Ruth here:

“Despite the lack of blog posts we are so busy I can’t keep up!

Garrett glances the Craigslist ads every now and then to ogle at boats for sale (he has a problem) and to see if there is any quality lumber up for grabs. He hadn’t actually cruised the listings in quite a while but the other day he pulled it up and stumbled on a pot of gold! A guy, only an hour and a half south of us, was looking to unload some old growth fir for $1 a linear foot. You heard me, for those who know how good that is, a dollar a foot! There was so much lumber in this lot we had to pick it up in two trips. We scored on nearly 800 feet of beautiful 2X12 Douglas Fir boards. After getting it back to the shed and organizing the jewels, primarily vertical grain, we’ve only discovered about 6 tiny knots. The two of us were like two year olds keeping an eye on our new toy making sure no one else would touch it. On the drive home you’d hear one of us say, about every 5-6 minutes, “So much wood” with a stupid grin on our face.

Once again I feel the need to express how awesome it is meeting people. We were greeted with a smile and sent home with apples from their orchard. Thank you!

We are a bit further along on the boat than these pictures but since I do not have internet in the same place as the boat I cannot instantly put up current visuals. Looking from back of the transom forward now it appears that her hull is done! We’ve decided to pause on planking the bottom in order to get to the deck. This is because the deck will require some epoxy work which is weather sensitive. We have the whole month of September (knocking on wood here) to have temperatures above 60 degrees for the epoxy to be able to cure. We can continue planking even after the temperature starts to drop and we’d hate to be caught going into the winter unable to proceed because we can’t finish a major step that needs completing before the next!

Using two bolts Garrett was able to get the last plank pulled into the twist of the hull. The original idea of steaming the plank would have worked but it was taking too long to get the set up just right. One bolt towards the base of the plank close to the rabbet and another towards the top stringer was enough to tweak the piece into place by tightening down on the nut.

I feel like me and Garrett haven’t seen much of each other lately since we’ve both been working so hard this summer. Garrett has just been plowing through projects and steps on the boat. I’ve been so busy at the bar I work at trying to take advantage of the busy summer months with extra shifts. We work on opposite schedules. Garrett working from sun up to sun down and I begin as the sun sets through the night to almost see it rise again. Once the boat is in the water and we are sailing we will get to spend everyday together and laugh back at the days we hardly said two words in each others direction!

We are coming along and tightening down on the final tasks and will soon be driving in the last fasteners and it will all be smooth sailing from then on!”