Ok, so I'm pretty bad at this blog thing. I haven't done any more work on the sculling boat, but I have been sailing a few times.

I had a few of the trips written up, but can't find them, and I am too lazy to recreate them. I also lost the full version of this trip too. So here is the truncated version.

Justin and I went sailing one fine Sunday morning in April. Law makers at one time decided that if you bought beer before 11am on Sundays the fabric of our society would be irreparable torn, so in their infinite wisdom they banned alcohol sales til after 11am. Not a big fan of that law. Well we shoved off around 10am, and were precariously low on beer. Rather than circle the Pier until 11 and come back to pick up the beer we decided to sail around the southern tip of Pinellas county to Gulfport. There we met our buddy Tim, drank at a cool beach bar called O'Maddy's ($7 pitchers of Anchor Steam and Longhammer IPA YUM), loaded up (I love puns...) on beer and sausage to grill for the sail back. Memorably most of the return sail was done under asymmetrical spinnaker and was a total blast. So we spent 10 hours sailing and drinking and generally having a good time. Check out the google map and picture gallery below.

Moral of the story - Beer tastes better after a 4 hour sail to reach the destination (even if you could have driven to the bar in less than 20 minutes from your slip). Gulfport is a really fun destination. Well mantained public slips are open from 6am to 11pm, a nice dinghy dock and anchorage. There are plenty of beach bars and restaurants near the docks too.

Gulfport Trip

Well, I'd have to say it was a good weekend. On Friday night, I stayed in and worked on the boat some. Then Saturday Dad and I attempted to sail.Sunday there was no wind, which led to adventures of a different kind at eh Italian Festival in Ybor City (my liver still hurts from that afternoon)

I decided not to glue the ends together first. When I got the side panels up on some horses, I laid the bottom panels on and started drilling some holes and running zip ties. I think I was in the garage for about 1.5 hours, but probably only actually worked for about 45 minutes. Once the holes were drilled and the ties in, I cinched it all together.

For anyone who has not built a boat, it is hard to describe how sensual it is. Don't take that the wrong way, boat building engages all of your senses. The smell of the cut wood, the sounds of the tools and creaking of the bending wood. What struck me this night was the feel of the wood bending into shape as I tightening the ties. The hull came together so tight and true, despite my shaky cuts. I spent a good deal of time just absorbing the image of the flat panels bending to form. Wood is such a cool material!

I decided to call it a night rather than push on to gluing the seams to avoid any rushing mistakes. In the morning Dad and I drove to St Pete to take Stormbringer out. For some reason, we decided that we did not need ice because we didn't think we would be having any beers. Well, once we were out searching for puffs, we really wanted a few cold ones. We made do with warm Amstel, it really wasn't that bad. The Moral of this story is always buy ice, because you will want a cold one, or even a cold water eventually.

The wind totally died, so we headed in. When I got home, I picked up the hull and set it up on horses in the driveway to take some shots. After the photo shoot, I cut some small bilge frames for the cockpit between the two bulkheads. The bottom flattened out there and needed them for shape. When all is said and done, she is pretty tight. Some gaps exist in the keel seam which will easily be filled with the fillet material.

Stay tuned for more, and check out these pics!

Sculling Boat Construction