When TwoBeers (the WaterTribe name for my husband) first decided to transform an elderly, mild-mannered Flying Scot sailboat into a vehicle suitable to the Everglades Challenge adventure race, he never guessed that the project would siphon up two and a half seasons' worth of fishing time.  

That's a lot of weekends and evenings.  While the fish have enjoyed their vacation, our house has been a hive of activity: preparing, building and rebuilding, plotting routes, and thinking about what might go wrong when pointing a small boat away from shore. 

We are not the first to ponder and worry. The organizers of the Everglades Challenge have an extensive list of required safety gear -- and it includes a cell phone. (Those who know TwoBeers can take a moment to nod wisely and chuckle at the irony.) So like it or not, my favorite captain has been venturing into the 21st Century.

Although TwoBeers spent many of his childhood summers cruising the Bahamas with his pappa and brother, and he put in plenty of long-distance miles delivering boats in the years since, the Everglades Challenge IS a different kind of race.

Luckily, his crew, Moresailesed (aka Jahn "Wild Card" Tihansky), coaches the Navy off-shore team. He's also an amateur pilot. This means he practices navigation, preaches navigation, and has a keen appreciation for the value of safety gear. 

So while TwoBeers has been focused on boat-speed and design, Moresailesed has been leading the charge on navigation, with EnsignRumDown (Mark Taylor) as expert IT director. On the advice of a cruising friend R, we are trying out Navionics electronic charts. We even found a folding solar charger with a pair of USB ports for charging the hand-held electronics.  Frankenscot's progress will be tracked closely by satellite.

At the other end of the technology spectrum, I bring you...FIRE.

All the high-tech gadgets in the world are well and good, but if it comes to making a rough landing on a dark and cold shore, the thing that will keep a body alive is very basic indeed. 

The Campmor catalog has provided a lot of cool gear (cozy sleeping bags, mylar survival blankets, water purification tablets, a snake-bite kit, and waterproof stuff-sacks), but the coolest of them all? The sheath-knife with a magnesium fire-starter stick built right into the handle. 

Strike the steel blade along the magnesium and you get (kettle-drums sound off here: Dun-Dun! Dun-Dun!) fire! 

Well, not quite fire: more exactly, sparks of molten magnesium at around 1200 degrees that -- after a number of practice attempts as you get the hang of it -- will create flame in a bit of tinder. 

Stone Age high technology.  It's our hope that Frankenscot will carry the crew safe to the finish, but they'll have a hand-line (Hey, fish, wake up!) and the means for fire, just in case. 

As anyone who has sailed a Flying Scot knows, the class design includes a unique halyard arrangement. (A "halyard" is the nautical term for a rope or wire that raises a sail.)

The halyards dead-end in a halyard box on the mast. Inside the halyard box are a pair of metal spools. Each halyard (one for the jib, one for the mainsail) is wound around these spools by means of a dinky Model-T-style hand-crank. 

It's actively ridiculous, this system, reminiscent of a hamster-wheel -- one designed as a miniaturized Steampunk contraption that's needlessly and unscientifically complicated. 

Complaints about the hamster-wheel are legion: the hoist is imprecise -- too tight or too loose by half a click. The spools jam. The stoppers fail. The halyards kink and override on the spool. Hand-cranks tend to leap wildly overboard during moments of excitement. The standard cranks -- made of pot-metal -- sheer off inside the mechanism on a regular (if unpredictable) basis, leading to all kinds of unfortunate finger-pointing on the boat, and name-calling, sometimes even descending to scratching and tattle-tale-ing. 
Tsk. Tsk.

Still, year after year, the class has kept the halyard box, despite (or perhaps because of) its shortcomings. 

Since the Frankenscot stopped being a Flying Scot after the first application of the Sawzall, the boat is not subject to those class rules. This was one of the first modifications we planned: to put on a Lightning-class style claw-and-ball system -- so that a few arm-over-arm yanks raise the sail and then the halyard slips into a sort of hook to hold it in place. Simple, quick, easy.  

