End of Season NextBoat Review / Boat Show Preview Combo!

       "Pack it up, and tear it down..."
                             -Jackson Browne



     November.

     It was time.
   
     Put a fork in it.

    This season was done, our first full season with NextBoat.*

    She is now on the hard in the yard, bedded down in her new/used cradle for the winter...

... and now that the off-season withdrawal shakes and sweats have begun....

...SWMBO and I can objectively look back and figure out what worked aboard NextBoat, what didn't work, what we can live with, and what we need to change.

  First off, our first season with NextBoat  has demonstrated to us that she is a keeper.

   WHEW!

   See, NextBoat was a bit of a surprise for SWMBO- she left all of the decision-making and logistical wrangling in my hands.

  Upside?  The decisions are all MINE.

  Yay!

  Downside? The results are all MINE.

   Gulp.

  After our first night aboard, and after a little nesting, NextBoat was SWMBOApproved.

   Our sow's ear, however, still needs some silk pursification:

    The tweedy ceiling and carpeted overhead, while providing a homey, 70s rec-room feel to the accomodations, is looking decidedly worn.

     Replacement is daunting-the whole damn boat is cabin, and the whole damn cabin is covered in this stuff.

     A thorough scrubbing with all of the latest carpet cleaning wonder products and possibly some steaming is the first order on the agenda, which will (fingers crossed) return our cabin to something approaching it's original hirsute splendour.

     If not?

    That is a project for next winter.

    The Escheresque seagull pattern cushions....

.... need rebuilding and recovering.  Interesting note- there are only 6 cushions on the entire boat, one of which has already been rebuilt. This winter, we will rebuild the other five in the same blue sunbrella and 5" foam.

The salon table, seen above,  is one unstable table, Mabel, and is slightly too small.

                                                                                                                       -image courtesy of google

     I am going to enlarge it aft, and tie it into the stripper pole, er, compression post, similar to the shape of the original table, as seen here:

     On deck, the mast step might need a rebuild- the plate needs to be removed and some exploratory surgery performed,  chainplate islands installed to prevent any new leaking, and struts fabbed to allow the fore and aft overhead hatches to be cracked, instead of the current all-or-nothing ventilation situation:

     As you can see above, they are beautiful big hatches, but there's no support- the hatches are either lying flat on the deck closed or flapping back against the house.

    You can create your own beautful big/floppy/flapping/ no support metaphor.  I'm not helping.


   The portlights need to be rescreened and the hazy plastic polished.  The cove stripe needs to be repainted. and the hull could use a good compounding and waxing.

   With the boat out of the water, I am able to eyeball the whole hull, and it all looks good, except for the carbuncle  ahead of the keel ...

...which is a redundant depth transducer.  THAT has to go.

 I also need to re-repair my most embarrassing, sloppy, kludge of a last-minute repair which proved more durable than I expected- the water bottle neck masthead light lens:

   Piss poor preparation and all that-  the mast had to go up NOW, the crew was ready NOW, oh crap, didn't notice that, it needed to be fixed NOW...

   ... and while necessity may be the mother of invention, her kids ain't always pretty.


   The drivetrain is happy, the only minor, low-on-the-punchlist, item is replacing the prop.  The 8 hp Yanmar happily pushes NextBoat along at 5.5 knots at 90% throttle in flat water with her 2 blade prop...
....  but a little more thrust and less vibration from a three blade prop is appealing.

   And the list goes on...


  Which brings us to early January, and brings us to Toronto, to the Toronto Boat Show , our annual midwinter respite.

  We've got some shopping to do, some people to meet, and dammit, it's just good to get away.

    The Westin Harbour Castle offers a silly good rate for the weekend. Seriously, this is the view that $98/night buys us:

 

  So, that's where we're at, where we're going, what we're doing, and why we're doing it.

   Stick around- this is going to be an interesting year.





"Talk the Dock!"

Wheels for Keels- A Bittersweet Swap

    




    "I don't write songs about girls anymore, I have to write songs about women."
                                                                   -The Pursuit of Happiness








     In February of 2002, I acquired an old VW Thing, the 47th VW I had owned.  It was a project, in need of an engine, some bodywork (a tree had fallen on it), paint and reassembly.  My plan at the time was to do a quick and dirty rebuild and get it on the road by the summer.  Shouldn't take more than 6 months, tops, I figured.

     Last week it finally left the garage.  On the back of somebody else's trailer.

 


       It wasn't as hard to see the car go as I thought it would be.  In fact, as I watched the trailer and it's cargo head out of the driveway, the hardest part was coming to grips with the fact that I was now, officially an old fart.

   I could ignore the receding hairline.
   I could ignore the greying beard.
   I could ignore the expanding waistline.
   I could ignore the fact that I listen to talk radio.

