measuring 9 miles of tacking, and got as far as the entrance to Ryders Cove in Chatham before heading home. ON the way back, we took some great shortcuts that can only be done in a boat that draws 7". We sailed full blast of the eel grass, sand bars, and clam flats making short work of the trip home (40 minutes). After derigging, headed home. At times we had little wind, other times, gusts to 18kts. I cant say enough about this boat. Wish we had some pictures under way, but were too busy gabbing, eating, and just enjoying the day.

Seat Blocking Kind Words and a Testimony

Seat blocking & angle finder

My planer / jointer & a bunch of shredded mahogany

Seat Blocking?
Yesterday, I made the 2 pieces of blocking that will go under the ends of the rear thwart. Thanks to my angle finder, I knew the bevel on the blocking needed to be 15°. I cut that bevel by adjusting the fence on my planer / jointer, and running the pieces of mahogany (roughly 12” x 2” x 1” each) over it a few times. Everything looks like it should fit just fine. I’ll trim the pieces of blocking down about a half inch or so, before actually installing them.

The next step will be to remove the seat and attach some reinforcing pieces to the bottom, in an effort to straighten out the slight bend in the plywood.

Kind Words
?Earlier in the day yesterday, I had attended a funeral mass for a friend’s mother. I’m not very familiar with Catholic services, and I was sitting in the back with others who weren’t really sure when to sit, stand, or what words to repeat. Some people can feel pretty uncomfortable about that, but I find the awkwardness a little fun. Some of the rituals of the mass were similar to Episcopal services I’m more accustomed to, so it wasn’t entirely foreign to me. But ultimately, such ritualistic expressions are not the main point. “Religiousness” and “faith” are two entirely different things.

That was on my mind as I walked through the narthex, greeting old friends… many of whom I haven’t seen in a long time. One of them, who knew a bit of what I’ve been through as far as divorce, heart surgery, and other things, spoke the kindest and most affirming words to me that anyone has ever spoken. I was entirely humbled by the man’s eloquence and consideration. I was not worthy of it.

What totally floored me was when he said that, whenever he faced difficulties or hardships in his own life, he thought about me; that in doing so, he found inspiration in separating what really is, and what really is not, worth worrying about. I was speechless. I was even more speechless when he gestured toward the altar, with the crucifix on the wall above it, and said that he had no use for the supernatural, but instead found inspiration in other people. I understood, because I knew that my friend is a devout atheist… Just as I professed to be for the majority of the time he & I have known each other.

What changed?

I thought of the words of Peter: “Be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” All I could do was gesture back toward the crucifix on the wall.

A Testimony
Don’t worry. This is a boatbuilding blog, and not a platform for proselytizing or shoving religious agendas in anyone’s face. Of all people, I completely understand how irritating that is. I just wondered, how would I share with my friend who I admire and respect, the reasons I had gone from sharing his very same viewpoint to the one I hold now?

For one, there is this: Most atheists I know are very sensitive to notions of right and wrong, and are almost all advocates of kindness and social justice. From a humanist standpoint, I began to ask myself, “Where do all these sentiments of knowing good from bad, right from wrong, come from? How and why are these sentiments so innate in most people?”

You may have also heard the expression “there’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.” True enough… when most people are pushed to points of absolute desperation, why do they say phrases like “please, God… don’t let this be.” Is it only an expression? If so, why is it so instinctive, even for the non-believer, in those most desperate moments?

Also, I began to question why I had such a disdain for religion. After a lot of honest self-examination, I realized that I truly did not have a problem with a God… if there was one. Instead, I had a general disdain for “christians.” You know — those hateful, rude, self-righteous people who express their moral superiority over everyone else & tell the rest of the world they’re going to hell. Those people.

I have come to believe that “those people” with “that attitude” have done FAR more to alienate people from faith than they have done to share it.

So, at a point in one of my darker moments during the early stages of my divorce, I made a decision. I decided I would discard EVERYTHING “those people” EVER told me about God. I decided to discard every sermon, from every denomination…. every shaking, judgmental finger that had ever been pointed at me. I jettisoned it ALL.

I realized that, throughout much of human history, during times of the most corruption and evildoing in the name of God, “the church” held the power of one particular point of leverage over common people: Literacy.

