Hey! There's a boat in our shop!

Check it out!  

We got every frame stood up on the strong back in one afternoon and evening!   

The strong back is the ladder-shaped frame on the floor of the shop, and it supports the frames for us, and serves as a crucial point of reference so we can get the frames perfectly lined up.   It also allows us to have a level plane to work from, as the floor in our shop slopes almost 8 inches from corner to corner...

It's easy to get lost in the little parts of the project, in aligning, measuring, preparing each piece,

but, as we worked, we would occasionally stop and admire the shape that was emerging from the chaos of frames stacked all over the shop.   

The dream lives!

Beth & Cody

The Frames are Finished!!

We got our material in a few days ago and last night I glued up frame #14, the last one.  We are so close to tipping up all the frames.  Its going to be very exciting.  Up until now we have just been building parts and coating things.  The "boat" has been spread all over the shop, but tomorrow we if all goes well we will stand all the frames up on the strongback and it will start looking like a real boat!

We also had time to laminate some deck beams las week.  

We are using 4 pieces of 1/2" material, which us with beams 2" by 1 3/4" 

This frame was covered with heavy glass cloth to protect it from abrasion/impact, as it will be one side of the anchor locker.

Beth; checking thickness after planing our frame material

This bulkhead is being covered in a thinner layer of glass cloth, just to seal it and prevent the wood from checking.  Here I'm wetting out he glass.

Yesterday was amazing, sunny and close to 60 degrees!! 

We found this scenic pond, I think it might have unintentionally formed due to the construction.  Anyway it was fun to sail and there was just enough wind.

So far this project has been everything we wanted.  It is so cool to watch this boat take shape and it rarely feels like work.  Hopefully we can keep this momentum up.  Well I better get back to the shop and prep the frames for tomorrow.

Beth and Cody

Bulkheads

We ran into a little snag last week.  We ran out of material to finish the frames and it won't be here until wednesday, so we started building bulkheads.  Its actually a good thing we ran out of material, it will give me time to really finish the frames that we have built.  We will be doing a lot of pre-coating and also covering some surfaces with fiberglass before we start planking the hull.  These small details feel like a slow down now, but will save tons of time later on.  I have mostly been working on bulkheads lately, because they are almost all plywood, and we have plenty of that.

The bulkheads act the same way as the frames, but are cut out of plywood.  These bulkheads serve several structural functions, as well as provide walls inside the boat.

The bulkheads are to large to cut out of one sheet of plywood, so two sheets were scarfed together, you can see the line down the center of the closer bulkhead.

Checking to see if my scarf joint is cut well, which it is.

A large portion of the hull is flat sections, which make it easy to build, but at the ends the frames get more shape.  This is one of the first frames to start curving.

To obtain the correct shape of curved frames, I first draw the lines out on my table and then carefully lay screws along them.  Then i simply tip the frame material onto the screws and push down hard enough to let the screw heads indent marks into the wood.  Now I connect the dots and cut it out.

Frame material comes Wednesday, until then we will be fiberglassing and pre-finishing the frames/bulkheads we have ready.  And just maybe I will make some deck beams, we'll see. 

Until next time, Cody and Beth 

PS. Beth and I went out to a pond in the park near our house a yesterday and sailed the remote controlled model I built.  So much fun.  no pics though, maybe later.

Frame Construction and a Scarf

Cody and I have been cranking out the frames lately. 

Once he's got the measurements marked out on the table, he cuts pieces of wood to fit.  

Then we make a pattern for the gussets, which are pieces of bracing that cover the joints of the frame. 

Then the gussets get cut out of plywood.  I'm using the coolest tool in our shop in this photo-  our Track Saw.  It's looks like a skil saw, but it rides along a track.  The track ensures a perfectly straight cut, and allows you to line everything up before you start.  Really simple and safe to use.  Perfect for me!  Cody has been using one for years building climbing walls and its use translates well into boat building.

Once we've got all the pieces cut, we carefully lay them out on the table, and paint all the connection points with epoxy.  Epoxy is a type of glue.  First we paint on a thin layer to saturate into the wood, then a thick layer, usually mixed with fiberglass powder for extra strength.   Once the epoxy is on, all the pieces get sandwiched together.  

