Ruth here:

“I often joke about building the boat being Garrett’s quarter life crisis. Buying a brand-new red sports car would have been easier! But no where near as challenging so Garrett couldn’t be bothered with such wants. Garrett turned 25 today so we already have a head start into his issues dealing with the fact he’s a quarter of a century old. Send your birthday love!

Today we work on the Cabins! We just got the plywood we needed to construct the walls yesterday thanks to some kind souls who helped us afford it!

     

 

I was driving home late last night and heard this weird noise and realized when I pulled into our driveway I was listening to my music too load and failed to notice I had a flat tire! Blond, yes, I know… I promised Garrett I’d change it and he gave me this look like, “…okay..” He’s shown me how to change I tire in case of an emergency but I’ve never actually changed one out myself. I know you know this is not a big deal or any real accomplishment but I feel proud today because I did it for the first time by myself and can check that off the list of things to do before I die.

My brother drove over from Boise, ID for the weekend so naturally we made food, drank beer, made fires, and sang out of tune!

The second layer of the deck came out nicely! First layer is 3/8 and the second is 1/2 in. Plywood covers so much surface area!!!

 

Thanks Everyone!

 

Here it is!

 

Finally we’ve finished planking the hull! the last couple planks were a little more tricky to fit, but not to bad. They are triangular, and need to be shaped to slide in right where the two rabbets meet. It’s pretty crazy, and kinda funny because it definitely hasn’t set in yet. It’s always interesting with every milestone we accomplish the excitement does’t come till later. I get in a zone to push through, and when it’s finished I don’t feel much excitement until I reset a bit. The winter is getting close, but we have once again been blessed  by the lingering kindness of humanity. This time in the form of a giant kerosene heater for the shed. i’m pretty stoked because once we get the shed closed back up it should be able to heat the whole thing. We will be moving back to the deck and cabin houses now, and hoping the winter isn’t to bad this year.

     

 There it is!

 

Ruth here:

“Garrett had one hell of a roller-coaster day. He usually starts the generator to let it warm up before he does anything else but yesterday he decided to prep the hull for the next 5 bottom planks. He preserves and tars every surface then goes to start up the generator. The Genie has been a little stubborn lately with the weather slowly shifting to cold and colder. Garrett squirted a little starting fluid and gave it a go. The generator goes into flame! Fight or flight? Should he get the hell out of dodge or try and put out the flame which is a couple feet tall? He had just filled the tank, which rests above the flame, with 5 gallons of gas and next to the generator is the spare 5 gallon jerry jug. Also to note the generator sits right next to our trailer which is our home and has an open flame propane refrigerator… Thankfully it is raining so Garrett’s hands were wet and he didn’t suffer any burns. He rips off, somehow, the cover for the carb and the fuel filter which is where the flame started. He throws it as far away as possible along next with the spare jerry jug of gas. He frantically starts shoving dirt, that being his only available extinguisher, anywhere he can to suffocate the fire. This method was successful but before he was in the clear he noticed the filter he threw was still very much on fire. Fortunately the generator is not ruined we just need to replace a few parts and Garrett does not look like something out of a horror film with a deformed face!

We are getting awfully close to finishing the bottom planking. The port side is winning but starboard is not too far behind. She is looking really awesome! Progress will once again resume after we take care of repairing the generator:)

I’ve been filling all the countersink holes with epoxy and sawdust. I’m about half way on the Port side of the boat. Garrett will grind down the epoxy to be flush with the hull and then will plane down the entire hull to make her fare and ready to be preserved then primed. ”

Thanks everybody!

Here finally is episode 14!

Again sorry for the long delay between posts and videos. We will get back into the groove of interneting soon…  That being said exciting things are happening on the boat building front. We have completed the first layer of our deck! We have yet again altered plans slightly on the construction of the deck. We were going to cold mold it with a few layers of fir since we got all that great reclaim lumber. I would still love to do it that way, but building with only a generator for power has its limitations… My table saw just cant handle cutting all those strips out of the 2×12’s. The generator is just powerful enough to run it  , but only if i’m not pushing it to hard. I got through about 1/4 of what we needed and realized it wasn’t worth it. So we have decided to do a combination of the different methods. We laid down one layer of 3/8inch ply, and over that we plan on epoxying and fastening a layer of 1/2″x3″ fir strips. Then to finish it off we will glue a thin layer of decretive fir on top with gaps for caulking to make her look nice and salty 🙂

    

It’s pretty awesome to walk around up on deck, and all to easy to sit around day dreaming. We are starting preparations for winter. It’s getting cold fast and we both have no idea how summer went by so fast. Hopefully we’ll be back with another update soon! Have a good one!

