Winter Projects and Pics

Here is a nice Pic taken by a student at Hallmark school. We were out for a row and this student stopped us to take some pics. Winter is here and we will be bringing the spars in the shop to complete the sailing rig and get her a proper suit of sails.

No I just need to clean out the shop...

Winter arrives

One last row for the season and Hope must be put away. It turned out to be a great day for a final row of the season.

LARGE Row

Its not Big its Large. We plan to do a 20 mile row on the CT river late September along with the Batteau Black Sheep. We will camp at Munns Ferry and this is a picture of us scouting the site out. It was a nice day with a southwest wind at times. The river was rocking with a strong current , something that has been typical this year. Hopefully the rains will calm down for the Large Row...

Trim

On Barton's Cove , CT River.

"Hope" she Floats

Outta the shop and into the Drink

Lord I hope she don't sink.

Getting out

Of the Garage that is

Mast

Here is a mast I and getting out of a piece of spruce I have had about six years.
It will get a small square rig for down wind use. The race is on to get ready for the Big Row 08. 34 miles up Lake George for the 250th battle of Carllion.

Flipped and a Painted Lady

Five coats on the bottom and away we go.

Primah

First we prime.

Bung and sand

All the screw holes are now plugged and the whole thing gets a sand job.

Side rails and caps

I decided to finish off the inwale with blocks and a top cap. I have seen boats finished various ways . Gardner shows this method and says it produces a good stout job and hey I like stout ! The thole pins will ride in this area producing a fair amount of stress so this construction can handle it. Beside if Hope had wimpy inwales the other boats would make fun of her and kick sand in her face...

Best seat in the House

Now its on to the Stem , caulking (with cotton in the bottom seams) and paint.

Thats where I left those pencils.

Roll me over

We flipped the boat last night. Now its time to think about a whole new phase to the project. I was surprised how light it was , we estimated it at about 150 pounds.

Floor is done

Well the floor its done! It was interesting working on the rear section as it has quite a curve to it. It requires you to plane a bevel on each face . Its kind of like making a barrel. Everything is planed fair and I just need to fill screw holes.

More Floor

The floor is a little over half done. Its starting to get close to the curve at the stern of the boat. The weather this week decided to turn cold , with upper 20's predicted tonight. So we are on hold till it warms up above 40 degrees at night. Shouldn't be to long. All the screw holes are filled and all but one frame is also in.

More screws on order we will use about 250 of the 1 3/4 and 100 of the 1 1/4. Jamestown Distributors loves me.....

End of the Weekend

Thats it for the Weekend. Now its time to clean up. The 3M 5200 adhesive gets everywhere !

We floor it

The floor is cross planked. Its screwed and glued to the sides and just butted up tight in the center. I can't see any light between the seams so that's a good sign. The whole boat is fastened with silicon bronze screws.

A new view

I have no idea what I am checking out. I thought it was a pretty funny picture. Anyways we plane and plane some more. Its neat working with a sharp hand plane and nice wood. But man are my forearms sore today ! Every thing is now flat, level and square. We are about 1/16 on an inch off at the rear over 16 ft. I think I can live with that!

Nice rear end !

More transom . Check out the foot print!

Bow shot

Here is the bow all snug and cozy

Transom and spanish Windlass

We continue with the transom and employ multiple Spanish windlasses in out quest for alignment. I big thank you to my wife of the great photo work !

Transom

It takes a lot of thinking and measuring but the transom starts to take shape

Putting it all together

We attach the inner stem to the sides and crank it down. Over the midship frame we go and on to the transom

Hope moves outside

Here we go!. The first picture is my Dad thinking about what he has gotten himself into. I certainly enjoyed having him come up and help with the build. He is a fine carpenter and I will remember the day every time I go out for a row.

She has curves

This is a fairing batten fasten to one of the 1x12's . I was trying to see what the curve looked like in the bottom at the stern. The 1x3 piece of oak will need to be steam bent to this curve. We were walking this afternoon and I found an old tea kettle in the woods. Just the thing I needed for my homemade steamer.

Mid Ship frame

Here is the mid ship frame. Its a temporary mold that we will bend the sides around. The oak keel is sitting in the groove in the frame.

The Boat House

It's actually the garage my wife keeps her car in. But the snow is gone and the boats have taken over. My daughter painted me a very nice sign that says Bob's boat yard and I need to hang it up after I varnish it.

Stem a soarus

Here is the stem I hacked out last week. Its 1/2" on the face at the top and goes to a taper at the bottom. The bevel changes from 26 degrees at the top too 16 degrees at the bottom. The aft face is 2 2/3 at the top and 1 1/2 inches at the bottom. Sounds more complicated than it is. The last picture is looking at the bottom of the stem. This is the "inner" stem.