Two Down.. Make that Three.. Five.. Make that Four.. to Go

As expected, it hit 57 degrees here in Minnesota today. For those of you south of the Mason-Dixon line, or indeed, south of Minnesota, that's not a big deal. But for us, it's cause to celebrate. In fact, it was a near-perfect sailing day and more than once I commented that if PocketShip were done, we'd be out in it. Still, it's a bit cool to be painting as overnight lows will be in the 30's, so we got a space heater extraordinaire to help. It easily raised the temperature 20 degrees and made it downright lukewarm in the garage. There's hope I can extend the season a little bit with this little guy working wonders in the rear. Of the shop.

About 2/3 of the way done with the first coat.

Painting, though exciting for what will come, isn't terribly in and of itself. Sure, there's latex gloves and a gas mask to wear, but that's protection not entertainment. The boat is tricky to get in and out of as it is, let alone while trying to be careful. One small move and I'd be wearing Sherman Williams' finest all purpose primer. It's exhausting work, requiring a contortionist skill set while trying to balance on two planks of cedar I had leftover from a planter project this summer.

I got the first coat down, cleaned up for dinner, came home, changed, and put down the second coat. By the time I finish writing this and catch up on the news of the day, it'll be ready for the third coat. That's a lot of coats in a day but the primer seems able to handle it. Indeed, the label says at 77 degrees, coats can go on about 60 minutes. It's 70 in the garage so I'll test it in about 90 minutes. If the weather holds up, I might be painting the topcoat tomorrow. There's a big sale coming up (40% off paint) in a couple weeks but by then it might be too cold. Decisions, decisions!!

Second coat finshed, a few hours later.

Our usual paint supplier is Sherman Williams. They have an outlet store a few blocks from the house. Our old neighbor, let's call him Stan, was a professional house painter and in fact painted our bedroom trim. By all accounts, he was a pretty good painter, but not very good with women. To clarify, he was pretty good with women, but not very good with good women. The last one took him for pretty much everything he owned and he ultimately foreclosed on his house. His legacy, though, was leaving us with his account at Sherman Williams. They seem to be fairly knowledgeable, certainly more than the Big Box guys, so when I walked in last week looking for paint, I interviewed the poor fellow for a good 10 minutes before setting on what I wound up buying.

First coat done, working on footwell. You can't see it, but I'm sweating buckets here.

Just like wood, just like epoxy, just like glue, paint comes in all sorts of sizes, flavors, and "enhancements." Most of the noise is plain marketing nonsense, but some of it is relevant. UV protection and water resistance is real. Everything else is kinda fluff. I settled on some pretty good latex exterior house paint for the interior of the cabin and what will be the cockpit. I figured, like some others, that this will save a little bit of money as I can probably get through the painting with one gallon. I also think it'll look nice as the same "satin eggshell" I'm going for will be inside and out.

I'm also painting the outboard sides of the footwell. This is the side that faces the cabin. For some reason, a few PocketShips I've seen haven't painted them. I'm sure it's because they went in later and builders figured no one would see it, anyway. I guess that's true, but I had a brush in my hand and they were standing there, staring at me, so paint they get. Of course, I haven't done the transom or the forward locker, having decided to wait until the speaker boxes go in. One step at a time, even for painting.

Update: Fast forward in time to the 3rd coat down..

After the third coat. Much better coverage. I don't think I'll do a 4th.

Looking aft. Considering whether or not to fill in the small gaps where the fiberglass on the cleats gave me some trouble. Figure a little marine caulk should do it.

Outboard footwell sides (the sides facing into the cabin) and dashboard with 3rd coat. Heating element courtesy of Costco brings the garage up to 60'.

Looking forward.The "bright" area is the forward part of the footwell, which will be highly visible underway, and will get its own treatment when the time comes.

C-269*M D-11.3NM S-3K

I started the day in my Coastal Navigation class, ASA 105. This class is a prerequisite  for more advanced ASA courses like Advanced Coastal Cruising (106) and Offshore Passagemaking (108). I won't get into whether or not the classes are 'worth it' or whatever. I'll just say I have a lot of fun in these classes. With sailing, I've found that there's my way, that other guy's way, and the ASA way. All are worthwhile inputs to seamanship, so I do recommend these courses.  As for navigation, there's something inherently awesome about being able to use a divider, compass, and chart to get where you're going. Definitely punching a pretty cool man card with this class.

