I have digressed long enough having been seduced by the siren call of kayaks and tall ships. Let me once again pursue the idea of choosing a small boat design. To recap in a nutshell.
1. Mission: convert grand-kids into water-loving windblown maniacs
2. Boat size: accomplish mission using a boat 14-15 feet long, thus, not putting any large holes in garage wall.
In case you were wondering I am not putting these six points in any specific order. Keep in mind that I write all these blog posts between midnight and three a.m. The question that arises in my foggy headed state is; What materials am I to build her out of? This is not a tpough question. Steel and aluminum do not lend themselves either to the size vessel or my skill level. Not that I don’t like a good aluminum canoe, except on a sunny August day. I simply chose to keep solar ovens for survival gear. Fiberglass is likewise, well… it’s fiberglass! what can I say? Good for buying ready-made, not much fun to build at home.
Wood is the obvious choice. traditional planking carvel or lapstrake are not out of the question except I know it would take an ungodly amount of time spiling and fitting not to mention bending frames.This brings us to plywood. Here is a little something out of sequence as I was going to touch on hull shape and stability later and more to the point, plywood has several advantages. The material is easy to work with Covers larger areas than one single planks. It keeps the water out and is readily available although I wish it was cheaper. Money will be a problem for me in any case as I am starting with a budget of approximately zero and will have to buy as I build. If you would like to help out there is a donate button in the sidebar which will take you swiftly and painlessly to Pay Pal.
In my next post I will be talking about sailing rigs. canvas makes the rubber meet the road. It also gives me a great excuse to yell things like READY ABOUT! and JIBE HO! You gotta love that kind of stuff. See you soon.