Much of human history has been filled with unwritten, average, everyday people who could only dream to read. These people had to rely fully on “the church” to explain the words of the bible. With the power of literacy and the fear of a wrathful God in their hands, “the church” gained an almost absolute power over common people.

Today, we largely take literacy for granted. I realized that my impression of faith had largely been based on what I had seen and heard from “those people,” and NOT what I’d read for myself. My impression of faith had also been formed by things I’d heard and read from vociferous opponents of religion, and what THEY had to say about the bible…. NOT what I had read for myself. I had absorbed everyone’s opinions but my own. Maybe it had just been easier that way.

In any case, I decided to change it.

I discarded everyone else’s interpretations, explanations, and opinions of the bible. I bought one, and simply began reading it. It was a turning point.

Have a great day.

A kitchen scale saves the day

I took another boatbuilder’s suggestion, and bought a kitchen scale to use in measuring my epoxy mixtures. This simple device I bought for about $30 at K-Mart has made a huge difference. I can now precisely measure any given amount of epoxy, with no guesswork. It’s such an obviously superior method that I wish I’d done it this way all along.

Not surprisingly, the last 2 layers of epoxy went on easily, with no problems whatsoever in curing time. With the stem & related parts now encapsulated, I could move on to finishing the side planking.

On February 15, the 1-year anniversary of my heart surgery, I got the forward starboard planking attached.

Again, the kitchen scale was an indispensable part of the process, and really saved my tail at one point. With weight-based measuring, the Silvertip Gel Magic is mixed at a 1:0.41 ratio, (rather than the 2:1 ratio by volume.) I had mixed a little over 150 mL, because I had a considerable amount of area to cover: both surfaces of the butt joint, the forward 7 feet of chine and sheer, the side of frame #2, the upper part of the stem, and all the same mating surfaces on the planking itself.

I ran into trouble about 3/4 of the way through this batch of epoxy. Enough time had elapsed that the mixture had become so viscous that it was unworkable. At that point, I had coated everything on the boat framing, and had only just coated the mating surface for the butt block on the planking. I had all the rest of the planking left to go.

Luckily, I had 1 extra mixing cup and 1 extra chip brush on hand. Going quickly back to the kitchen scale, I mixed a small batch of approximately 75 mL, allowing me to finish the job. The epoxy cured solidly by the end of the afternoon.

The next day, I faired off the front of the starboard planking at the stem, and started fitting the port side.

Starboard side planking, finally attached!

Now to fit the port side.

Skin on Frame Housing the yurt gets a roof

Progress on the yurt continues. Much of the progress is imperceptible to anyone but myself but the progress is there. As it turns out, my initial suspicion that my first yurt would be a prototype for working the kinks out of the design turned out to be true. So let me share what Ive discovered so far.

I got the crown on the central ring of the yurt. I used some kayak rib stock, 1/4 inch by 3/4 inch white oak, socketed into the central ring and lashed together with tarred seine twine. The idea behind the crown is that it will be open under normal conditions but covered when it is raining or heat needs to be kept in the yurt.
Another discovery I made after the initial assembly of the yurt was that for the sake of getting a good setup it helped to trace a circle on the ground first before erecting the walls so that the walls would form a perfect circle. The perfect circle is essential so that all the rafters are the same distance from the central ring.
I also discovered that I had much more wood in the central ring than I needed and so it was too heavy and difficult to get into position when no help was available. What I did to remedy the weight problem was to cut some of the extra wood away from the center of the ring. It was way stronger than it needed to be.

The next step was to cut out some fabric for the roof. It took me some time to work out the trigonometry for the roof cover shape, but I did it. But I have learned to distrust theory and test with an actual life size cover. The other reason for getting the cover in place was that a series of rain storms were coming into the area and that would be a good test to see how the cover would stand up to the wind.

Heres an inside shot of the cover. The wind lifted it some and pushed it off center. Part of the problem is that the shape of the cover is like a pie with a wedge cut out of it and the edges adjacent to the missing wedge get pulled together and glued or sewn resulting in the desired pyramidal shape.
The cover is made out of some sort of vinyl covered fabric that is used for advertising banners. A friend gave me a bunch of these banners and I cut them up to fit the roof. The fabric has two problems. One is that it is very heavy and the other is that it is very stiff. The combination of weight and stiffness makes it very difficult to pull this stuff up on the roof. The weight also works against its portability.
On the plus side, the cover survived the storm and did not get blown off. I also discovered that once again, there is nothing like building something to test a design because until you do, its next to impossible to know what sort of problems the design has. So far, none of the design elements have been complete failures but lots of them can use improvement.
The list so far.
The wall battens are slightly too flexible. A bit more stiffness is advisable even at the expense of greater weight.
The skin is too stiff and heavy. Lighter weight is advisable.
Other commitments have kept me away from the yurt, but the learning continues. I will continue to post whenever there is progress or even when design ideas fail.