The frame is then ready to be clamped and screwed into place, so the epoxy can dry.  Once it's dry, we'll remove all the clamps and screws.     

I love helping to make these-  they really look like part of a boat!  

This is the first of many scarf joints that I will be undertaking.  On the large flat sections of the hull we will use only one layer of plywood.  However we can't just butt them together, as this would leave a weak point.  So I have to heavily bevel the edges and glue them together. This is called a scarf joint.

My scarf joint is glued with a thickened mixture of epoxy and is being held down by the heaviest things I could round up.

We have completed 8 of 13 frames.  We should be done with the frames by the end of the week and then we get to set them all up.  Very Excited!

The Shop

We are finally settled into our little shop.  We moved in on the first and spent a few days remodeling.  The boat has to be built diagonally in the shop, so we had to remove most of the existing loft that was in the shop.  We kept one small section for my office, which we have dubbed the "treehouse".  After we were done remodeling I got caught up doing some light manufacturing work, so the shop was tied up for the last week.  But we are off and running now!  So far, the strongback is built, and we are in the process of building the frames for the hull. 

Welcome to Shop 61. 

This is the original Loft area that the previous tenant built.

The crew (Rumsy is volunteering)

We wrapped the treehouse in plastic to try and keep dust out.  So far its working well.

This is where I host corporate luncheons, and big business meetings.  Or where my brain melts down with measurements and last minute design changes!

The Strong Back.  The cross pieces are where the frames will go, the cable running down the center is the control line to get everything in the right place.

So far the psych is high and things are going really well. 

The News

Hello there.  It's been a while.  Almost 3 months!  That's got to be close to the longest time between posts we've ever gone!  We've been busy, I guess.

We had a wonderful Christmas Holiday in Whistler, BC with my family.   The skiing was incredible.  We had a couple of clear, icy days to start, but then the clouds rolled in, bringing with them several inches of fresh snow.

Apres Ski at Merlin's.
Clearly, we're not having any fun.

We ate good food, saw the Hairfarmers play, and watched the snow fall while we opened gifts on Christmas morning.  Good times were had by all.

Now, we're in Salt Lake City.  I'm writing from our little house on 1300 South.  Yep.  We're renting a place, I have a couple of jobs, working at Cucina Deli and Caffe Niche,  and we're settling down for a little while.  Hard to believe, I know.

But while we're here....

Over the last few years Beth and I have had an awesome time, climbing, surfing, traveling and just avoiding work and responsibility.  We now feel the need to do something not just for the instant or short term satisfaction.  I think this is a natural progression of people our age.  Most of my generation are starting serious careers or having children, which is great, because that is what they want.  Beth and I are not ready for either of those options, so we have decided to fill our desire to be productive another way.  We will be building sailboat.  This is a dream that both of us have talked about for years.  The talks have been getting more and more serious and now it is time for us to start what will be the biggest undertaking of our lives, thus far.

I designed this boat while living on Bainbridge with the help of my then boss Dave Sutter.  I have been revising the design since then and have come up with what you see here.  The boat is not designed for speed, not to say it will be the slowest boat around, but it certainly will not be the fastest. It is designed for comfort and everything in yacht design is a trade of (comfort for speed).  I compromised again while looking at the ease of construction vs beauty.  The hull looks as though it is round and flowing above the waterline, but below it has hard bends that you don't see most of the time.  This will make much of the boat fast and easy to build, but the bow and stern will be a little slower to allow the curves to be formed. It will be built of plywood covered on the outside with fiberglass and epoxy.  I could go on and on, but the boat amounts to a sturdy classic looking cruiser.

The boat is Cutter rigged, with the staysail directly in front of the mast and the jib farther forward

Having no engine inside opens up enough room to have large aft berth.

This is a remote control model I built of the boat.  The boat is built to a scale of 1"=1', so the model is about 35 inches long with the bowsprit.

Here are most of the numbers for the boat. 

LOA (Actual Length)			29.500 ft
Beam (Width)			9.000 ft
Draft (Depth)			4' 6"
Sail Area			525 Sq Ft.
Total Displacement			10701.13 lbs

If anyone is interested in seeing a more complete list of specs, send me a message and i'll email them to you.

There and back again.

