Boatshop doings

Before, after and in between trips we have still managed to get quite a bit done at the shop. Kelli finished up Seedskadee and has already run her on a few trips on the upper Colorado. She seems pretty ecstatic about it. I can understand that.

Vladimir Kovalik III wandered in one evening. He's a sign painter when he's not a boatman. I worked for the first VK when he owned Wilderness World in the early '80s, and with VKII in Grand Canyon. I asked VKIII if he'd be up for doing letters on Stella. Boom. Done.

To celebrate getting Stella's rigging finished we went out for a little sail. I took my little Hobie Holder 14 to photograph from.

An alert bystander got this shot of me righting my little Hobie Holder 14 after I flipped and dismasted her five minutes into our adventure. John dropped his sails to come to the rescue. Oh--and we managed to crack the boom and the tiller in all the excitement. The Flagstaff Armada went home with our tails between our legs. We'll be back. 

John played with his group a few nights ago at the old Basque handball court (called a frontón). It's one of fourteen frontóns in the country and the only one in Arizona. It's's so cool that the Annex put in the funding to stabilize it. Great acoustics.

After two trips in Bears Ears with its stand-up footwell and bilge pump, I finally decided to do it--remodel time for Cataract.

I really feel plumbing and wiring really have no place in a dory, but, well, my knees told me otherwise.

I'm collaborating with Mike Dehoff at Eddyline Welding up in Moab to design a 13'6" version of the Briggs-style dory. It's fun stuff. This is the sheer line (top edge of the boat). The code name for the design is Chubby Bunny.

Dennis has grown tired of the foam bottom on his dory Lodore, so we lit into it a couple days ago. Here is Dennis drilling a bunch of holes in the floor of his boat. Such fun. 

We measured the depth of the holes, then set the router for precisely that depth. Then came about two hours of truly hateful, hard, noisy work, routing away the bottom wherever it was connected to a bulkhead or side. This system is pure misery but it sure works. It leaves all the connection fillets in place to glue the new floor to.

Three pretty ladies vying for our attention.

A bottomless Lodore with a new wee patch in her side.

Meanwhile Janek scarfed up a new meranti plywood floor and we put a layer of fiberglass on to cure overnight. Next morning, on went the bottom. There are some creative clamping techniques here.

Once the epoxied kicked, it was cut and grind for a while.

And on with the bomber bottom lay-up. 24oz biaxial cloth with mat, and cover layer of 10oz glass. All told, it was eight hours of work for the three of us. Not too bad.

Outside Magazine decided to do a little video of my operation. I think it came out quite nicely. Here is a link to the show:

The Boatmaker