Fleeta shoots mom

13 July 2006
Part of my New Year’s resolution was to make a documentary film about my boatbuilding project, and until last week I had made no progress on that aspect of the endeavour. All day Sunday, I worked on my boat while Kelsey hung around the house without much to do, so I prevailed upon her to shoot me. (That reminds me of a powerful scene in Tommy Lee Jones’s movie, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, in which a blind man asks TLJ to shoot him, but I digress...) Anyway, I have posted two short videos, “Drill Sergeant” and “Drill Sergeant, Part Deux,” that show me working on the building jig. Kelsey shot those with my little digital camera; I gave up on getting a real video camera, mainly because I can’t afford one, but also because I don’t really want one. The film portion of this project will just have to consist of poor quality, short video clips from my digital camera. We have an expression around our house for this lazy approach to a situation: “It’s the least I can do.”

Last Sunday was a most productive day:
I assembled the building jig, which includes the ladder frame, the two station molds, the laminated center frame, and the expertly-beveled stern transom. I may not have won the lottery, but by sheer luck and without even trying, the building jig turned out perfectly level. The only part left to do is to attach the forekeel and bow transom, which might be tricky but maybe luck will intervene again.