   It was a sad farewell to San Pancho.  We patted Mats on the head, took one last dip in the warm pacific waves, and caught a bus to Puerto Vallarta.  We touched down in rainy, dark, chilly Seattle late that night.  It was a bit of climate shock!  We stayed a week with my family on Bainbridge, helping my folks move furniture around, while they repaid us with good company and delicious food.  

Keep Boise Cool, I say.  

We headed to SLC, stopping for the night in Boise on the way.   We climbed at the Front Boise in the evening, and the next morning shopped at the Farmer's Market, took in some art, and were on our way.   

Standard Overhang, V3.  

It felt wonderful to be back in SLC for the fall season.   We headed up to Little Cottonwood Canyon the first afternoon there, and had a good time pulling on the familiar granite holds.  We weren't the only ones taking advantage of the beautiful day and fall colors in the canyon.  While we were there, we saw a couple taking  engagement photos, a troupe of girls with a chandelier and a bag overflowing with clothes (presumably conducting a photo shoot), and we saw another couple sneak away into the boulder field with a bottle of Martinelli's Cider (this is Utah, after all).  

What a cutie!  

We stayed with our dear friends PJ and Sarah Mannion, and their darling little girl, Fisher Bell.   It was so nice of them to have us, and such a treat to play with Fisher, who is 5 months old, and can now hold her own head up, eat pureed apples, bananas, and rice cereal, and, most fun of all, smile!  We celebrated Halloween with them, and helped to hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters.  Halloween is easy to forget about when you grow up, but it is a fun holiday when you have kids around!  

Morning light on the Grand Canyon

We drove South, headed for Tucson after a week in Salt Lake.  We had been offered jobs with Vertical Solutions, the climbing wall company there, and decided it would be nice to make a bit of money before the holiday season began.  It was a beautiful and eventful drive through Southern Utah and Arizona.  We stopped at the Meadow Hot Spring, one of our favorite spots between Salt Lake and many destinations to the south.  Usually we share the spring with a group of boy scouts, but this time, we met Leif, the steward of the Spring.  He loves to scuba dive, and the spring, so in his spare time, he dives to the bottom of the spring- about thirty feet down, and filters out the silt and trash that collects there.  He offered us a scuba lesson- which I eagerly accepted.  Cody would have as well, but we had to go one at a time,  and with a long drive ahead of us, he declined.  It was a wonderful and surreal experience- breathing underwater, in a dimly blue cavern, watching the bubbles collect in the dimples of the rocks above.  Very cool.  We thanked Leif with a jar of our homemade blackberry jam, and reluctantly got back in the van.  

Such lovely views from the top windows of this rimside tower.

We made it to Page, Arizona that night, which is just across the border from Utah.  We heard on the radio while we were driving in that the local community college was celebrating it's 20th birthday with free pizza and cake, and were racing to get there in time for dinner, but alas, when we arrived, we could see a sad, half-eaten cake through the window of an empty room, and found the door locked.   But, it was for the best.  We stumbled into a great little BBQ restaurant and had a great meal, accompanied by music from a cute old couple playing Willie Nelson hits.  We camped out in the Wal-Mart parking lot, surrounded by other camper vans and RV's, and the next morning, pointed the van towards the Grand Canyon.  

The Grandeur of the Grand Canyon!

I had never been to the Grand Canyon before.  Everyone always says it, but photos cannot capture the scale, the presence of the place.  The flat, beige desert plateau drops away, sheerly and suddenly, into blushing sandstone, then again, into a verdant river bed.   The clouds cast shadows that roll into the abyss and back up the other side.   It had snowed that morning, and the rim was dusted in white.  Our breath came in clouds and my fingers numbly fumbled on the shutter button.   Once again, I was sad to get back in the Van.   

One of the Tucson Locals.

Now, we're in Tucson, building the new Rocks and Ropes climbing gym.  Well, Cody and the boys are. They're not quite as far along as projected, so there's no work for me as of yet.  But, I'm having a nice time hanging out with Chilly Pepper, our boss's dog, cooking for the guys, taking walks through the neighborhoods nearby, and admiring the local flora.   The plan is to head to Star Valley to spend Thanksgiving with the Harrises, and then it's a big question mark.  But I can tell you one thing...  

We'll be living the dream!