Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Boat Work

Adam is still working on The Minuet. She's launching tomorrow, Lord willing. Today he epoxied on the rub rails, which strengthen and protect the boat's edges. Another thin board is attached to the edge with clamps and epoxied until it's ... permanent.

A friend has loaned us his oars to use with the boat.
Another boat project he's working on today is his new sculling oar for The Nocturne. He dislikes using the motor, and wants a large oar to use off the back end of the boat, to get in and out of the slip easily.
He bought 6 boards, each one is 1x3. He epoxied 3 of them together, sanded them down and then reduced each to an octagon on the edges. Honestly, I'm not sure how all this will turn into a sculling oar, and I'm eager to find out!
He did some of the work using our two trash dumpsters as his "table." I do think this will be an improvement to the noisy, stinky motor.
UPDATE: The launch of "The Minuet":
Adam designed the boat (well, he chose the plans) so that it would fit in the back of our mini-van.
 Here's the marina where the launch occurred. Now, the boat has been launched, but that doesn't mean Adam's done with it. He'll still paint it, mount oarlocks on it permanently, and put on a mast and sail.
 Adam and Philip carried the boat to the water.
 She floats well.
 It took Julia a while to get used to the feel of it. She's done a little canoeing, but no rowboat work.
 She had fun. This was just a test run to make sure it's seaworthy.
 She rowed down to the end of the canal and back.

1 comment:

debbie bailey said...

Impressive! I've never ridden in a rowboat before but would like to give it a try. It looks so very English.