Decks ‘n’ bugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll

Amongst other setbacks we’ve had; baby frogs, snails, ants,and many children…

But finally, decks. Cut not fitted.

And, though I say it myself, phoar!

The waterline

It wasn’t easy to mark the waterline. What I wanted to do was place the boat on its sole and go round the boat marking the hull, at the correct height with a pencil, fixed in a block of wood. But I needed a totally flat surface for this and I don’t have one of those. So, knowing or hoping or imagining that the bow and stern will just kiss the water, I started by looking at the boat from a distance while holding a metal ruler horizontally at arms length. Trying to keep the boat and the ruler in focus at the same time was taxing but it gave me an idea of where the line was supposed to go. Then I laid a long, straight edge across the highest (actually the lowest but as the hull’s upside down, the highest) part of the bottom and measured the vertical distance between the straight edge and the bows and the straight edge and the stern. Then I went round the boat measuring this height at short intervals and leaving pencil marks. I laid a length of string around the hull coinciding with the marks and retreated with my ruler to a fair distance. Again holding the ruler up, I could judge if the string was in the right position. It naturally hung in a curve that didn’t match the pencil marks so I fixed it in place using small pieces of masking tape. Then retreated again, checked and adjusted the line and finally marked it with tape.

I suppose that marking this line and painting the bottom red is a bit of a nonsense really. It’s not going to make the boat sail any better, there’s no way of knowing that it’s actually in the right place until the hull hits the water and it makes for a slower and trickier paint job.

It looks good though, a tad serious for a boat this size, but good.

Onawind Blue’s red knickers.

Dreaming of the day

Slanting dawn sunlight throws flecks of orange over a smooth sea. A gently rocking wooden boat, low to the water, shudders slightly as its occupant heaves his recumbent form onto one elbow and scans the bright horizon. The last waft of a dying breeze from the land sends a slow wave of iridescence through the olives and pines before gusting over the water, carrying the resonant throb of cicadas and a farewell hint of rosemary and thyme. Passing the boat the warm wind picks up the scent and sound of coffee chuckling in the pot and bears them out to sea.

The coffee’s drunk with yesterday’s bread, the last of the butter and a thick spread of sweet, peach jam. A knife and a cup are rinsed over the side, despatching the small boat’s reflection, a piece at a time, on broadening ripples. The bedding is folded and stowed, crumbs are collected in a damp sponge which, when squeezed over the side, breaks the clear view through the transparent water to the white, sandy bottom where a cuttlefish scuttles to the boat’s shadow.

The anchor soars up from the sea bed in a silent cloud of sand. Oars are shipped as the sun rises quickly into the new day and the fine lined, narrow boat glides out of the small bay, the drip and splash of the blades echoing back from the rocks.

Now the broad sea clinks and slaps down the boat’s side, the bows rise and fall to the gentle roll of the water’s welcome and the masts draw mute circles on the domed, blue roof of sky. Cool eddies gather into a light wind that is drawn to the shimmer of heat lifting from the waking land. The boat puts its nose to the breeze and a balanced lug sail rushes up the main. The halyards tied off, the centreboard down, the mizzen set, a hand on the tiller, another on the sheet, and the craft bears away, keeping the breeze just forward of the beam. A rush and a gurgle, a splash of white water sprinkles the decks. The skipper leans back, adjusts the set of the sails, tastes the salt on his lips and grins widely at the sky.

Things to do while watching paint dry

An overcast morning was ideal for applying the second coat of primer, but the rain arrived shortly afterwards. Looking like a barrow boy transporting a white whale, I had a brisk trot with the bench and Onawind Blue to our habitual shelter under somebody’s large balcony. Though even there the slanting rain sought us out for an oblique drenching. Drying her off as the shower let up with pristine white towels purloined from Hotel Victoria, Ibiza, I could have been mistaken for a masseur of cetacean mammals.

Later, between the showers and the towelling, I made some bits from a piece of beech that I’ve had knocking about for years waiting for just such an occasion. First some supports for the oarlocks.

And then some cleats. One of the things I’ve learnt during this build is to make templates and worry out any problems with shape or design on scrap ply before moving on to the choice wood. No great shakes, but ultimately it means far less swearing in the workshop, which is good for my pocket since the children, quick to pinpoint a lucrative scheme, have introduced fines for foul language. A flurry of expletives hurled heavenwards can cost me up to 10€—nearly enough for a pot of paint. So if Onawind Blue’s going to have as many coats as she deserves I better mind my f-ing gob.

The cleats had an inauspicious start.

But cleaned up nicely.

I went on to make two pieces which will be scarfed on to the gunnels to accommodate the bow. The front end will be rounded.

More painting tomorrow, weather permiting.

