The Light of Day

A number of non-boat projects seemed to take over my time recently and kept me from working on the boat.  When I found myself actually doing my tax returns a full month and a half before the deadline, I realized that what was happening was that I was avoiding the boat.  I acknowledge that I have been more than a bit hesitant (fearful) of getting to the point where I could move the hull out of the garage, and actually see it from a distance of more than two feet, and assess the quality of my planking job.  


I finally pushed myself to apply a couple of coats of epoxy over the outside of the hull, sand the epoxy, and apply a coat of primer on the topside.

First coat of primer applied over 2 coats of epoxy.  Truly a Grey Seal.

Once the primer was applied, the inevitable next step was the moment of truth -- moving the project outside to get ready for turnover day.  To do this required disassembling my trusty garage extending shed which has served me well for the past year and a half.  I intend to move the hull back into the garage and then rebuild the shed after the hull is flipped, so I only wanted to take down the parts of the shed necessary to get the boat out.

The shed "before"

The shed came down reasonably well, with the roof and the outer (right) side left in place, and the front and inner (left) side removed more or less intact.  I took the sheathing off the framed assembly to make it easier to move.

Coming down. Roof brace ready to be jacked into place.

I braced the roof before taking down the front and side with a long 4x4 assembly jacked into place far enough from the shed to create an adequate opening for the boat.  Finally, after a bit of cleanup, removing the blocks out from under my rolling strongback, and attaching a length of strong rope between the forward end of the strongback and the rear bumper of my truck, I was ready to go.

Almost out

  Building the strongback on wheels was a brilliant idea (although I cannot claim credit for it.)  I could actually push the hull by hand in order to align it with the opening as it emerged from the garage, and I could scarcely feel the additional weight when pulling with the truck.  Actually if there had been three or four of us, I think we could have moved the whole thing by hand without the truck.  The hull is really not very heavy yet.

A view from the garage of the departing hull

Once out of the garage, I took a critical look at my work of the last year and a half, and was reasonably pleased.  I found one or two flat spots, that I may or may not address with fairing filler, but my biggest fear -- that the plank lines would not be fair -- has thankfully not been realized.  Today I am a happy, albeit sore, boatbuilder.

This view allows one to appreciate the shape of the hull

Next on the agenda is sanding and bottom painting, and then the long awaited flipping of the hull.