There's a hole in the boat, dear Cody, dear Cody.....

In the past few weeks we've tackled another big job on the boat.  Beth and I drilled out the deadwood and the lead keel for the keel bolts that will hold the 4000 lbs of ballast to the bottom of our mighty craft.  I will say that Beth and I both underestimated the amount of hassle this would be.  We started off by drilling through the 2 foot thick deadwood.  To do this we used a 16" auger bit, then switched to a regular paddle bit with two 12" extensions.  As you can imagine it is hard to start drilling a hole on one side and have it come out at the right spot on the other...

Double extensions, and it still barely made it.

So...the second hole we drilled went by really fast, in fact we only used the auger bit, mostly because we missed the deadwood and drilled out the side of the boat! 

It sounds worse than it is, Beth had it patched up a few days later.

I am to blame for the hole in the hull.  I for some reason thought that the centerline of the boat was not where it actually was and when I marked out where it was both holes were shifted to one side.  The first one ended up closer to center than we wanted and one of course came out the side.

We also managed to get the boottop stripe on before we left for a short trip to Bainbridge Island.

After running the entire way from the train station to the ferry we ended up being the last people on the boat.  Pretty lucky!

Beth's sister Amy plays "ULTIMATE! Frisbee" and we went to Seattle to watch her team play in a tournament. 

Beth says:

Most of the players from Amy's team came over for a barbecue after the tournament.  We had some great food, and a fun party, complete with crashers.  They brought pie, at least.  

We took a family hike out on the Olympic Peninsula.  It was a beautiful day.  

Grace was PSYCHED. 

We hiked out to a clearing with a small shelter, and had a picnic on the sunny river bank.  

We were on the east side of the Olympics, in the rain shadow.  It's really open beneath the canopy, with very little undergrowth.  The moss was beautiful, and a perfect spot for a break.  

It was nice to get away from the project for a bit, and good to see family.  

We did manage to visit a couple boat consignment shops, and found some good deals, and parts that are hard to find in Utah.  

When we headed home, we were refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Just a couple days ago I drilled out the holes in the lead keel.  Something I forgot to mention is how we are going to get the holes in the deadwood and the holes in the lead to line up.  What we did was to have the lead keel under the deadwood when we drilled it out so when we pushed through the wood the drill bit lightly drilled into the lead marking exactly where the hole should go.  

Looking at the bottom of the keel, you can see the hole is drilled through the 11" of lead and then countersunk so that when we put a nut and washer on they will be flush with the bottom.  The drilling was done with the auger bit and very powerful drill, it went though it almost as easily as the wood.

The keel upside down in the shop, I used a floor jack to roll it over, and you can see the drill with the 2 foot long pipe handle I used for the holes.

I've been hard at work on upholstering the boat recently.  I should be done by the end of the week!  

We're looking forward to the launch party...  It feels like it's coming up!  We'll be sure to let you all know the details as soon as we do.