A coat of paint can be like a really fierce dress: armor, a statement, camouflage, identity.
For the nameless challenge-boat, the wardrobe is going on in stages. Last week, white polyurethane went onto the sides and edges; in a week or so, more white paint will be mixed with non-skid (sand, basically) and applied to the topsides after some hardware and what-not are in place. The final bit involves a wiggle and some help: the boat will be flipped upside-down and then the boys will apply epoxy paint (in a color!) on the bottom of the boat.
The boat will have twin rudders that are designed to kick up for beach landing (and in the very likely event of shallow water). Here's the first of them, looking a touch off-kilter to an eye accustomed to a single rudder at the centerline, but I am assured that they are meant to look like that:
The nameless adventure boat will be spending a few days at Spa JTR for some metal fabrication and modification. The racks, for instance, need to be tweaked to fit, and the tillers currently have a tilt that's a bit, erm, "turgid." All easy enough for Derek to fix in his cool shop.
Here the boat is, ready for highway miles:
Why is she facing that way? Expedience.
Nameless and without a trailer to call her own, she's perched on a power-boat trailer that happened to be empty. Kinda like Audrey Hepburn hopping onto a Vespa...
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Mr. Linton and I made a impulsive trip to California recently, crashing at the cousins' place and making ourselves at home with their refrigerators and vehicles. In an unusual turn of events, we were on the left coast with no agenda. No stranger to a guidebook (Thank you Lois R. for both the excellent travel hookup and the respect for the lowly tourist guide!), we packed a lot of stops into four short days. Among the touristy attractions we explored was a ship that sailors and readers alike may recognize. I am tempted to make it a name this ship contest, but really, it's way too easy...
That boat was followed by Mousetrap, another Moth. Several of that design were constructed in a porchlight frenzy in the boat-yard. I believe there's a pupal stage Moth in Rod K.'s garage, and some others in hibernation here and there. The Mousetrap attempted to self-destruct via heat-lamp that first winter –– an unsuccessful effort, for which the house was especially thankful –– but has since gone on to numerous Midwinter and North American victories. A decade or so later, Frankenscot came to life in the boat-yard. The reanimated corpse of an elderly Flying Scot, Frankie won its division in the Everglades Challenge, gave a few thrill rides to some lucky sailors, and then sloped off the pages of history. Now, there's the new boat, which I have been calling "the new boat" or "Frankie's Spawn" "The Yet-Unnamed Boat" or "Child of Frankenscot." All names that seem clunky, imprecise, and unimaginative. And confusing. The contest portion of today's blog: name the boat. The boat is
Make your suggestion below, please, so I can keep track of who said what. There's at least one prize in it, and I can tell you the word "fabulous" nearly always goes next to the word "prize" in my world. Fabulous prizes to be awarded utterly at our discretion, though we are pretty free and easy with the loot of questionable value (just ask any of the previous prizewinners).
For the first few weeks of the build, the boat was upside-down. After framing and planking the boat, Jeff went through a repetitive series of steps: putty, sand, putty, sand, putty, sand. Then paint. Followed by more sanding. The result is a smooth, fair* hull. A giant step involved the inversion of the boat. While it might seem like a simple task –– just pick it up and turn it over -- the adventure was more like flipping a very big flapjack without a spatula. Minus any interior structure, the hull is a bit floppy and wiggly. *Mirror, mirror on the wall? In this case, "fair" means that the hull is symmetrical from side to side and that most bumps and hollows have been smoothed out. Pretty is just a bonus. The boat was glued to the floor to start with, so the first step of inverting the boat was to break the beastie free from the box and most of its frames. The application of a 2x4 as a big lever made a lot of cracking sounds, but only a few small splinters.
Leaving two of the frames in (Station 4 and 8, for those taking note), Jeff and OH and Brent B. each took a grip of a side, heaved, and the boat took flight. Like three skilled pizza dough-thowers, the guys manhandled the boat through a half-somersault and settled it into its "belly pan." (A belly pan being a shaped structure [think nested bowls] under Stations 4 and 8 that cradle the hull so it's level and true.) While others might have paused to simply admire the workmanship, not my skipper. Next time: bulkheads.
Around here, boat-building has taken center stage, with early-morning runs to Fiberglass Coating, a LOT of sawdust and elbow-grease, and the odd day-trip to Lauderdale to pick up a carbon-fiber mast.
When Mr. Linton repurposed an old Flying Scot into Frankenscot two years ago, it was about 2 parts deconstruction for every bit of construction. With this one –– name to come* –– the boat is getting built from scratch. A stack of wood and a few jugs of resin are assembling into something that we hope will float. *Note to self: Maybe we need a naming contest. With prizes? Hmmm. Consult the peanut gallery.
So, with the frame built and the stringers lain, the boat's skin –– two skinny layers of okume plywood –– has been bent into place, glued, and puttied.
Following the application of a coat of fiberglass and epoxy resin, the boat now will go through a series of filling and sanding steps known as "fairing."
At first, I thought we would plant some apple seedlings, sink a well, camp in a tent while we visited the Would Be Farm. Maybe build a cabin in a few years. Belay that. Turns out we already have close to 100 apple trees on the land (overgrown, I grant you, and untended for decades, but full-on rows of trees -- producing fruit already!). And it turns out that even when it's not raining, the mud factor makes tenting, hmm, let's say "untenable."