It's ironic that this whacky-doodle little halyard box is one of the very few parts that persists unchanged from the original conformation of the Frankenscot. But then, as our source-text and inspiration, we have.:

Perhaps the hamster-wheel contains the very spark of Flying Scot-ishness. As it were, FrankenScot's soul. In the interest of keeping the townsfolk from riot, or in the pursuit of expedience (less than fifty days to go!), perhaps it should keep its place. 
Or not.  
We'll see.

While the mad scientist himself has been attending to various family matters and getting ready for the beginning of our winter sailing season, incremental progress has been made on the Everglades Challenge boat, Frankenscot.  And by "incremental progress," I mean small, nearly invisible steps toward the full-blown beastie.

He painted the epoxy knees, for instance, and rigged up a pair of running backstays to help stabilize the mast. He pondered long and deep about the placement of the sliding rowing seat. Which sent us back to Denny Antram at the Steward's Foundation. 

Our Everglades Challenge project boat -- the Frankenscot -- performed well enough during the first round of sea-trials to earn a few key new parts. Call 'em blades, or foils, or boards, or what you like, but it means that the slab-like rudder and the portly centerboard that came standard on the boat are getting a makeover.

The centerboard, just a clever reader might expect, is a board that can be found at the center of a boat. 

Unlike a random 2x4, a standard Flying Scot board (or foil, if you like, or blade) is about 5 feet long and a foot and a half wide, and looks a bit as if it was originally designed out of Lincoln Logs.  It's made of wood and fiberglass and can be lifted or lowered by means of a pulley system. 

It's possible for a carefully designed centerboard to act as a lifting foil that can raise a boat clear out of the water as it scoots along.   In case you missed the 2013 America's Cup, here's a quick look at a foiling machine that did pretty well (controversy and allegations aside):

Which is a bit beyond the scope of the Frankenscot. 

For now. 

Maybe. 

If we get a theme song, however, things might just turn around.

But back to the business of being a modern Prometheus: the plan is to replace the blobby 105-lb Flying Scot centerboard with a lighter one designed for hydrodynamic performance. Something that looks more like an airplane wing, say, than a handful of bricks in a bag. 

To create this new centerboard, TwoBeers went to the Monster Garage -- or as good as: his brother's Monster Woodshop. Using O.H. Rodgers' schematics, his first step was to create a structural core for the new centerboard.  TwoBeers cut 3/4 inch signmaker-grade plywood into strips 1 and 1/8 inch wide. 

We turned each strip on edge and (very quickly!) painted epoxy on both sides. Using yards of waxed paper to contain the gooey epoxy, we smushed the strips together and then applied a handful of carpenter's clamps to make sure the whole thing cured tight and square. 

Photos? Sorry, the process was rather sticky and the Monster Woodshop has a fine coating made up of 60% sawdust, 10% tobacco ash, 10% dusty spider webs, and 20% unidentifiable shop detritus. The poor camera has already weathered a green wave of salt water this month in the interest of Frankenscot; it took the afternoon off. 

The core, once the epoxy dried and the clamps came off (and it had a couple of swipes from the sander) looked a little bit like a butcher's block.  But very light.

The next step of the project will transform this flat plank into a smooth wing-shape.

The Frankenscot Everglades Challenge project stayed out of the Monster Garage this week. Instead, we had a planning session or two. We started writing up the big punchlist, and we met with Jarhead, a veteran of seven Everglades Challenges, to begin brainstorming possible routes. 

Here's the start of our list:

Safety gear:
EPIRB distress beacon, SPOT personal tracker, hull flotation, submersible VHF, cell phone(!), life jackets, rigging knives, LEDs flashlights, running lights, cabin lights, dry bags, dry suits, battery system, bilge pump, first-aid kit, flares & standard Coast Guard kit. 

Rigging:
Standing rigging, running rigging, boom kicker or equivalent, reefing system, hardware for boat, spinnaker gear, headsail gear, main sail gear, control gear, tiller extensions.

Roller Furling System & Sails:
Harken 164 Hi-load or equivalent, asymmetrical spinnaker, large headsail, standard roller-furling headsail, main with 2 sets of reef points, sheets.

Rowing equipment: 
Oars, seats, oarlocks, spare paddle. 

Clothing/Gear:
Hypothermia kit, fire-starter, watch, boat-repair gear, sleeping pads & bags rated to at least 40°F, watch-caps, tech performance clothing, bug netting, tent or equivalent.

