Beach Buddies.

The light Trow will be a head turner, her only competition round here will be these sad old girls.

This is the local sailing club. There’s a couple of vaurien 420s three 350s, six optimists in poor condition and about 8 Hobby Cats, the rest (about 50) are all motorboats. This Rodman 500 is one of the most popular boats on these waters.

Here’s the stern post and mizzen step, there’s still a slight curve to work into the base but I’m not entirely sure how to go about it so I’ll leave it for the time being. Soon I’ll have a few pieces ready for gluing and laminating. From what I’ve read working with epoxy sounds relatively straightforward so why am I feeling so nervous about it?

The main mast step is about done but again needs a gentle curve along the bottom.

Some decent sized waves rolled up this week.

My neighbour and fellow beach bum scores a greeny. Trawlers out of Tarragona on the horizon.

The Trow Cartopper.

Well I think I’ve got all the bits and piece that I need. All I’ve got to do now is organize my time. I freed up a couple of hours midday but spent nearly half that time looking for the charger for the cordless screwdriver. I eventually found it more or less where it was supposed to be, except that it was hidden by an old wetsuit which I’d stuffed on top of it when I was rummaging around looking for the cordless screwdriver in the first place. Kicked myself so hard I spilt tea down my front.

I picked up the ply and the 1 by 1 and a plank for the oars from the carpenter's and loaded it onto the van which wasn’t easy with 20 knot gusts coming out of the northwest. Looking at it I realized that this would be the only time I get the boat on top of the van.

The carpenter used a Catalan expression that I hadn’t come across before—"bolets" meaning wild mushrooms, used in a context where in English we’d say “balls”. As in “You’ve got some wild mushrooms to be building a boat.” Mind you, it might just have been an idiosyncratic thing. This guy is obviously mushroom mad like many people round here, and I’m not surprised; there are excellent mushrooms to be had by the diligent fungi hunter. The “rovellon” and the “cep” make good eating and simply fried with garlic and parsley they are well worth a morning in the woods.
The carpenter’s office has a wall of photos depicting him with various boleti, much as a fisherman has photos of his catches.

Peppers, as in red peppers is another Catalan synonym for balls, “te pebrots”—he’s got red peppers—Is said of someone courageous. So, if you ever witness a daring exploit in Catalonia you know what to say to fellow on-lookers.

Back in the workshop after I’d got my tools sorted out I whittled away at the sternpost and the mizzen step for a pleasant while.

The idea is to get my eye in with the carpentry on the smaller bits before I move on to the major cuts. I’m reading the measurements directly off the computer and what with the number of times I come back into the house to check lengths because I don’t trust what I’ve written down I think it might be worth moving the imac down to the garden shed.

Ideally I’d move into a large, warm workspace and live in there for the duration of the build and not get distracted with all these Christmas meals. I’m sure I’ll spend more time in the kitchen than working on the boat over the next few days.

Carpenters

I was talking to the guy who runs the carpenter’s shop at the local boatyard. I was doing all the talking and he was doing all the grunting. I wanted to source some copper nails, the hardware shop only sells them in packs of 1000 and at 20€ a shot they over-step the limits of a tight budget. They don’t actually but it seems a lot to spend on nails. And I certainly don't need 1000 of them.

This carpenter couldn’t have been less interested. I’ve no reason to expect him to be, but I thought you know, what with working on the interiors of plastic boats most of the time it might have been a welcome change to hear about a home boat building project.

I was wrong as his off hand grunts and body language proclaimed. But what the hell, I bored him to tears all the same.

Later I spoke to the carpenter in the village who’s ordered the marine ply, he wasn’t very interested either. Says I’ll have a problem finding copper nails round here. Then I asked him if he had a 5m length of thin wood that I could use as a batten. He gestured to a pile stacked in the corner and after a brief rummage I found an unknotted piece, I asked him how much and he said I could have it, bless his butt straps.