   I could no longer ignore the fact that I preferred standing and sitting while working with wood and fiberglass in a warm house to lying on my back on a cold floor in a cold garage clutching cold tools, under two tons of old rust trying to remove a cold , seized, 40 year old bolt, nut or screw that is going to snap right...about...* ...now.   I prefer the scent of fresh cut cedar and mahogany to the stink of  PB Blaster and overheated gear oil.  I prefer the growl of a table saw cutting ply to the sound of a cut off wheel shrieking through sheetmetal.  I prefer to shake sawdust out of my hair to trying to excavate rust and filings out of my ears.

  Hey!  You kids!  Get off my damn lawn!

   While I was disappointed in myself for not finishing what I had started with this project, I was eager to move on.  It was time.

   Cleaning out the garage was the last hurdle to clear before I could start the catamaran build.  Now, with the garage empty, I could begin to refill it.

   Monday, the donor boat was delivered to Stately Jones Manor.  Time to strip it down, and get to getting.

    Thanks for taking the time to check us out.  Please feel free to "Talk the Dock!"  Link us, follow us, or just tell your friends.

The Community of The Process

     "How do we spend our lives, if there's no one to lend us a hand?"
                                                                       -Alan Parsons Project








    nerd (noun): A person who gains pleasure from amassing large quantities of knowledge about subjects often too detailed or complicated for most other people to be bothered with. 
                                                                                                           -Urban Dictionary Definition




 I confess that I am an unrepentant, incorrigible boat nerd.  Being a boat nerd has had a (not entirely undesirable) impact on my social interactions.  Here's what I mean:

     At lubber gatherings, especially those that are work related, while I am trying to cadge some free food  and cheap booze from the picked over refreshment table, some chatty soul will cruise up and say "I hear you're quite the boater.  I am thinking about buying a boat.  What should I get?"  

     Nine minutes later I see my assailant's eyes glaze over, and I haven't even gotten to why he/she should avoid a saildrive or an OMC outdrive.  I usually get a watch glance and a mumbled departure excuse before a quarter hour has passed.  This chatty soul will tell everyone he/she can buttonhook how I won't shut up, and I get left alone for the rest of the event, able to drink my Coors Light (*grimace*) and nibble dry chicken wings in peace.

      What, you may ask, is the difference between a boater and a boat nerd?

     Boaters utilize their boats as tools, or toys.  Cast off, play with it, or use it to get to where the fish are, then return. A boater's boat has all of the required equipment in good repair, and always takes care of regular maintenance. Haul it, wash it and cover it in the fall,  bottom paint it and splash it in the spring.

     There's nothing wrong with that.

     Boat nerds enjoy the process.  Understanding how things work, the science of  propulsion and hull design, fixing and puttering and changing and adding and modifying equipment.

    In short, a boater will buy a $15 000 boat and sell it a decade later for $12 000.  A boat nerd will buy a $5000 boat and invest $10 000 (before we stop counting)  in a boat that will then be worth $7500.

    In the days before the interweb,  boat nerds were often on their own.  You've seen us, perusing book stores and libraries on a solitary quest for works we hadn't already read, wandering yards and docks with camera and notebook in hand admiring the sheer of this hull or the bow thruster design of that boat, noting how somebody has built a dodger and shaking their heads at a boat sitting low on her lines because the cockpit drains are blocked.  Problems got solved and plans got built, but there was a lot of waiting and head scratching.   The off-season meant solo hibernation in a workshop or garage, cleaning and varnishing and building and rebuilding and cursing and drinking.  Once the boat is in the water, we are positively THRILLED if somebody notices the projects that we sweated over all winter.

    Today, the tribe of boat nerds has formed communities, thanks to the WWW.   Boating bulletin boards and forums are spiritual homes for boat nerds, our virtual local pub.  Post a question on a forum and in minutes you will have input from around the world.  Need guidance on an unfamiliar task?  Somebody has probably been there, done that, and posted a pictorial on his website that he/she will be happy to show you.  Need somebody to ooh and ahh over the hatchboards you just varnished?  Post pictures. Input is available 245/7/365.

This:

     Plus this:

 


    Equals this:

  

     And the web gives us a place to argue.

     Ohhhh, do we argue.

    

     Topics that would be met with dead silence and bovine stares at dirt shindigs will generate hundreds of responses and tens of thousands of  page views on boat forums.  If nothing else, it is often entertaining, and it sure as hell beats shoveling snow.

     The network of boat nerds linked by the web has also created a pool of  callused hands willing to help on a big project.  Need a boat moved,  a finished hull turned, another pair of hands to help rebed deck hardware?  Send up a signal and it's not unusual for help to travel hundreds of miles (and/or kilometers), especially if you offer free food and booze.