But it did have a propane stove and refrigerator. And running water. And it didn't implode as we hauled it down the road, over the hill, past those cows, down the driveway, and over to that nice bluff. Given a week and access to the hardware store it's quite possible to convert a 150-square-foot unseemly little metal dwelling into something pleasant for quite a bit less money than most people in my neighborhood spend on rent each month. Jeff is a good rough carpenter, after all, and caulk is cheap. We yanked out one of the bench seats and the over-the-table bunk. We removed the scary upholstery and the seedy-looking window treatments and extracted several sarcophagus-like cabinet doors. The previous owners, for a mercy, were clean folk, so it wasn't one of those really disgusting projects. Jeff shored up the rotted beams and re-floored the soft spots, applied a nice thick layer of roof-seal on top, and caulked the snot out of the seams. He got the windows working and made sure the water system was watertight. He replace the dented valve on the propane tank and cleared the propane system (now that was an exciting afternoon!). There's a wonderful product called cabinet paint -- applied with a foam roller, it's a water-based paint that sticks to and covers any manner of Formica folderol. I picked a warmish cream color and start painting everything inside the little cottage-on-wheels. I mean ev-er-re-thing: walls, cabinets, metal cabinet hardware, tabletops, etc.
Now we have Base Camp. When it rains, we can sit at the table and watch the rain stay outside while we sip our hot (or cold) beverages.
Just in case inspiration strikes, I like to have a notebook and a writing implement close to hand. Which is how we have a fairly complete documentation of road-kill from a recent road trip. Why document road-kill? Well, that's another category of answer...
The small dog comes trotting to my desk, the sound of her feet like small-arms fire. The addition of metal taps could not make her noisier on the wooden floorboards. Her small, flattish face has an expression of urgency. "Oh no! Is Timmy in the well?" I ask her. She replies with a dismissive snort. She hates it when I am facetious. I tilt my head to the side and gaze deeply into her goldfishy eyeballs. "What is it, Lilly? Tell me, girl!" She snorts. She's not having any of my phony-baloney. Backing up with a lot of unnecessary ball-change steps, she gives me a look of as much impatience and disbelief as she can muster. Which is considerable. If I insist on finishing the sentence I am typing -- especially if that sentence turns into two or three sentences -- she lunges with both front feet held out straight. She delivers a canine judo chop with her chilled ratty little feet. If I continue to ignore her, she will be so moved as to give a gruff bark. It's five o'clock, dammit! And after all -- really, truly -- who am I to resist her blandishments? I might be her Food Goddess, but it's evident my little disciple demands that I kick my divine self into gear and dish up the goods. It's dinner time already. Cuban Tree-frogs Osteopilus septentrionalis Up to five and a half inches in length. Considered invasive, though they do eat some bad-ass bugs. According to the the University of Florida site, the impact of the Cuban Treefrog on human quality of life includes this list of sins: "they breed loudly after midnight in pools, ponds, birdbaths, etc.; they invade toilets and can clog drains; they invade power boxes and cause power outages."
Yeah yeah. And they play their car radios too loud. After spending the day sleeping under the eaves on the front porch at our house, these frogs get lively at night. Their suction-cup feet make it sound like a tomato has splatted the window pane when they attach or detach. If you are both on the same side of glass, it's undeniably alarming when these frogs leap. Blank-faced and speedy, they might land on a face, an arm, a bare shoulder. Where -- gulp! -- they can prove to be a bit clingy. They do not enjoy being pulled from their chosen perch, and will attach with all their vacuum power. They might even pee in protest when you try to remove them. Even if you are trying to remove them from your face.. Best to focus instead on what they eat. Which is pretty much anything smaller than themselves. Cuban treefrogs seem (charmingly enough) fond of palmetto bugs. (Palmetto bugs? Giant cockroaches with a chamber-of-commerce name). Palmetto bugs deserve to star in their own horror movie. These Florida-fixture bugs look somewhat like big sticky Medjool dates with legs, antennae, etc. They grow to nearly 2 inches in length and can fly (for the love of all things sacred -- they FLY!). If I were making a low-budget horror film about them ("Palmetto! They Fly By Night!"), it would be the Cuban treefrogs and their appetites who come to the rescue of the stranded travelers. I might end my movie with one of the genre standards: an ambiguous look at a pensive frog in close-up with a voice-over by the ruggedly nerdy scientist: "We'll never understand why they did it, but I think I speak for all of us when I say to the frogs, 'Stay hungry my friends.' " Every day on my way to the water last summer, I walked past this building in Castiglione in Umbria. Forgetting to ask the locals what kind of business it housed, my companions and I had a number of sinister speculations about this place. For instance, this was the setting of one of Vincent Price's lesser-known macabre films. It's an illustration of how romantic things can sound translated into another language, such as, "body repair shop." It's a truth-in-advertising name for a piercing palace. Or a plastic-surgery. This is the Casa del Family Mutilato. Only the ancient family name of this noble and brave people survives. Or, even more: the last scion of the line, tiny and bent, with a querulous and sharp voice, shuffles yet among the cardboard cartons in the upper floors of the family manse. Or, now that I mull it over again -- wait, is that the same verb as mulled wine? -- I wonder if it's a Casa del maimed people. What used to be called "crippled children," or perhaps "unfortunates." Heavy sigh. Well, we can take comfort in knowing that at least it's not presently in use. |
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