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boat boat boat
Jul. 20th, 2023 01:54 pmI built a boat from a kit back in 2017 - I got the kit from Cheaspeake Light Craft, it came in pieces and I basically stitched it together with little copper wires, and then epoxied the parts together. After some epoxying, and a lot of sanding, and some moderately scary parts (I had to drill a hole in the bottom - that was unnerving - for the centerboard) it was painted and decorated and varnished and sitting on a trailer (that I had also built). I launched it in September that year, and rowed it a couple of times both up at the pond we always use for the first outing of every season and then on the Connecticut River which runs through my territory.
With the basic boat kit I had also bought a sailing rig - mast and boom and yard, parts for the centerboard and the rudder and the sail and fathoms of rope in different diameters for rigging. I had the straight pieces glued together and sanded and epoxied and varnished and then the directions had me making a (fucking huge??!) hole in the top of the mast and I just -choked- it was a 1" hole in a 2" wide piece of wood and I had SO MANY QUALMS... so I left it there. I rowed the boat, some summers a lot, and I got better at backing a trailer and braver about going fast with the trailer (that was harder than expected) and the rig just waited for me to gain courage or skill or something.
This summer I decided it was time to make the boat (the boat is names Ursa Minor, in case I get a bigger boat at some point - it is important to leave space for growth). Which meant I had to make all the horrifying holes. I drilled a hole into the edge of the rudder earlier this month, and reinforced it with a brass tube, which was not entirely a catastrophe. So today I gathered my tools and started on a hole in the mast.
It went well enough at first. I got a small pilot hole through in a reasonable place, and then I made it bigger, and then I got a big flat bit (maybe called a spade bit? something that is closer to an inch) and had... some issues - the hole was slightly crooked, the spade bit didn't work with the size I had enlarged the pilot hole to, but I got something I thought I could use. Until I decided to use the router to round over the edges. And Failed (big time) to adjust the depth the router went to. And made my hole SO MUCH WORSE. At which point I had to sit down.
I stared at it for a while in deep deep dismay, and finally got back to work. I flipped to the other side, reset the router and made that work right. I took the skill saw and CUT OFF TWO INCHES OF MAST, and started again. And this time everything went well enough. small pilot hole. Big spade bit hole. correctly adjusted router to round over the edges of the hole. And rounded over the top edges of the mast. And then sanded everything, and sanded it again with higher grit and again and applied epoxy to the raw wood and let that soak in, and then
drunk with succes
I drilled four more holes, in the ends of the boom and yard.
And sanded them, and epoxied them,
and that was all the boatbuilding stress I could take for today
pic from launch day, 2017
With the basic boat kit I had also bought a sailing rig - mast and boom and yard, parts for the centerboard and the rudder and the sail and fathoms of rope in different diameters for rigging. I had the straight pieces glued together and sanded and epoxied and varnished and then the directions had me making a (fucking huge??!) hole in the top of the mast and I just -choked- it was a 1" hole in a 2" wide piece of wood and I had SO MANY QUALMS... so I left it there. I rowed the boat, some summers a lot, and I got better at backing a trailer and braver about going fast with the trailer (that was harder than expected) and the rig just waited for me to gain courage or skill or something.
This summer I decided it was time to make the boat (the boat is names Ursa Minor, in case I get a bigger boat at some point - it is important to leave space for growth). Which meant I had to make all the horrifying holes. I drilled a hole into the edge of the rudder earlier this month, and reinforced it with a brass tube, which was not entirely a catastrophe. So today I gathered my tools and started on a hole in the mast.
It went well enough at first. I got a small pilot hole through in a reasonable place, and then I made it bigger, and then I got a big flat bit (maybe called a spade bit? something that is closer to an inch) and had... some issues - the hole was slightly crooked, the spade bit didn't work with the size I had enlarged the pilot hole to, but I got something I thought I could use. Until I decided to use the router to round over the edges. And Failed (big time) to adjust the depth the router went to. And made my hole SO MUCH WORSE. At which point I had to sit down.
I stared at it for a while in deep deep dismay, and finally got back to work. I flipped to the other side, reset the router and made that work right. I took the skill saw and CUT OFF TWO INCHES OF MAST, and started again. And this time everything went well enough. small pilot hole. Big spade bit hole. correctly adjusted router to round over the edges of the hole. And rounded over the top edges of the mast. And then sanded everything, and sanded it again with higher grit and again and applied epoxy to the raw wood and let that soak in, and then
drunk with succes
I drilled four more holes, in the ends of the boom and yard.
And sanded them, and epoxied them,
and that was all the boatbuilding stress I could take for today
pic from launch day, 2017