Homework - get from Cutterbunk to Sakonet Pt. Try to avoid the 60 year old submerged depth charge.

I like how on the map there's an "unexploded depth charge" in the middle of Rhode Island Sound. Apparently it's been there since 1957 in 130 feet of water. They tell you these things so you don't anchor on it or drop a crab net in the area. I have to think someone's going to try to recover that thing, no?

Once I got home, I did some family stuff and then cranked up the heat and opened the garage door. It was in the low 50's today in Minnesota, a balmy day by any October standard, so I began a real concerted effort to get some painting done this weekend. However, as others described, intentionally or not, sanding and prepping takes an awful long time. Still, there's something also very satisfying about this process. It's gearing up to something really cool. Getting the interior hull painted is a major milestone and opens the door to a rapid accretion of decks, topsides, and "the flip". Practically, I get the floorboards off the bow and into the boat. Finally. Minor work to build the cut outs will ensue but that's not a big deal.

In the meantime, I built my speaker boxes using some scrap marine ply. Kit builders will recognize these shapes.

To be speaker parts.

After about 10 seconds of a freehand jigsaw, I went out and tried to buy 5" and 6" hole saws but was aghast at the prices. If I wanted a full set of the larger sizes, it'd be $100, easy. So I did some research and found something for $22 that got awful reviews on Amazon. The idea is that it's variable and can cut holes between 4" and 7". It has "self-sharpening blades" and attaches to a normal hand drill. Sure, why not. Without question, this is probably the most dangerous instrument I've ever had the pleasure of using. With very careful manipulation, some praying, and a fire extinguisher at the ready, I managed to cut reasonably good holes with it. The smoke it let off was just icing on the cake.

Contraption on the left; hole on the right. It works but not for the weak kneed or shaky hands.

Matching ones. I later cut these down to match the profile of the compartment.

The speaker boxes will look a little different from some others. Rather than being flush to the port or starboard sides, I'll have maybe 1"-2" side wall that faces the inside cabin. This wasn't intentional, just the way I cut it. After much deliberation, I decided to keep it like that instead of recutting and wasting the plywood. It'll still look good, just different. I can then use that small side for hanging things if necessary.

Frog tape = getting ready for primer.

Oh, did I mention the road to painting? The photo above with the frog tape was taken after about 2 hours of sanding random things in the hull. I also replaced some divots I made when attaching the laz cleats, holes where the screws went through the cleats and bulkhead. Those will get sanded down smooth. I also brushed epoxy on the new cleats and the holes that I expanded last week for a little extra protection.

While that epoxy cured, I laid the tape down. The tape is 2" from each edge (and 2" above the floor boards). I have a fairly large dashboard so didn't want to go to far into the bulkhead with paint. The upper corners on each side will have a rounded, painted area where the dorade vents go, but since I'm not sure where exactly they are yet, I'll leave that til later. I'm definitely going to get my $22 out of the hole saw.

Test fit of the floorboard. I used this to measure out the frog tape on bulkhead 2, and also to see if the floors were still level. All good so afr.

Once all this was laid down, there wasn't much else I could do while the epoxy cured. I then picked out all the wood that will serve as the seatback frames and sanded those in prep for epoxy. It'd be nice to get those ready for installation if I get a day or two in the coming couple weeks that lets me work. Now and then Mother Nature surprises us. A couple years back, it was 70 degrees on Halloween. Spooky!

dunnoduncare

One of the interesting things I've found about building PocketShip is how much less I care about some things I cared a lot about not long ago. One of these things is my lazarette compartment.

In the traditional design, the area between bulkhead 8 and the transom has a good layer of flotation. While watertight, it's otherwise open to the elements. Open the hatches, and you're staring at flotation. Water gets in there through rain or worse and without a bilge drain, it can get a bit, shall we say, musty (I'm looking at you, PocketShip #1).

Aesthetically, no one wants to stare down into Menard's finest home insulation. Practically, it makes it that much harder to find the beer. Many builders have installed "floors" here to separate the laz area from the flotation, which of course is an idea I'll borrow mercilessly.