Halfway Round Alameda in a Kayak

A week or so back I paddled halfway round Alameda, an island off the coast of Oakland. People paddle all the way around the island occasionally, a trip of about 15 miles. A complete circumnavigation is something that can be done in about four of five hours and is a good way to kill a Saturday when you figure in drive time to get to the launch point and a stop at a restaurant afterwards.
I dont often do these kinds of paddles because they take up too much time. Usually I drive the half mile to the boat ramp closest to my house and put the boat in the water for a short, less than an hour paddle. The truth is that I dont much care for paddling any amount of distance. Distance paddling is quite frankly boring. It is like driving on the interstate across Nebraska. Lovely, but unvarying views. It can be done if one works oneself into a trance. I much prefer playing around in waves, a little surfing, some rolling and just enough paddling to get warm. Then back to the car. But the bay has no surf, just short waves and when there are waves, there is also an unpleasant amount of wind. Tribulation exceeds excitation.
The trick when trying to paddle somewhere solo is to get oneself locked into some sort of no-return situation where one has to finish the trip or might as well finish the trip when the temptation is to turn back after half an hour and go somewhere for a beer or a cup of coffee.
This is how it was on this paddle. My plan was to endure paddling for an hour and then turning back for a total time on the water of about two hours rather than doing the usual turn around after 20 minutes which would have me back at the boat ramp in under an hour.

The view at the Grand Avenue boat ramp in Alameda. The nose of my kayak is visible in the foreground. Beyond that, the estuary which in this region goes by the name of Oakland inner harbor. The white ship in the background is one of the coastguard cutters tied up to the pier on Coastguard Island. To the left lies Oakland Middle Harbor and the Bay.

As it turned out, I was ready to turn back after half an hour of paddling but hung on and kept going down the estuary and in the general direction of San Francisco bay.

A nice purple boat house about two miles down the estuary.

Some more boat houses. Jack London used to tie up the Snark somewhere around here before he took off for Hawaii.

The Snark on the estuary.

Having paddled two miles, I would normally turn back without having wasted too much time and gotten some exercise and taken in some of the sights. Unlike the scenery on land, the scenery on the water is always changing due to the mobile nature of the nautical bricabrac that floats in the water.

A tug tied up to a barge. The big white thing behind it is one of the floating dry docks at Bay Ship. Off to the right, the iconic cranes of Oaklands container port, images of which turn up on tee shirts.

The SF to Oakland ferry passing by a scrap metal carrier. The soundtrack here is of big chunks of metal being dropped into the metal hold of the ship, creating much clanking.

And here, in case you never read the country of origin labels on the stuff you buy is a picture of where your stuff comes from (China) and how it gets here (in containers) on top of a big ship. Most of the ships are black (American President Lines) but sometimes also blue (Maersk).
Returning to the journey, at this point I was about 45 minutes into the trip. This would have been a good time to turn back. I could have been back at the boat ramp in another 45 minutes and would not have done too much damage to the day. Instead I kept going forward since I could see the channel marker at the end of the estuary, just another mile or so off. Also, at this point I considered the option of paddling around the tip of the island over to where my shop is, taking the kayak out there and riding my bike home. More paddling but I wouldnt have to look at all the same stuff I looked at going out. And so I went.

I did it. I paddled out into the bay and rounded the corner of the island. Off to the left, newly installed steel pilings to prevent toxic trash from decades past from washing into the bay. The VA intends to build a hospital here on top of the toxic soil so the deal is to bulldoze about six feet of untoxic soil over the top of the toxic soil and thats that. When it rains, water moves in a downward direction so the toxins move down or sideways, but not up. Anyway, thats what they claim and their lawyers approve.

