Tombigamy

Scottman, an old boatman friend from Martin Litton days at Grand Canyon Dories, stopped in last August with a sad boat. It was a dory built by Montanan Paul Butler back in the '80s and was one of six Butler boats in Litton's fleet. Martin, who named all his boats in memory of natural wonders desecrated by man, christened it Tombigbee, due to the building of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway--the two billion dollar, 234-mile waterway boondoggle connecting the Tombigbee and Tennessee Rivers. It was the largest earth moving project in the history of the world and remains little used to this day compared to its boosters' predictions. Tombigbee is Choctaw for coffin, or coffin maker. Hmmm.

Anyhow, Scottman rowed the boat and its name soon corrupted to Tombigamy. After Martin sold Grand Canyon Dories, Scottman got the Bigamy and has rowed it as a private dory ever since. Unfortunately the V-Wave in Lava Falls decided to turn it upside-down this past summer and send it through the shallow, rocky right side of Lower Lava upside-down. Damn. Not all of it came out the bottom end.

The bow post was a lot shorter

And the sternpost cracked open pretty good, severely disgruntling the stern hatch.

Oh, and there was some bottom damage somewhere along the way.

So I ground her down pretty good in early August.

And sent her up to the attic to dry for a month or two. Okay, five months. Things came up, okay?

So finally on Wednesday, with the infestation of paddleboards finally exterminated, I brought the Tombigamy back down. Roy and I lit into her with saws and grinders.

 We scarfed in a new bit of sidewall and rebuilt the stern hatch. And added a bowpost.

On Friday I scarf-cut the stern wall.

And glued in new stern and bow sides.

Today Janek and I ground down a bunch of funky spots, cleaned up the scarf patches, and started glassing the parts that were ready. 

Janek reworking a few troubled joints in the deck work.

Rehabilitating a worried bit of top edge.

The Dragon seal of approval: Lloyd's of London 1088 quality.

Boat wrecks remind me of head wounds. They always look so messy and scary and unfixable. But clean off the blood, snip off the damaged tissue and it looks pretty doable, pretty quick.

We'll be crafting her some pretty new gunwales in the next few days which always perks up the look of a boat.

Walking on Water

We took three of the new boards out to Clear Creek Reservoir (McHood Park) south of Winslow to see if the things actually work. Lora and Marieke are showing that yes, they do.

I might add a wee nip from the flask doesn't hurt that smoothness of paddling.

Coconino Sandstone, cool, calm air, and fast boards make for enchanting reflections.

One of the locals even stopped in to see what we were up to. He seemed pretty fascinated by the boards.

We paddled until we hit ice--the upper end of the reservoir is frozen over. The boards are pretty good icebreakers, but we realized that it was actually kinda cold outside and turned back. Last ray of sun on the tailfin--time for a victory beer and head into Winslow for burritos at Maria's

WOW

Walking on Water. WOW. A far better name for a Stand-up Paddleboard than (yuck) "SUP." RJ prefers simply "Paddleboard" and that works too. But SUP? Nope. Anyhow, we wowed 'em at the boatworks the last couple weeks--so much that I have been too busy to update this blog. I'll try harder. Here is a fly-by of the last two WOW sessions.

Andy on the hot wire

Dennis on the receiving end of the band saw. This proved to be a slicker way than handsaws to cut the perimeter in a straight and plumb fashion.

We didn't get any shots of shaping, but I gotta say, I got pretty good with a Skil 100. Greg would have been proud of me. Six boards (three at a shot) shaped and sealed.

This one's mine. That's Gin-and-Tonic Man, a glyph we discovered in the far reaches of Florence Creek in Desolation Canyon a few years back.

Dennis going purple.

And Andy going basil green.

With a nod to John Hartford

Gin-and-Tonic Man getting tucked in on the bottom side.

Shiny flow coats.

 Dan's duct tape shoe bottoms: to keep the epoxy out of his soles.

 Cutting in the handles

Saturday night--the AzRA crowd invaded and insisted on a bowling party. Somer scored the first strike here.

Okay, damn it, back to work. Some of the wowzers wanted to partially gloss the decks instead of non-skidding the whole things.

I stole Greg's SeaDek shirt to help with the magic of getting the SeaDek cut and installed properly.

Ducks help. So do bronze ingots.

Then comes the final deck flow coat and the sprinkling on of slip-grip--a crushed polyester nonskid that gives traction and hides imperfections.

Dan and RJ pull the final masking.

A few final details.

And it's out to the back yard for the group photo. All ten boards with almost all their riders. We photoshopped in Greg, our mentor (or an earlier incarnation of him) since he had to go to a trade show in Florida and couldn't play with us, poor fellow.

Much gratitude to Greg for sending us down this bizarre detour. And yes, we are taking orders. The minimum order is nine boards, ten grand.