Back in August, I carefully and skillfully measured the area I wanted back there. I wanted to leave a certain height to fit a 3 gallon gas tank. I measured it so carefully I was afraid to cut the cleats until everything was just so. Fast forward two months, and there were still no cleats, until tonight, anyway.

I was working on the battery platform (another long-delayed build) and mixed up too much epoxy. Rather than let it harden in the cup, I decided to go ahead and use it for the laz cleats. I couldn't find my original notes with the careful measurements, so I ran upstairs to the boat and quickly measured out 22", 26", and 17", and cut them from a ribbon of pine I had laying around the shop. The longest and shortest ones needed a 15 degree bevel to support the rake of the transom and hull.

Laz cleats in place. Left to right: 17" 26" 22". The 17" and 26" get 15 degree bevels. I aligned it with the bottom of the footwell. If I'm off a little, I'll just raise with dowels or something.

Ten minutes later, they were epoxy'd and screwed into place and I suddenly have port side laz cleats. The rest of the epoxy in the cup was getting too hard so couldn't do the starboard side, but it was nice to get something done that's been on the agenda for a long time. I don't know if it'll fit my 3 gallon gas tank, but it doesn't matter. Not lost on me is how quickly I was able to do this, based on my original attempts when building the deck cleats.

A benefit to doing this is now I can size and cut the holes for the deck plates that will give me access to the laz area from the cabin. That was an idea from mtsailor, a builder from the boards. Turns out I can fit a full 6" plate there if I want but I'll probably go a little smaller so as not to interfere with the deck or footwell.

I also expanded the holes for the secondary limber holes I drilled into the floorboards. The original secondary holes I cut into the floorboards were 7/8". The conduit I got is bigger than that, so I had to make the hole bigger. I used the old woodworker's trick of a pilot hole. First, cut the new sized hole into a piece of scrap. Then center the scrap over the old hole and clamp/secure it in place. Then drill the new hole. The scrap wood will hold the hole saw in place while you cut the bigger hole.

Scrap with new hole clamped over old hole.

I then trimmed back some of the plastic of the thru hulls and they look and fit great. I test fit the new conduit and ran a wire down the length. Very satisfying to have something work. This is a huge win for my intolerance for wires. I'll have a couple in the cabin - unless I can figure out how to invisibly run the RAM3 wire - but there won't be many.

Trimmed back the thru hulls. They fit and look great.

View of thru hull from above. Transom is to the left. To the left.

The only thing missing from the electrical infrastructure was the battery platform. A battery platform can be very simple, and indeed, many PocketShips have a couple pieces of scrap holding up the battery box, and that's just fine. I don't know why I decided to build a xylophone for my battery platform, but I did. I think it's because these were the closest bits of wood near me and I wanted to see if I could make it fit the design.

Getting the angles right was tricky. It reminded me of the exercise in futility that was the sole: measure once, cut twice, measure four times, cut once, until it fits. Finally happy, I mixed up some epoxy and screwed the pieces down with brass screws. This will then be epoxy'd onto the hull permanently, and the battery box platform will be screwed into this. Whew!

Xylophone? Nope -- battery box holder. Top holes for conduit; bottom arch for limber/water flow.

It fits pretty well. I drilled a couple holes in case I wanted to run the conduit through, but seriously, this whole exercise was completely unnecessary. In hindsight, I think I was just having fun in the shop again after ignoring the build for so long.

Lamination of cabin sole, part 2. Some day this will be done.

The last sole lamination for the sole was done tonight. That means I'm completely done with this finishing project. The manual mentions it's a big finishing job - file that under no sh!t!

I'm undecided if I want to build the speaker boxes before painting, or paint before the speaker boxes. I'd like to bust out the primer and paint as little as possible, but I know I'll be painting the top sides whenever I get around to that, which means if I put off the speaker boxes until then, no harm.

View from the garage at the rear of the other boat. It was a nice late afternoon to work. That's my father in law back from a walk,

Bittersweet Boating

We pulled the Macgregor out of the water today and trailered her home to the driveway where she'll sit until we're able to either park it in the garage next door, or haul it down to Hastings to a pole barn. I'd much prefer the garage next door so we can work her over the winter: new coat of paint, new electrical, new cushions, new, new, new. "The Islander" will have undergone the extreme makeover we promised when we bought her.