No photo finish

The interior was painted last week. There are no photos, I forgot to take them before I turned the hull and although I’ve turned the boat upright several times since then, to show admirers the insides, it hasn’t jogged my memory sufficiently to reach for the camera. It maybe a subconscious reaction of mine: I am not very happy with the finish.

Such is the nature of learning that no sooner have I completed a task—and it is irrevocably cemented in epoxy—than a better way of doing it occurs to me or, with the slow dawning of the bleeding obvious, all that I’ve read, the advice, the dos and don’ts, swims into focus.

I am kicking myself over those sagged fillets, the unfeathered tape and the messy corners. Naively I thought the paint would cover up the worst, but actually it has made the lumps, bumps and craters stand out even more, but then I’d read about that too.

I have been over compensating on the exterior. But just when the fairing looked like it might go on for ever I stopped and applied a coat of primer.

It doesn’t look marvellous in the photo. The hull was very hot, the sun was beating down and the primer was drying even as I rolled it on. I’ve read about that somewhere too.

Tomorrow’s coat will be applied to a cool hull in the shade of the olive tree.

The perfectionist in me

In between the sanding I’ve looked at some other boatbuilding blogs that make my standard of workmanship look shamefully slapdash. But apart from highlighting my shortcomings they also illustrate that everybody gets trapped in a fairing hell where, even as you eradicate uneven areas more appear and then more. Endless expanses of imperfect plywood stretch before you. Epoxy dust swirls, foxes even the protective clothing, laying a fine layer that dries your skin and clogs your hair. It intrudes on your dreams. It gets up your nose.

Ozzyc and Greg have been fairing their GT 23 Cruiser from Bateau.com for 9 months, not surprisingly they are getting pretty tired of it. And Peter Gron’s building Sam Devlin’s Artic tern. He’s been on one ten day sanding fest and had another mammoth bout when he faired the hull last year. Eric, who’s building Nina, a 22ft motor boat also from Bateau.com, hasn’t reached the fairing stage yet but he’s done some very neat epoxy work which will almost certainly give him less sanding to do when the time comes. Serious workmanship to be found on all three sites.

But while fairing is without doubt unpleasant and monotonous it’s also surprisingly difficult to stop. I reach my threshold everyday, but the morning after, in the workshop afresh, there’s energy to go round the boat one more time. This afternoon however, having been round countless times over the past few days and having gone from100 grit to 150 it suddenly wasn’t good enough, and I went back to square one, starting with the 80 grit that really munches. And I returned to block sanding by hand. The machines are just too noisy; they judder, they whine, they make an unsavoury job unbearable. And it’s just plain uncivilised to make that much noise after lunch, it echoes off the buildings, rips through the post-prandial peace of the sacred siesta. Easy going my neighbours may be but they won’t tolerate an interrupted siesta and I don’t blame them.

Using a block sander may be slower but it is also more accurate, less likely to chomp right through the epoxy and into the wood and it allows my mind to wander idly as my hand, rubs, rubs, rubs.

So while the sanding block moved in small circles over Onawind Blue’s sides leaving myriad thin scratches like the tracks of Lilliputian ice skaters, I mused on the perfectionist in me. Or rather his absence. He probably upped sticks, disillusioned, one Monday morning in my 20’s as I lay dozing in a Barcelona hangover. I suppose the entrepreneur in me went with him, along with the business acumen and that sensible chap who pays his bills on time.

My fair lady

I’ve been through a small stack of sand paper, generated a lot of dust and my ears are still ringing with the orbital sander’s shrill whine. Bertie belt sander sat grumpily on the bench, annoyed that he wasn’t allowed free reign to gouge some divots in the hull.

Onawind Blue is some way to being fair. I recoated the reasonably smooth surface with lightly thickened epoxy and if I can manage another couple of hours in a dust cloud when that coat has fully cured I should have a hull that’s ready for painting.

Looking back through my list, of a few posts ago, I’m just ticking off point five and, looking ahead, point six should get a tick before the end of the week.

Last weekend brought many comments from passers-by, and even the local police force was good enough to send round a double act for my entertainment. Our brief conversation went something like this.

Policeman 1: Bonjour. (He knows I’m not Spanish but can’t quite pin me down)

Me: Hola.

Policeman 1: What this then? A water-going vessel?

Me: Yes, a boat.

Policeman 1: Wood won’t be strong enough. It won’t hold up to the force of the waves.

Me: But all boats were once made of wood.

Policeman 1: Yes, but it was big, thick wood. This stuff is too flimsy. It’s very irregular making a boat with such thin wood, this stuff isn’t for boats, it’s for furniture.

Me: I’m sure it will be fine.

Policeman 1: I wouldn’t go out in it.

Policeman 2: Glug, glug, glug…

Policeman 1: Au revoir.

Policeman 2: (Looking back over his shoulder) Glug, glug, glug.

And not a word about these fine lines.