The view west across the bay, about two miles distant the bay bridge and beyond that, the red lead primer painted Golden Gate Bridge. At water level, decommissioned warehouses where cargo used to be unloaded the old-fashioned way by longshoremen. Now the warehouses are home to restaurants and circus troupes.

The end is in sight. The structure ahead is in line with one of the disused runways of the former Alameda Naval Airstation. Runway lights were mounted atop this structure. Now it is used mostly by aquatic birds. Gulls, cormorants and on this day, one great blue heron. Visible in back and to the left, the Shop, where the aquatic portion of my journey ends.

So that was it. For he last part of the journey I had the wind in my back, wind out of the north with me heading south, then for the last mile, the wind off my left flank as I headed east.
Total mileage according to google maps, 7.6. Elapsed time, roughly 2 hours. After that, four miles home on my bicycle.
Since I dont get out in the kayak all that much, I was pleasantly exhausted, with my mind empty of thought, a wonderful state to be in, but came at the cost of spending two hours in a kayak.

Alaska Gravy Spill and Sweet Potato that looks like a seal

I know there are blogs out there which handle the resemblance of one thing to another whether it be film stars or funny vegetables or kittens, but just for the sake of convenience, I chose two to display two of these things right here on this blog as a relief from the tyranny of the same thing all the time.
First, a gravy spill that looks like a map of Alaska. Well, sort of, but I think it got pretty close. See for yourself.

Number two is a sweet potato that looks like a seal. This one you have to admit is good.

A little more painting

Its October, and with it have come the low grey clouds, rain, and cooler temperatures to usher it in. It was a beautiful day.

I got a little more painting done on the boat tonight... working on that center section I epoxied a few days ago. Its slow going, painting it with a brush. Hopefully Ill make some more progress on it tomorrow.

Fitting the Utility’s port side planking — and a little more progress on the Zip

Having previously used the starboard side planking as a template to draw and cut the port side, fitting the port side planking was relatively quick and simple. Busy days full of other obligations have meant that I’ve had to work on the boat incrementally... 20 minutes here, 45 minutes there... but, its getting done.

Thanks to a little help from my daughter, I’m now most of the way through driving the screws to hold the planking down. The new DeWalt titanium drill bits I bought have been a real pleasure to work with, particularly since my older ones had become almost too dull to use.

Dry-fitting the forward port side planking.

February brought with it an unusual amount of snow this year. In addition to school cancellations, there were a few days when I got snowed-in at home. I took advantage of these days to draw out the construction drawings for my Zip on a big sheet of eucaboard. I drew the frames out as they would overlap one another, based on their shared x,y axis & set-up level. This will be a great reference for checking the frame parts for accurate shape & for assembling the frames. It is also a very useful tool for checking the relative dimensions of various aspects of the hull.

My Zip construction drawing on a big sheet of eucaboard.

Last Christmas, I received a copy of How to Fiberglass Boats, by Ken Hankinson, along with the accompanying DVD. I finished reading it recently, and I’ve enjoyed watching the DVD. It’s useful information for those, like me, with minimal experience at working with fiberglass. It takes a lot of the mystery out of the process, and its very helpful to watch someone else actually doing it.

Additionally, the book is very enlightening about precautions to take when working with epoxy.

With any luck, Ill be able to fiberglass the Utility’s hull before summer.

A Tale of Bears Beers and Anglers

The Kings River, our destination at the end of a two mile hike downhill.

One day while camping, we found a trail that goes down to the Kings River. Not that you have to hike down to the river necessarily. There are places where you can drive right along the river. But we were looking for some exercise and diversion from sitting at our campsite and so we hiked the trail from the paved road down to the river, a distance of about two miles of switchbacks that drops you down 1000 feet to the river below. The trail is just wide enough for one person, no walking side by side. Who created the trail we dont know. It probably precedes the creation of Kings Canyon National Park, but there it is.

At the trail head, our car was the only one there, so we had the trail all to ourselves. A sign posted at the trail head informed us that the portion of river accessed by the trail supports native trout and that catch and release was the only form of fishing allowed. So apparently, this trail is commonly used by fisher people. I dont know how many hikers use it since once you hike downhill for two miles you have to hike back up two miles.

So we hiked down to the bottom of the river and had a lunch of crackers and hard boiled eggs. I was musing that it would be nice to also have a bottle of wine. Its nice to drink wine in a beautiful place, but experience has taught me that once youve drunk a bottle of wine, even with the help of others, hiking becomes much harder since your legs feel like lead and are much harder to lift than when you havent been drinking.

