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.