Vintage Rambler

Wearing my librarian hat yesterday, I asked a co-worker if she knew what a blog is. She said, “Yeah, isn’t it someone’s ramblings on the Internet?” I laughed and replied, “Yes. Perhaps you’d like to see my ramblings?”

A few months ago, I barely knew what a blog was. Now I write several and it seems that more and more of my time is consumed with the care and feeding of my blogs. To my dismay, Blonde in a Nutshell occasionally suffers neglect while I tend to others. Sometimes, desperate to post something on this blog, I’ll copy ramblings from one of my other blogs. So, with apologies, here goes:

“Progress on the boat has been slow lately because that thing called work keeps getting in the way. However, after the fiasco in Novato, I went to the tool sale at the fairgrounds and bought a workstation (some assembly required) which is a totally cool thingamajig that can double as a sawhorse. I’ve casted about for C-clamps and am discouraged at the utter dearth of them among my friends and relatives. But wait, there’s another fiasco waiting to happen. This weekend in Sebastopol there is a 'Vintage Wood Boat and Antique Swap.' My husband has warned me that this could be an entire swap meet populated by Bills and not to expect any great deals.

So far, I have ripped a 2x4 into long, thin strips for laminating with epoxy. Two pieces have to be laminated: the center frame and the forekeel. The ripping procedure was a particularly unpleasant one that involved a band saw and an artillery of curse words. I haven’t laminated yet, though, because first I have to rip more wood (more cursing), get the epoxy, and set everything up, making sure I have all the materials. A sixth sense tells me that the epoxy chapter of this story will include a lot of cursing, too.


Also, I have assembled the building jig, which is a ladder-type structure that lies horizontally and sits upon my new workstation. Feel free to admire both the jig and the workstation in the photo below. It is upon this ladder frame that I fasten the stations molds, which I finished a while back, and the center frame if I ever finish laminating it, and then begin building the boat.”



Update: Last Saturday, I called the phone number for the Vintage Boat Swap and the person who answered said the event was meager because a lot of vendors cancelled and if I was traveling a ways, not to bother. That was all the excuse I needed not to drive out to Sebastopol, but all day long I wondered if the guy said that as a joke and if, in fact, there were all kinds of great deals there that he didn’t want anyone else to find out about.

I ripped the other 2x4, which went well and with a minimum of cursing, but still have not laminated.

Yesterday, after I switched out of my librarian hat for my quilter hat, I had a long conversation with one of my quilting customers who turns out to be the daughter of an avid boatbuilder. She said she had spent the day sailing with her father in his newly launched 36-foot centerboard yawl. An octogenarian, he has just completed his eighteenth wooden boat. Thirty years ago, he built a stout 27-foot sailboat that he, his son and daughter sailed to Hawaii and back. I told her about my Nutshell Pram project, and she even knew the boat. In fact, her family owns a summer cottage on the coast of Maine, near the WoodenBoat school, from whence came the Nutshell Pram. The summer cottage is the ultimate home of the newly-launched yawl. Her family is living the life we want to live! She told me where her father builds boats, at the marina in San Rafael, and that I could go visit him anytime I want. Perhaps this weekend I will do that!