But before that, we of course went for a sail. It was a near-perfect fall day in Minnesota: a high of 60 with clear, crisp winds. Gusts pushed 10kn but stayed around 3-5 throughout the late morning when we were out. I brought some foul weather gear but wound up in a shirt, it was so warm.

What a day. It was as nice as this looks.

We took our corgi, Dylan, out for the first time. At first, he was terrified, but slowly calmed down and by the end was running around the boat his usual skippy self. We'll have to get him a puppy life jacket as I don't trust him to sit still. Something tells me we'll be practicing crew overboard drills with him on board.

Dylan at rest. Midday cider to celebrate the last sailing day of the year.

When the winds finally died for good, we motored to the dock and tied off. Anita pulled the mainsail down as I headed to get the trailer. It was a great sail but nice to turn the page on this season. Bittersweet, indeed.

Ready to get hauled out.

The haul out wasn't without excitement. Thirty two bikes with more than 32 bikers decided to show at the boat ramp for a photo op on the busiest day of the year and left their bikes on the small roundabout to take the photo. Remember that this was the last day for haul out and there were four boats in various stages of undress on a small ramp, with several more headed for the dock. Well done, fellas. This is why people hate you.

Perfect time for a strong gust of wind, an orca, or alien invasion.

I got home and worked on the 'other' boat. There are only a few good days left; I'm kidding myself that we can keep it in 60's for any length of time. I finally got around to epoxy'ng the lamination for the sole. This is a small strip of ash to the padauk at board #4. It helps break up the pattern and looks pretty nice all done up. I thought about attaching this with some wood glue and brad nails, but thought better of it. It needs to be pretty strong and waterproof, so it gets the full epoxy treatment. The port side is sitting on my living room floor waiting its turn

Quite a color combination.

The goal for the evening is to clean out the hull in preparation for painting. If I can get the interior painted, with the wires laid down and the decks on before hibernation, I'd call that a success. Any nice days from then to spring will be a bonus.

The Slow Slog to Slothdom

When I started this blog a few months back, I swore that I'd keep it up to date. And here I am, far too long in this condition. Progress has been in stops and starts. I'm still working through finishing the floorboards / sole boards. They look great, but take awhile as I can only really work on them outside due to the size of the boards and the smell from the varnish. In preparation for the inevitable painting, I've cleaned out the hundreds of things that have accumulated in the hull over time: screws, tape, tools, shavings. But progress? Not really.

The trailer makes a good finishing table.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the boat, though. I've decided on a few things that have been weighing on my mind for a long time. First, I'm going to run the bilge pump line under bulkhead 8 (BH8) and through the back of the footwell. I'm also going to run the aft wires into a through hull also under BH8. That's the cleanest solution for what I want to do, and the safest, too. To that end, I just ordered a couple pieces that will help.

3/4" on either side with 5200 in the middle = watertight through hull love.

It involves removing the bottom 2/3 of the cleat on BH8 for the couple inches on either side for the through hull. It also involves ensuring there's a liftout back there for access.

Cut holes through bulkhead 8 just under the top of the cleat, between the floorboards back here. I'll trim a slot in the cleat where I'll insert the flat area of the through hull.

View from aft side of BH8. The right (starboard) hole is fully cut; the left has the pilot hole. These will get a coating of epoxy just for good measure.

Hi, guys! Test fit of hoses. Right one is electrical; white is bilge. Note that there will actually be two thru-hulls here with the hoses clamped to it so this will remain a watertight bulkhead. It won't be two hoses poking out.

Through the rabbit hole.

I'm also planning on more damage to bulkhead 8. There will be a couple deck plates here for entry to the laz area. I remember reading about someone doing this but I've never seen a photo of it. The purpose is for access to the laz from the cabin without having to leave the cabin. Apparently it also helps with laz ventilation,, but it'll really be to get my beer from the cooler. Depending on what other things I want access to will dictate how I further separate that compartment. I also think it will make the cabin look a little bigger, like a mirror does in a small room, while at the same time doubling (tripling?) "cabin" storage space. Doubtful will it affect buoyancy or the ship's ability to right itself. If water gets that high in my laz compartments, I've got bigger problems.