In with the car, out with the boat

I'm hoping weekly updates will inspire me to keep motivated without boring my fans to much. 

After a whole week of house and pet sitting (9 pets in all) and overdue car maintenance,  it's out with the boat and in with the car. 

But, with regards to the boat this week, not all (learning) is lost. I thought the boat might be kinda easy getting out of the garage compared to getting it back into the garage. As you can see, the driveway is on an incline. Much to my surprise,  it was just as easy getting it back into the garage. The boat and cradle, at this point are only about 200 lbs. That and the fact I mounted 8 wheels under the cradle made it a breeze. What you see under the front of the cradle are a couple of my lead ballast bags used as wheel chocks. I also threw some blankets on her to protect her from the brutal Az UV rays (the back half of the boat is in the shade).

More Hull & Bulkheads

Weekly update (starting now lol).

This step (stitching in bulkheads) is on p.67. If you read far enough ahead (p.83, but is first pictured on p.72), a temporary lower-breast-hook needs to be installed between now and the glassing stage (future builders take note). I will remove the actual lower-breast-hook right before fiberglassing this area.

Also, notice I added a bit of plywood vertically behind bulkhead 2. That's where the wiring will be tied down later.

I added the cleat on bulkhead 2 at this point because so many people were having problems here when attaching it earlier. However, I have my own challenge: the R.Bottom Hull is bulging upwards about 1" at Floor#3. When I put my weight on it, it drops that floor even with the rest. I hope as construction continues, that will pop into place. Just in case, I plan to add some weight there during filleting and glassing and hope it holds. I guess that's why not too many people build wooden boats in the VERY DRY Arizona desert (this stuff is warping, but the overall construction should iron most of it out). 

Hull & bulkheads

Hmmm, for some reason the 18 gauge wire isn't holding up. So I used some hanger wire on the 2 holes on the end. Now it's yielding. Time to get more wire already and guess what I learned while at the hardware store? The reason my wire was breaking was because I grabbed the "aluminum" wire instead of the "steel" wire. That explains a lot.

Time to install floor (support) #4. Looks about 5" inches too high.

Love those bar clamps (not the one on the stem). Just long enough. Floor #4 down.

Now it's starting to look like a boat in here.

Nobody's sharing any Indian tricks how you get back in here (without breaking any ply or wires) to install the floors (bulkheads) so I will. Lay down some ply big enough to distribute your weight. Then proceed gingerly. Not easy to see but there's a 10"x36" piece of ply over the rear Keelson to help distribute my weight so I can install the floors/bulkheads.

Until you do this, you have no idea the tremendous amount of tension going here. Don't worry, those gaps will close as the bulkheads are installed.

Just take it in.

I just wanted to add a visual aid to show where the strong areas are to get started. The rectangle at the stern is a piece of ply laid down to distribute my weight as I go in and out of the hull. At this point, I'm holding off on the transom install. After Floor 4, add Floor 3, then 5 and 6. Now you can lay a board on top of those and move around a lot easier to do the rest. But make sure most of your weight is on Floors 3 & 4. Floors 5 & 6 want to pivot down if you put too much weight on these two. Also, the areas at Bulkheads 4 & 7 are directly over the cradle (lots of support at these areas).  Don't let the creaking and moaning bother you. One wire stitch isn't that strong but there's about 200 stitches working together here. Once the fillet "tack welds" are in (I hear), that goes away.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation...

Enough preparation! You have no idea how much time & work is involved with fiberglassing, epoxying, curing (waiting, waiting, waiting), more epoxying, sanding, sanding, and more sanding goes into this project until you actually do it! Holy crap!

I tried to do as much as I could before hull assembly while I had the space. Now it's time. 

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I Never completely understood why the rear keel had to be blocked up. Leveling? Not so much (exactly). There's 100-lbs of lead back there.

I'm The First!

Whilst preparing to assemble the hull and its cradle, I quickly realized that I will be seriously limited on space to build that AND cut remaining sheets later on (fyi, there are 2 cars in the driveway that i'll be too lazy to move every time I want to do some large cutting).  So, I decided to take the time to cut everything now. Next thing I knew, the "boat yard" got a little bigger (imagine that).

I also attempted to cut my transom out of the "half-sheet" of ply, per the plans, and, guess what? You can't cut a 58" transom out of 48" square of ply. Not even diagonally. I brought this to John C.'s attention and he was just as surprised since it seems I'm the first one (out of dozens of PS builders) to attempt this feat. He's makin it right by sending me another transom. What a guy!

What I've been doing these last few weekends. EVERYTHING cut! 

Next: Stitch & glue the hull.

Mistakes will be made

No matter how hard you try not to, mistakes will be made. Got carried away belt sanding the keel blocking and sanded about 1/4" too much. Thank goodness for epoxy thickeners.

Next: sanding everything fair followed by smelting (lead pour).

Just above the string, you can see the gap.

Just above the string, you can see the gap.

Problem solved.

Glueing up the trunk

Finally, hopefully, back on track with my project.

About Me

My name is John. I was born in northern California and raised mostly in the San Diego area. I spent 8-years serving in the U.S. Air Force, then about 10-years as a Field Engineer in the semiconductor industry working for 2 different Swiss companies back to back. I have traveled all over this country and world and now I work for the airlines as a Planner (more travel - yay). I now have lived in the Phoenix Metro Valley since 1995 and love it here.

My boatbuilding journey actually began when I was kid when I had a subscription to Popular Mechanics and I took woodshop all through Jr High and High School. I never could afford to build medium- or large-sized projects, so I resolved to build small ones.  In one of those subscriptions, there was a project for a small sailing dingy called “Sea Scout”. It took me 30 years before I’d actually attempt that project. Unfortunately, like with some projects, and a series of unfortunate events, it never got finished. The good part of that project was I did learn a few things about boatbuilding which gave me more confidence when I decided to start another, bigger, one.

During the summer of 2012, I researched many wooden boat building projects before ultimately deciding on the PocketShip.  I almost decided on the Stevenson Vacationer. Which is also a small, 19-foot, gaff-rigged, pocket cruiser. I liked it because it can be built to look like a pirate ship (I like pirate stuff). I later discovered, because of its flat bottomed hull, it was limited to closed waters. Then I discovered the Cape Henry. It is a beautiful, classic, design but a little too big to build in one side of a garage, too heavy to pull with my little 3-series BMWer, and little expensive to build overall.