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To make the page upload a little easier for slower conections, I figured it was time to start up on an other page. 

The problem about posting after a long web absence is:where to start? I should start with where have we been? Still here. What have we been doing? Hibernating should be the right word. Strangely this winter has been the mildest my lifetime has known here in eastern Canada. Had the sandblasting been completed it would of been a great winter to work on the boats interior. Unfortunately more blasting and painting has to be done before moving on, so I didn't do much on the boat this winter. As it turned out, a boat building break has been pretty beneficial for the boat building motivation: I know feel like a race horse at the start line again.

My concept of hibernating, making winter fun!

So what have we done? We skied and we raced with our dogs. Dogs? Humm...yah....This may not (actually IS not), the wisest move we've ever made but there it is: A new four legged friend has joined our crew. Marvin is a mutt with a pedigree :) : 35.125% braque, 33.5% pointer, 28.125% alaskan husky, 3.25% greyhound...I'm not joking, he did come with his lineage history. Marvin is a sprint dog, he's bred for running...and that he does. I know, the plan is to live on that boat we are building and an other hyper active pup may not sound very reasonable. The good news is that when Marvin isn't running he's lounging and that a 10 km stroll with him only takes 25 minutes...his swimming performances are still to be assessed.

Addition to our crew, crazy Marvin

What about now? Well winter is gone and boat building season is back. The cabin top has spent the winter in the shop with the hopes that I was going to build the hatch during the cold season. I'm working on it as we speak and I should have it finished very soon. Meanwhile we also have to seriously think of a solution for a little problem with supporting the boat. The boat is sinking! Several beams carrying the hull have rotten, putting more stress on the rest of supports which have compressed. I was stunned this morning to find out that the bow has gone down so much the keel angle is down 6.6 degrees. We are not going to try bringing the boat back up to its waterline level but we want to stabilize it to avoid more weight shifting on the supports. To do so we will have to lift the boat somewhat, so we can take out the rotten beams and replace them by new ones. Just the idea is scaring me; the boat weighs now close to 20 tons. Lifting it shouldn't be a big deal with a big enough jack but we'd like to avoid having it tip over. Our current plan is to make hefty adjustable tripods to hold the hull side to side as we lift. To do so we are considering taking our gantry down and use the square tubing from the legs to build the tripods, we'll also recuperate the I beam to use under the keel. The gantry has been a necessity to build the hull and we used it a lot but we are now using it very rarely and will do better use of the materials for new stands than for a giant swing set. It eventually has to come down.

The photo doesn't show very well but the center of the plate under the keel support has literally sunk threw the gravel  a good 4 inches.

Currently building the main hatch, it's coming along very well. Nope, even though it looks pretty good,  it's not staying clear coated, I'll paint over the epoxy.

Next will come some more blasting and painting, the finishing of the aft section, engine bed, stern tube, rudder, aft mast supports....and again, blasting and painting. I am dearly hoping that by the end of the summer I will be retiring from my welding career and move on, finally, to the wood work. For those who may wonder, I very much doubt we will get the exterior of the boat blasted and painted this summer, that is, on our work schedule, one of the last jobs. But who knows. One thing we know about plans is that odds are it's unlikely to happen as planned. Lets follow the flow and find out where we go.

July 4th 2010- Catching up on the blogging

Ouch, I have been neglecting the blog again. Much has happen and now I just have to much to tell...all at once. I'm making my blogging difficult by always putting it back to later. Ok, I will not be able to catch up all in one post so, I'll take the pressure off, and try to limit myself to some short little reports over the next few days.

My birthday went by and I got a new HD sport video camera. It's also quite fun to take wide angle snap shots. 170 degree shot of the yard...neat hun?

Lets start by going back a few weeks, end of April. We finally finished the sandblasting and painting of the main compartment. It may have seemed like we divided up the blasting/painting job a lot and made it into a long dragging marathon for ourselves. Maybe...but better that than an unachievable sprint. In ideal conditions we would have either been building under a roof and/or in a dryer climate, we would have extra hands to share the physical work and maybe have a second compressor...all that, or just maybe...be super heroes.

Wide angle shot of the boat before the blasting of the bilges. I love the new camera :)

The sandblasting of the bilges went pretty strait forward. I did the blasting and Mark everything else, our team works best like that. I have good mobility to move close to the hull and the endurance to blast all day, Mark has the strength and patience to load and regulate the sand without getting distracted by lint (a big problem for me). All and all this was our most painless go at blasting and painting (maybe we're just getting to used to it).

This time, before painting we had one extra little job to add to the list: welding shut the hole in the bottom of the hull. This temporary hatch has been so useful to pass tools threw, run the blasting hoses and power cords, communicate from inside and out the boat, I will almost regret having to weld it up. On the other side doing so seals one more step of the project.

Only incident to report: I dropped a gallon of paint in the boat at the third coat, making a normally rather relaxing job a real pain. Incidents happen...but I hate when it happens to me.

Done! Now neat and tidy.

Much more else has been done since April, I'll try to be good and catch up on the updates over the next week. The unreasonably high temperatures in the weather forecast should help.

July 13th 2010- Not so good of a week

I don't like planning. The reason being that, what ever plans I make, I can guaranty it is the one thing that will not happen. Life is full of surprises, good and bad.

Tuesday night I got a phone call from my sister: my mom had an accident. A horse fell on her as they were trying to load the not so collaborative animal in a trailer. My mom has two broken legs and has been in the hospital since.

I haven't done anything on the boat this week, too busy running around to help out my mother. As it turns out, I would of probably have not done much anyway because of the insane weather we've had, temperatures up around 36C and very humid. Still today, it very hot. I don't know what the next few weeks/month will be like but I believe I will be spending a little less time in the shop and a little more with my mom.

No new progress then, but I can keep catching up on the show and tell of previous work.

 
With the main compartment all blasted and painted we were ready to bring the cabin top back on the boat. It had come down to get blasted and painted but also to keep the boat wide open for the stinky and dusty work, consequently making the miserable jobs somewhat less miserable.

Both our cabin tops are bolted on rather than welded for that reason and to keep open the possibility to eventually replace them with some nice wooden ones when we sail somewhere we can afford the wood...I am somewhat kicking myself though and thinking I should of been smarter and made them of aluminium...maybe some day.