Ruth here:

“Hi and Bye to September. I got to say it now or else I’ll miss it!

We apologize for the lack of updates this month. It has been a crazy month for us but don’t fear it doesn’t mean progress has slowed down. We’ve visited family, had friends and family visit us, started laying down the deck, and managed to sleep a few times!

Our trip to California to visit my family was so great. We both love just climbing into the car and driving. I really miss my family sometimes and always love getting a wonderful reminder of how awesome they are. We went wine tasting, cooked some amazing meals, and Garrett even managed to find himself a project while we were there! My mom had offered, if Garrett wanted to disassemble their old wooden hot tub he could have the lumber. He took apart the old girl and repaired their deck in a day. He came to discover it is old growth Redwood, (can’t buy that stuff anymore) really tight grain and in awesome shape. (except for the ends) I’ll have to put up some pictures once we plane a few pieces!

Garrett’s brother, Reid, stopped in for a surprise visit. He helped with a few monotonous tasks, which saved us boat loads of time. Then we had to have some fun! We drove his VW Van to the coast for the weekend. He’s just completed his US Roadtrip Tour, so his van had been his home for the last 5 months and has everything you need. We all really needed to soak ourselves in some Northwest Pacific Ocean.

                                                   

We went into Portland one day this month (couldn’t tell you what day as everyday this month feels a little blurred) to get 12 sheets of plywood. We sort of change styles once again on how we are going to lay up the deck. We’ve decided for the first layer to use 3/8 ACX plywood and top that with 1/2”X 3” strips of vertical grain fir with epoxy in between and finishing the last layer with the really pretty stuff we got off craigslist (from the planking stock) that gave us 1/4” left overs. If you’re confused that’s okay, me too.

     
<——Yes lady’s, he’s single! 😉          

We have a few sheets of the plywood on now but these are the most recent photos I have on my computer showing all the deck framing. I put my foot down and committed to making a post today! I was so busy earlier that I had to do this after work so I’m sitting in the dark empty restaurant filling all you in on the crazy month of September. This month is not over yet! We are having a great week of weather so we really hope to complete the fist layer of the deck before months end

  

Thank you for being patient. This building a boat thing is hard and takes a lot of time and much of my brain space. I’m still working on the next Episode as often as I get the chance and promise it will be out soon!”

 

Ruth here:

“We should have told more people when we were starting to build to buy stock in Henry’s Roofing Tar and Tacoma Screw. Just in the bottom planking alone so far we’ve gone through 3 buckets of tar and 2,000 some odd screws!

 

Finally some more up to date photos of her hull!

Working on the deck for the next few days to get that framed in so when we come back from yet another short trip to California this week we can then start planking and gluing that together. With our recent score on lumber we intend on planking the deck instead of plywood and glass which makes both of us very happy.”

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!”

Ruth here:

“In all sense of the word. Summer has finally arrived and we are seeing some of the same weather we did last year. We got lucky and from May until now it has been mild, high 70’s and mid 80’s. This whole last week, however, has been mid to high 90’s with a few hours of each day kissing 100 degrees. Garrett has stuck to his plan of getting 5 bottom planks on a day. We have estimated it will take about 60 planks per side. He started midships at worked aft to the transom and the Port side has all those planks done, 46 planks!

The last group of planks on her tail end are only 3 inches wide versus the 5.5in width of the rest. The very last plank will need to be steamed. There is just a little too much of a twist to manually pull that plank in. Garrett has constructed a steam box out of plywood and using a single burner below it and some hosing connecting the pot of water, to transport the steam, to the box with our tiny plank inside. The box needs a little tweaking still so I’ll get better pictures to illustrate this soon.                                   

I’m so excited to see the bilge!!!

In between planking the bottom we are also working on the deck. This week as been a bit too hot to be working that high up in the shed so we’ve been focused more on planking but here are a few pics of what we’ve got so far. Awesome!!!

Can’t you just picture her getting on a mean lean crushing waves!

The Starboard side is slowly catching up to Port. Another 2 full days and Starboard will be planked up to the transom as well! 2 full HOT days! Send your cold thoughts to Garrett 🙂 “

Cheers,

R