Cooking & Food:
(later)

Charts:
(duh)

Miscellaneous Electronics:
Compass, GPS/Navigation, GoPro camera.

And here's a tiny snippet of FrankenScot going upwind in some weather. Ben Moon of Ronstan is crewing for TwoBeers:

Frankenscot, our Everglades Challenge boat-to-be, continues to evolve. The last couple of weeks have included plenty of boat-building activity, but most of it of a fussy and non-thematically-related nature. 

The standard Flying Scot mast is a hefty chunk of extruded aluminum. Because we plan to rig a trapeze (no, not with spangles and leotards -- nautical. Like mountain-climbers.), we figured the FrankenScot's mast might need a little extra something. 

<------   Like these spreaders.

Spreaders exist to push the stays outward from the mast, which allows for greater control of how the mast deflects and where it bends. Spreaders function in something like the same way as a pier on a suspension bridge -- to distribute the load without having to construct a whole dang mountain. 
 

The racks are ready for sea-trial.. 

This black trampoline (no, not like that. It's the nautical kind of trampoline.) provides a rigid, light, but (potentially) comfortable spot to perch. The material is a vinyl-coated mesh, designed not to stretch, while the lashing is a high-tech Spectra cord, rated to hold something like 800 pounds.  

Since TwoBeers has modified the former Flying Scot pretty far from its workmanlike beginnings, he plans to test those modifications sooner rather than later. So he fitted a standard Flying Scot rudder back onto the boat.  

It's a beaut.                          ----->

Depending on how the sea-trial goes, there might be a shaplier rudder in Frankenscot's future. 

For sails, there's a Lightning spinnaker, an SR-21 genniker or two complements of Josh Wilus and the local Doyle Sails, a standard Flying Scot main (reef points to come), and a Lightning headsail to try.

If the project continues, the jib will eventually roller-furl, and the standard blocky centerboard will be replaced with something with curvier and more hydrodynamic. 

What's in your junk drawer? Broccoli bands and popsicle sticks and take-out menus? Yup, we got em. Plus a boat-load of old stainless and aluminum fittings. Blocks and fair-leads, rivets, pad-eyes, hooks and cheeks, plus short sections of spectra line and salvaged through-fittings. It's the natural detritus of decade following decade of boat modifications combined with a basic refusal to throw stuff out. 

And it comes in handy from time to time.

 

Frankenscot, our planned monohull sailboat entry into the 2014 Everglades Challenge race, continues to take shape. The addition of some bulkheads, spacers, and holders for the racks has kept Twobeers off the streets. And sporting a Tyvek jumpsuit -- be still my heart!

Thanks to a surprisingly spirited thread discussion of the Frankenscot, on the ever-lively sailing website SailingAnarchy.com, we have no shortage of fresh opinions on the project from both inside and outside of the WaterTribe. 

After having removed the seats from the former Flying Scot -- thereby making the boat resemble a bathtub all the more -- it seemed prudent to beef up support for the deck. If there are any non-sailors still here, bless your heart! -- imagine a tupperware dish: a rigid lip gives the lightweight plastic bowls a lot more strength. Same concept with boats. 
Click to enlarge photos below.

Thanks to Chris and Monica Morgan for delivering a handful of balsa for the bulkheads. They know their fiberglass.

With both racks in place, the Frankenscot has a 10-foot, 11-inch wingspan.  Since 8 feet is the maximum width for highway driving -- of course the Frankenscot's wings are detachable. A key engineering challenge is to be sure that they detach only on command. 

The aluminum tubing of the rack passes through the deck and fits snuggly into fiberglass sleeves, which are anchored to the hull with yet more fiberglass strips.

In addition, the racks attach to the deck on small risers to give them the lift they need.

With the fiberglass resin kicking with a faint whiff of cyanide -- ah, fiberglass! -- today's work is done. Next up, the application of hardware. 

Frankenscot -- our planned entry for the 2014 Everglades Challenge race -- continues to emerge from the primordial ooze. 

Aside from the occasional brainstorming session at a local watering hole, this boat-building project has been taking place in the back yard. Our boat-yard, as it were.  But when the Frankenscot needed to go visit the machine shop, Captain TwoBeers had to call in the troops. 