     Another really cool outcome is that more boaters have become boat nerds-thanks to almost -instant, fingertip- accessible information more skippers have become hands-on.  Varnishing leads to adding a shelf or a fiddle in the cabin, next thing you know somebody is recoring a deck or painting the topsides.  More on that later.

    Thanks for taking the time to check us out.  Feel free to "Talk the Dock"!  Link us, follow us, or just tell your friends.

    
 

The Low-Buck Files

       "She keeps naggin' at you night and day, enough to drive you nuts..."
                                                                                                      -AC/DC




     Boating can be an expensive lifestyle.  In fact, the third most popular topic among boaters, running right behind "Weather" and "You Think Those are Real?"  is "I Can't Believe How Expensive ______ Is!"   To enhance discussion, there's a whole subset of  nautical cliches devoted to the crazy high cost of boating:

Boat= Break Out Another Thousand

A boat is a hole in the water you pour money into.

The six most expensive letters in the alphabet are M, A, R, I, N, and E.


     Let me know when your sides hurt from laughing so hard, and I'll stop.

     Or, I can stop now.

     Good call.

     Yes, boating CAN be as wallet-emptying  as hitting a peeler bar after a day at the casino, but it doesn't HAVE to be.  A few years ago, I started documenting my "low-buck" projects.  What qualifies as a low-buck project?

1) Gotta be under $100 US, or equivalent currency.

2) You must have done it yourself. Although, if you found someone to work on your boat for less than $100, feel free to post contact info.

3) bonus points will be given for elegance and ingenuity.




   My first foray was a cockpit table.  I needed a cockpit table. Well, I, personally, didn't need a cockpit table, but SWMBO did, and I need a warm place to sleep, so you can see how the stars aligned on this one. I sussed out commercially available, marine priced cockpit tables and promptly gagged. So, I thought to myself, "Self, you could make it yourself for a lot less." One problem. Well, four actually. 
1. I have limited woodworking skills, 
2. limited woodworking tools, 
3. and limited time. oh yeah, and 
4. I am cheap.
So, I went to plan "c".


     I spent some time eyeballing the cockpit in question:

     Then I moseyed into action. I bought one of these for $29.99

     A frenzy of measuring, remeasuring, cutting, screwing, drinking, varnishing, etc. later, and this is how it finished up:

    As an added unplanned bonus, the table is reversible-  install it aft of the wheel while Dockside for easy companionway access, mount it ahead of the binnacle while underway.  When not in use, it simply stows under the salon table below.

     I used up the rest of the table I sacrificed for the project that started this thread, and built a hinged double sided chartboard:

        It's sized to fit standard charts folded in quarters. Course can be laid out on the clear cover with grease pencil. Next step is to build a pair of hinged stowable knees in the cabin of my boat to create a small-space nav station.




     I needed duckboards, or a cockpit grate if you will, to replace the nasty looking deteriorated weird rubber mat that graced whiskeyjack's cockpit when I got her (see pics in first post of this thread). I priced having a teak grate custom built, my daughter burst into tears when I told her she was not going to be going to college, so then I decided to find an alternative. I bought two 8' cedar 2x6s and ripped them into 1 3/4 x 1/2" strips, measured and patterned my cockpit floor, started cutting and epoxying and gluing and screwing and varnishing and $32 later, this:

     is now this:

     My low-buck dinghy needed a place to live. So I had to build some low-buck davits.

   

  I built a cockpit table for a friend's boat. $25 worth of mahogany and pine, $5 worth of epoxy and varnish:

     

$5.99 Sunbrella remnant.

Scrap of pvc pipe.
$5.55 of line.
Being able to sleep in past sunrise, and keeping the hatch open when it rains? priceless.

     One issue on almost every small boat is no room for a garbage can. Another issue on "Whiskeyjack" is the amount of dead space below the galley countertop. Think, mark, cut, trim, screw together a couple of pieces of scrap luan for a lid, sand, varnish, Ta-freakin' DAH!

       Along the way, I have learned that this stuff can be a hell of a lot of fun, and there is some real satisfaction in learning a new skill or refining what I thought I already knew.  The money part was a big motivator as well.  The more that you know how to do, the less you have to pay someone else to do it for you, and the less you pay for necessary maintenance, the more you can spend on unnecessary frills, like more expensive rum.

     Let's see your own low-buck projects.  Fire me an e-mail and some pictures and I'll add them to the "Low-Buck Boating" page and make sure you get proper credit.  

     As always, thanks for taking the time to join us here on the Dock.  If you like what you've seen, please  pass the word, link the site, become a follower, or just tell your friends!