After our little lunch, I did some exploring around the next bend of the river and tucked in next to a large boulder was a pile of litter spilling out of a plastic cooler. The litter consisted mostly of aluminum beer and soda cans, some empty plastic chip bags and some plastic catsup and mustard bottles with chew marks on them. My guess was that the chew marks had been made by a bear who had gotten into the cooler and rummaged through the contents. And when I rummaged around the cans myself, I found six of them unopened, four Buds and two Bud Lites. The bear apparently did not have a taste for beer. I looked around for a way to carry the beers back with me and found a discarded tee shirt which I turned into a tote bag.

Aside from being pleased to have found some beer, I was also wondering why people would drag heavy coolers full of beer and sodas two miles downhill on a narrow trail. Apparently it was enough of an ordeal to dissuade them from carrying the empties back. Or maybe they thought they could leave their stuff down by the river and come back another time and drink or eat what was left over. Who knows?

Later, we ran into some more abandoned litter, one stash was a plastic tub full of clothes - 4 pairs of jeans, some sweat shirts two pairs of sneakers and an assortment of tee shirts and a disintegrating pair of waders. Was someone planning on living down at the bottom of the hill? Again, who knows? by the looks of it, the tub of clothes had also been searched by a bear.

The Buds cooling in the river. I had two and Joan opened one but didnt finish it.

Knowing the ill effects of too much beer, we left the remaining cans for the next hiker.

On our way out, we spotted another cooler stashed a little ways up the hill next to a tree. Seems like the bears hadnt found this one yet.

Another camping spot next to the river, obviously a site for many a cookout.

Canned food seems to be the preference on the Kings River. Skeletons of many cans remain in the ashes.

Assorted kitchen implements generously left behind for the next person.

And a few essentials, also unopened and left behind for the next visitor.

So on to some possible morals of this story. Zero or more options may be true. You may be able to think of more. Option 1, maybe this story has no moral. Simply, hikers find trash left behind by other hikers/fishermen. Option 2. Sometimes when you wish for something, it appears, in this case, six cans of beer. Actually, I wished for a bottle of wine, but a six pack of beer is ok. Option 3. This particular moral relates to my previous post as space travel. When youre camping, you cant expect food to be there when you get there so you have to bring it. Option 4. The caching of food in remote location has always been a practice. Part of wilderness etiquette has always been not to disturb someone elses cache of food. If food is cached, someone expects to find it there when they come back. If you mess with their cache, you might put them in a bad situation. If you used their pile of firewood, you were expected to build the pile back up for the next person to come that way. Seeing that whoever left the beer around, had already drunk most of it, I did not feel that I was violating their cache. I suspect that whoever left the beer behind had had enough of it and just didnt feel like dragging it back up the side of the canyon. Option 4. Traditional wilderness etiquette does not involve packing your trash out of the wilderness. Wilderness was everywhere. You would merely be packing trash from one part of the wilderness to another.

A little touch up Pull the tape

There was a spot on the transom where I hadnt taped it accurately, and that left a little unpainted notch in my "waterline." So, I touched it up the same as Id painted it... 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint... just with a small brush instead of a foam roller.

After it all dried, I pulled the tape off. Soon it will be time to tape off the bottom and the transom, and paint the sides of the hull.

First, Ive got to drill a hole for the bow eye.

Oops.

2 coats of primer.

2 coats of paint.

The un-taped transom.

