A real disappointment
We were living in Virginia and had a 60-acre lake just 1 1/2 blocks from our home. I was very busy at my job, but the temptation was there. It had been almost ten years since I built my last boat. Why do we build boats anyway? For me it is the creativity, making reality from just a vision in my mind. In this case my vision was cloudy. I was thinking, row, paddle, motor, maybe sail. A boat designed to do many things will do nothing well, and that's what happened.The boat was about 3 1/2' by 15', had a double chine and was designed with a parallel projection. This was a very quick boat to build (weeks). No frames. Instead, I used a strongback and set up molds. All the panels were precut; tacked into place; seams epoxied; and a layer of glass laid down. Then popped it off the molds, and the inside was glassed. The weight of all that glass and resin made it heavy to cartop. The big error was that I added a transom, in case I wanted to motor, then added enough rocker to keep the transom out of the water. On a small, round-bottomed boat that takes quite a bit of rocker. Consequently, the boat tracked poorly.
The final insult was that the movers smashed the boat, punching a hole in the bottom, splintering the thwarts and delaminating the plies in the plywood with a smash to the bow. It now serves as a sandbox. And there are no photos I can find.
posted by Wayne @ 8:46 PM
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