Table of Contents


There may be a better way to make all these posts more easily navigable, but the best I’ve managed is this table of contents which is roughly divided into “building the structure,” “overthinking everything,” “making mistakes,” and “Look, it’s a boat!” That also happens to be the chronology of the project, so that worked out.

The basic structure takes form.
Day 1 Trying out epoxy, gluing sheer clamps.
Day 2 Making clamps, gluing the side panels.
Day 3 Gluing sheer clamps to side panels.
Day 4 Gluing the bottom panels.
Days 5-6 Sheer clamps, gluing, tapering.
Days 7-8 Attaching the sides and bottom.
Day 9 Drilling the holes for stitching side and bottom.
Day 10 Screwing the sheer clamps together at stem and stern.
Day 13 Satisfying stitching at last.
Days 14-15 Boat is upright! Some issues to check on.
Day 16 Tightening stitches, bulkheads placed.
Day 17 Sheer clamps clamped, fillets filletted, seams taped.
Day 18 It’s a boat! End pours done.
Day 19 One mistake fixed, a surprise revealed.
Day 20 Stitches out; sanding magic.
Days 21, 22 Prepping for glasswork,
Day 23 Slow down! Finding the right tools.
Day 24 Fiberglass and two coats of epoxy on the hull.
Day 25 Third coat, touchups, notes on filling the weave.
Day 26 Even more touchups, gluing the deck beam.
Day 27 Cutting the hole for the skeg, installing its receiver.
Day 28 Cutting deck beam, sanding gunwales, fillets using cell-o-fill.

I get ideas for mods to the rigger (and so much more).
Days 29, 30 Consider: Long board sanding, pass-throughs, sliding rigger?
Days 31- 35 Designing the rigger and tracks, false starts, the electric planer!
Days 36-40 More design evolution.
Day 41 Making my intentions known. The results of all that thinking.
Day 42 The first steps toward actually building the rowing machinery.
Day 43 Joining the fore deck panels.
Days 44-45 Planing the sheer clamps, installing pass-throughs.

You call them “oars.” We call them “sculls.”
Day 46 Think about sculls.
Days 47-48 Cleaning up old oars, buying pieces.
Day 49 Epoxying the decks, thinking about an action cam.
Day 50 Gathering more supplies.
Days 51-53 Sculls are problematic, Plans A, B, C, and D then a flash of sanity.
Day 54 The after deck is attached. The forward deck has issues.
Days 55-56 Sculls are finished.

Details done, done again, and redone.
Day 57 Decks are glued down, brass screws are all wrong.
Days 58-59 Filling some gaps, cutting the decks to size.
Day 60 Dowels replace screws. Sanding down for final epoxy coats.
Days 61-62 Patches for stern and prow, pigments, sealing bulkheads.
Days 63-64 I screwed up and begin to cope with surface “contamination.”
Days 65-67 Playing in the splash box.
Days 68-73 Finishing the splash box, designing and building the rigger.
Day 74 Working out dimensions inside “The Office.”
Days 75-78 The slide, a light at the end of the tunnel, a little calculation.
Days 79-82 More on attaching the slide, some epoxy changes.
Days 83-84 Long board sanding when the wx is too cool to epoxy.
Days 85-88 Epoxy is finished. More suffering about drop-in hardware.

Basically seaworthy at this point. Preparing to launch. Eventually.
Days 89-92 Mounting hardware installed in hull — it works!
Days 93-98 Refining rowing machinery, more epoxy, some sanding.
Days 99-103 Varnish. This boat is now officially beautiful!
Days 104-105 Energy recovery, building stretchers, making a seat.
Day 132 and more! Launch Day?
Day 1,259 et seq. It’s been three years!