As if one was not enough.

Turns out that building a sailboat requires a considerable amount of money.  This translates into going to work every once in a while.  I spent the last to weeks in Brooklyn working on a climbing wall.  Lots of work and great ethnic food.  But while serving my sentence Beth started a new project to keep herself occupied......

After searching for quite some time we found a Dinghy that we liked, and Beth has been making quick work of it.  Selecting a dinghy seems like an easy decision, but it actually was far from it.  We wanted something we could sail this summer, but something that would fit on the cabin top of the big boat, for easy transportation.  Oh yeah and ease of construction was important, we don't have the time to be building a classic lapstrake dinghy.   This left us with a narrow scope of boats, but we settled on Catspaw 8, from B&B Yacht Designs. 

The Dinghy is built using the "stitch and glue" method, so Beth first cut out the sides and ends of the boat.  Then she "stitched" them together using wire ties.  

After some beveling, the pieces are ready for stitching.  It is quite impressive, no layout, no tedious measuring, just cut out six pieces, stitch them together and voila, you have a boat.

The topsides and ends are stitched and ready for the two bottom panels.

And here it is.  Beth has the whole thing stitched together and tonight she got all the epoxy fillets that hold it together finished.

The main event is back to full speed, we have been finishing up sheeting the hull with plywood.  All that is left is the bow section, which has to be laminated out of 3 layers of 1/4 ply, as there is too much curve for anything thicker.

Shooting the laser down the length of the hull to check that everything is in line. 

Now for the fist time we are laminating up large pieces of plywood, so we use a notched trowel to spread the epoxy evenly. 

Here it is! Two boats:  one small, one large, one up one down. 

One day at a time.

Ps:  This is Big Cottonwood Creek, which runs right by the shop, usually we eat our lunch on that rickety pallet sitting in that tree.  Its pretty nice.

 These two ducks live in the creek and are quite friendly, I almost had them in the shop one day.  Beth has named them Lin and Larry, after a famous sailing couple.  

Until next time, Cody and Beth