Post Apocalyptic Boat Skin

I periodically visit my friend and neighbor Tim Anderson at the Control Tower of the former Alameda Naval Air Station where he both lives and works. Most recently, I delivered some sawdust to him for use in his composting toilet and as is usually the case, Tim offers me something in return, in this case, a vinyl banner. I am not exactly sure where these large sheets of plastic are used, but they have the look of something that hangs up in an exhibition hall at a trade show. Once the trade show is over, the banners get tossed or at least recycled and that is how Tim got them. And then I got one.
So far, this is all very boring, but wait, the plot thickens.
One of the challenges of skin boat building is to use opportunistically gotten materials to build them. Old wood or even new wood that does not come from a lumber yard is fairly easy to come by. So is string. The only thing I typically have to buy and cant easily get in a pre-used form is the skin. So enter Tim Anderson with the vinyl banners. I havent tried them yet as a skin boat cover but imagine that they will work, even if the are a little heavy.
So this is the tie in with the post apocalyptic theme. In a world where industrial manufacturing has collapsed
where does one get materials from? If the manufacturing system has just collapsed, the most obvious way to get materials is to scavenge. All the stuff that was manufactured will still be available, only not necessarily in stores. One may have to re-purpose goods made for other applications.
And if you havent been following the blog for long and you are wondering where the post apocalyptic theme intersects with skin boat building, let me explain. Skin boat building is a technology developed in a pre-industrial environment. No manufactured goods were available. All materials had to be scavenged. In the current state of our society, skin boats can and typically are constructed out of materials that are the output of an industrial manufacturing stream. But occasionally, I try to build boats that could conceivably be built in an environment where the industrial manufacturing stream has ceased to flow.

I havent tried the vinyl banners as a boat skin yet, but am currently using one to keep the UV off my skin boats. I am also thinking of the vinyl as a potential yurt cover. More on that later.

Qaqamiiĝux̂ Traditional Foods and Recipes from the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands A Review

I got my copy of Qaqamiig?ux? in the mail the other day. I was expecting a smaller book for some reason. As it turned out, the book is hard bound and a full 8-1/2 x 11 inches in size and has 382 pages.
The content is just what the title advertises, a description of traditional foods and how to prepare them. Nutrition information on various foods is also provided along with safety tips.
Contents are grouped by food type, marine mammals, fish, birds, caribou/reindeer, plants, tidal foods and other.
If you are not an Alaskan Native or a guest of Alaskan Natives, marine mammals will not be accessible to you, but all the other foods are available to the general public.
If you were raised outside of Alaska, much of this food will look alien to you, but if you live in Alaska most of it will look familiar.
The book contains a good deal of historical information on how animals were hunted and caught, something that might be of interest to kayak builders given that one of the primary uses of kayaks was as a vessel to hunt and fish out of.
The book contains lots of photos both color and black and white of how the food is gathered and prepared and gives you a good sense of contemporary food culture in the Aleutians.
My only complaint about the book is that it is missing the customary picture of the author.

What’s in a name

Today being an anniversary of sorts, I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. It seemed like an appropriate time to order the transom decal for my boat.

The boat’s name will be “Perseverance.”

In the 3-1/2 years I’ve been building this Glen-L Utility, the project has bridged some pretty major personal events; dark and painful personal storms including divorce, heart surgery, betrayal and loss... things that at times seemed insurmountable. But, by the grace of God, I have made it through, and healed and grown along the way.

At some point, watching this boat grow from a few pieces of wood, to a graceful framework, to a painted and righted hull, I realized that the project has been a metaphor for my own growth and healing. “Perseverance” seemed like the perfect name.

I’ll close this post with a beautiful quote from a very eloquent friend of mine: “If the soul had a form, it would be shaped like a boat.”

Laminating the front seat More painting

I decided to start working on the forward thwart. Both thwarts are cut from 22/32" AC exterior-grade plywood. My plan is to laminate 1/4" Meranti plywood onto the top, so that the seats will match the deck and the transom.

My original plan was to stain the sides of the lighter-colored AC plywood. However, Ive changed my mind & now plan to paint the sides Sea Foam Green to match the accent color on the sheers.

The forward thwart is 12" long x 45" wide at the base. (The sides are bevelled, so the top is wider than the bottom). Luckily, I had a piece of Meranti large enough to use, so I dont yet have to cut into one of the remaining sheets.

I cut out the middle section of it, arranging it so that it will have an attractive grain pattern showing on the top of the seat.

Grain pattern for the forward thwart.

Then I turned it over and coated it with epoxy. I coated the mating surface of the AC plywood thwart with epoxy, and stuck them together. Since the whole thing was laying flat, with flat mating surfaces, I did not use thickened epoxy. I weighted the thwart down with concrete blocks and a paint can to get good adhesion.

I set the whole thing on waxed paper to avoid accidentally gluing it to my working surface.

With the remaining epoxy from the batch, I added a 2nd layer to encapsulate the aft section of the boat. I got the port side done before I ran out of epoxy. Once it cured, it was ready for paint.