April Fools

Opps, not April yet? Oh well, deal with it, I had to. So February was possibly the stupidest month of my life. I am still reeling from it all. I was all set to give up on the boat. I was tired of hearing how my boat was taking up space in the shop and was too overwhelmed and cold to do anything about finishing the renos. I spent weeks packing and moving all my stuff from the apartment, the boat and Davids house and putting it in storage. I then moved a few vanloads of stuff over to Ricks. Once I got there Rick wanted to clear the back pasture and the basement, so I spent another week or two moving more stuff in between working at my job. I was feeling underfoot at Ricks and the insecurity of knowing that I couldnt relax there and wait for the universe to do its thing prompted me to move back out. As the apartment hadn't been rented out yet , I ended up moving back in here for the time being. I can't believe I just spent a whole month moving my shit in circles. I really feel like I'm going mad. The one thing this taught me though is how much I missed having my own space so I'm much more motivated to get the boat put back together again.

Soooo as far as the boat is concerned, this is the new plan. As I was inspecting things where the side decks attach to the main cabin, I couldn't help but notice that anything that looked like support was rotten. As I removed more of the structure it just got worse. This is when I really wanted to give up as now I was going to lose the thing that made the boat special to me, its character in the hand carved wood in the cabin. Then one day when I was looking online I found a picture of a boat that looks very similar to mine. I liked the top cabin and extra deck space it afforded. I was also realizing that the design of my cabin with its sloped windows was always going to be a problem as far as keeping things waterproof inside.

Their Boat



My boat




So I've done something completely radical and totally unthought of until now. I cut the whole cabin off! I want to extend the white cabin on the back all the way to front of where the windows used to be and build the upper cabin as in the picture of the other boat. I will lose the 10 foot high ceiling in the living room but it isn't so bad. There is still room for someone close to 6 feet tall to stand up inside and Im short so it will suit me fine. The square box will be so much easier to fiberglass then the cabin the way it was.

The cabin cut off



Im also going to remove the woodstove and the stand it was on as well as the staircase on that side and build a dinette area in its place. I liked the woodstove for its blasting heat but it was a fire hazard and keeping up with the demand for wood was a time consuming pain. I'm going to install the propane furnace and if it isn't enough I will buy a small furnace that burns presto log bits. Having a proper table to sit at to eat will be so nice. Once the top is built, I will insulate it and the interior of the hull and cover the inside with tongue and groove to restore the wood look without all the drafts.

A view inside of the cabinless boat(the stairs and woodstove on the right will be removed to make place for the dinette)



As the boat never leaked from sitting in the water I am hoping that I can recaulk the boat and leave it wooden instead of trying to fiberglass the hull. It was only the fact that I had rotten boards and the decks leaked that were the problem. I have no problem fiberglassing the top deck and roof. I will have to talk to someone in the boat building industry and see if I can do this still or if its too late with the way I have done things. Keep your fingers crossed for me please.

I have to say I had never gotten around to reading the blog called the Wendy Ann 2 before but all the other blogs I read were going on about them finally launching their boat. I got curious so read the whole blog in one sitting from beginning to end. What an inspiration that was! I feel a right fool for sniveling about my lot after seeing the size of their job and the sacrifices they made to get the job done and well done too if I say so myself.

I think what they have over me is ,for one thing, they are a couple that support each other and their dream for this to happen. They only had this one project to focus on ( as opposed to David and his one hundred and one things on the go) and they had friends who came by and helped. I have basically had my hands tied for much of the time as I couldnt beg or pay people to help me and being alone with no clue was so daunting I just gave up. Well we will see how much further I get with it now. Thanks to the folks with the Wendy Ann 2 and the inspiration they have given me, hopefully one day soon, I will be having my own launch party.