The Incredible Hull

What the hull? What, the hull? What the ... hull? Okay, the hull -- been there, done that. I finished the planking, three on each side. The fancy boatbuilding terms for them, beginning at the bottom of the boat, are the garboard plank, the middle plank, and the sheer plank. "Sheer" means top of the boat. Although there are a total of six planks, I had to cut at least eight because of boo-boos. I ended up cutting one of the sheer planks from a piece of wood that was twice as thick as the rest of them because I didn't want to go back to the hobby shop just to buy sheetwood 1/32nd of an inch thick. Hardly seemed worth it for something that thin. The 1/16th-inch thick wood worked fine, just don't tell the boatbuilding police. After all the glue had set, I removed the hull from the building jig, sanded it, admired it for a long time, shot pictures of it, admired it some more, shot more pictures of it, admired it ... you get the idea.

One thing I am learning about boatbuilding is that the instructions presume knowledge that I don't have. For example, next I will be working on the daggerboard something-or-other, which involves cutting a hole in the bottom of the boat. How do you do that? The instructions say, "Cut a hole." I consulted a Chinese fortune cookie, but all it said was, "Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you." Okay, what the hull.

A little jig

Progress in the last week:

1. For my daughter's 17th birthday, I bought myself a new camera. She's in Costa Rica, so I couldn't very well give it to her.

2. I finished building the jig, which is the mold and frame over which one builds the hull of the boat.

3. I cut out the bottom of the boat and glued it in place. It's a flat-bottom boat, but it's not perfectly flat. I picked up some boatbuilding terminology, too. The directions said that the bottom panel had to be "sprung" into place. What does that mean? Well, it's fancy boatbuilding talk for "bent." And to "spring" this sheet of wood without breaking it, I had to steam it over a tea kettle. According to my husband, that's an old boatbuilding trick, but I can't figure out how to steam a 7-foot sheet of plywood for a full-size boat.

Blonde joke #2

Q: How can you tell which tricycle belongs to the blonde?
A: It's the one with a kickstand.

Let's hear it for kickstands! I don't even have a tricycle, but I do have a kickstand.


Q: How many times did the blonde have to cut out the center frame of her model Nutshell Pram before she got it right?
A: Three.

Q: How many times did the blonde have to cut out the bottom of her boat?
A: Two.

Q: How many trips to the hobby shop to buy more wood?
A: Can't count that high.