The Frankenscot trailer (Frankenwagon?) had a tenuous grasp of itself. By all estimates, it only had a few nail-biting miles left before imploding in a puff of rust-flakes, leaving the Frankenscot stranded road-side. 

A three-card Monte shuffle ensued, involving several cars and some very good friends. The Fisher-Silvernail Flying Scot and Ensign RumDown's (spoken with a note of panic, mind you) powerboat trailer and the Frankenwagon all played a sort of musical chairs game. But at the end of the long day, no one was bleeding, nothing sank, and the Frankenscot was sitting pretty on a good trailer at the machine shop. 

Sailing friend and metal maestro Derek Dudinsky has fabricated all sorts of odd bits and bobs out of aluminum and stainless for us over the years. Stanchions and chain-plates, centerboard control-boxs, a cooking-pan rack for the kitchen, cool trophies, a deluxe retractible pole for the birdhouse, miscellaneous things that have made Customs officers scratch their heads all over the Caribbean. He's got a big shop, JTR Enterprises, with all the metal-bending fixin's in Gulfport, FL. He hosted a Classic Moth Midwinters party at the shop one time: the science-crazy Moth-building enginerds still speak of the place in hushed and sentimental tones. 

For the Frankenscot, we asked Derek to bend some aluminum tubing into hiking racks.  By attaching these hiking racks, ideally, we will be able to sail pretty comfortably while keeping the boat "hiked down."

The Frankenscot racks (shown in place but not yet nailed in) might look a little like the wayward child of a brushed metal safety-rail and a sturdy awning frame, but they make the boat a whopping ten feet and eleven inches wide. 

Next up, the fittings that will hold the racks firmly in place. 

In which we put key to ignition and send ourselves back down the road.

As so often happens on these sailing adventures, we leave town without having learned much about the host location. Mooresville, NC bills itself as Motor City, USA, and it's firmly in NASCAR territory. Regardless our preoccupation with wind, we observed a lot of car-pride in these red-dirt hills. 

While buzzing around town at the start of the week, looking for a spot to park our rig, we saw a Morris Minor sunning itself beside the road.

A Morris Minor Traveller. In Victoria Blue -- a color I remember vividly because in his last couple of years, my Daddo couldn't stop looking for it in every Krylon and Rust-Oleum display we passed. 

It was, he told me, a blue somewhere between dark-sky-blue and French cadet blue. An elusive shade we eventually decided to special-order for his restoration project of an armful of Morris Minor Traveller parts. Daddo had admired these quirky work-vehicles during his years in the UK and had begun to put one together, and this was the blue he wanted. After getting his terminal diagnosis, he sold the project as-is and though I remember meeting the buyer, I have no idea where the car went. 

It's not so extraordinary, really, as far a coincidental car-sightings go, but there it is, a restored Victoria-blue Moggy, cute and serviceable, maybe a bit tarted-up, but very nearly the image of my dad's automotive dream.

Even though we showed up on their driveway without warning with our big rig (Thanks Steve! Thanks Turi!) the Shaws were gracious hosts. Steve fired up his 1934 Ford hot-rod and reminded me about the uncomplicated joy engendered by acceleration and unfettered engine noise. We burned us some rubber.

Locals in Mooresville point out the (large and lavish) houses of residents named Earnhardt, and Busch, and Andretti. Plus, for aspiring team-members there's a NASCAR technical school in town. 

The Flying Scot banquet was held at the Memory Lane Motorsports Museum, a warehouse stuffed full of antique cars, early race-cars, combustion ephemera, and some fairly eerie manikins. 

Click on the photos for a larger view.

In the way photos often capture things you didn't see through the viewfinder, I notice upon closer examination that there's a NASCAR photobomber in one shot. The gonzo-green Bantam is being driven by the spaced-out spirt of Hunter S. Thompson. Multiple Richard Pettys (who somewhat resemble a certain skipper we know) seems to be encouraging everyone to take the low road. This was Mooresville, sorry to have it disappear in the back-up camera view.

The ten-hour drive home was -- no surprise -- wet and trafficky, but we made it back to our doorstep without incident, and that's a beautiful thing.