The Boat

Not to take away from Grace's arrival, I thought I should involve the progress of my little hobby of building a sailboat. I love sailing but boats tend to be expensive and there isn't a huge market for them here in land bound Idaho. Jane's mother was gracious enough to let me use their shop room in their basement this winter to work on this little project. Above is the first step and it already starts to look like a boat.

Next came some reinforcement framing and the bottom. The boat is about 11' so an 8' piece of plywood was too short to cover the length. Also I added an extra "rib" in the middle to add stability and strength.

This is the bottom completed. I just had to cut some small pieces to fit. The white pieces in the bottom were an experiment in trying to find material that would bend to fit the curves of the boat. I tried this manufactured material and it was a total flop. Sadly, I had to make it work because of my very limited budget. Hopefully it holds later! ha ha. Also added is the keel box in the center and the mast stepping position towards the front.

This picture and the next show the attachment of small blocks that will be a part of the framed rail around the upper edge of the boat. They are glued and screwed into place.

See Above.

Due to the failure of trying to find a material that would bend with the curves of the boat I was forced to do some research on how to bend wood. I tried to strong arm some pieces but they just broke and cracked. I ended up building a steamer. I found a cheap PVC pipe, tea kettle, a hot plate and some old washing machine water tubing. The pieces of wood are put in the pipe, which is sealed up on both ends. The tea kettle is filled with water and brought to a boil on the hot plate and the steam runs through the washing machine water line into the PVC pipe and steams the wood. And it worked!

This is a picture with the steam bent pieces attached to the upper edge of the boat. There is another piece attached to the inside, making little handle/rope tying points in the gaps between the wooden blocks.

Close view of the bent wood and framing of the upper edge.

And this is about as far as I've got. I have really enjoyed working on it so far this winter and will put some other pictures up as it progresses.