In January of 2004, I started my new career as a boat builder.
Because I am me, I started two at once, the Dug here and the
Nymph. The maiden voyages were within 24 hours of each other.
I have done some reading for tips, but have gained the most
knowledge from my esteemed colleague, John Singer.
Due to her 16' length, all but the wood cutting must be done outside.
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Bottom Ready to be extended:
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Sides cut:
 yes, that is snow on the concrete
of my garage. |
After conversations with professor Singer, I tried a step-style merge of the
the two sides. By all accounts, it is very rugged,
The sides ready to be epoxy'd:
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Bottom ready for
sides:
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Oh my, it looks like a canoe!!
small 2x2's holding the sides in place
An unorthodox boat needs an unorthodox paddle, made with an 8' piece of
dowel rod and some poplar board. It turns out to be a bit heavy, but I need
the exercise. It does float, I found out later, which is a good thing. :)
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With 1/2" plywood, the gap I have to fill is
pretty big. The reason the (normally clear) epoxy is now brown is because of
the wood flour I added to thicken it up. There is masking tape on the inside
seam to prevent the epoxy from just running down the inside wall. One of the
many things I learned on this boat was to make the thickened epoxy thicker.
I spend hours sanding down the 'runoff'.
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I decided to only use glass tape on the exterior joints since she is made
with 1/2" plywood. Every surface has a coat of epoxy though for
waterproofing.
Outside sealed and ready to be painted, with my assistant ready to go (She
is hiding her paintbrush behind her):
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One coat on:
It turns out this cheap house paint was completely worthless. On launch day,
I lost a considerable amount of paint to the pond. I will re-evaluate what I
want to do on the outside. |
Two boats in one picture, in case you didn't believe me. :) Salacia is ready
to go, although she doesn't realize she is in the one boats she won't be
riding in.
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April
17, 2004 Launch Day:
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More Launch Day pics
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Things learned on launch day:
~Bring a towel to sit on, just a little bit of water gets to your butt
quick. A seat will make you sit too high.
~Bring some water. Since I am out of shape I got thirsty quick.
~The Boat is tender yes, but I managed to keep it pretty dry and comfortable
inside. A little more wood will be added to increase the amount of free
board. |
One of the first trips I took her on was to
watch the sunrise over
Clark Lake. It was a very nice day, I must say...
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The dug was a 'lets try this' type of design. I
learned an immense about boat building from her. With that, she is destined
to be my 'test boat' for various design features. One of which is to add a 4
inch wing on both side of the middle 8' of the boat. This keeps most of the
water out of the boat when waves hit and when I do hard turns: I used
fiberglass tape roll which is supposed to be used for marrying drywall
pieces together. It did not work out as nice as I wanted. The sticky part of
the fiberglass tape worked great until I put epoxy on it. The epoxy sort of
broke down the tape adhesion between the fiberglass and the boat, so there
are weird 'air pockets'.
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| We had a garage sale at my house in mid-august.
My wife told me that many people commented on this ship when wandering
through the garage. There were even a few people who asked how much I was
selling it for. Who knows, maybe I can mass produce these babies. :) Lord
knows I learned a lot about boat building with her. |
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