Four out of five isn’t bad.

I have been an assistant to Geoff Kerr in building the Annapolis Wherry kit boats.  First of all let me tell you about Geoff.  I can’t give you a web site to go to but you can Google his name or Two Daughters Boat and find him.  He is my favorite instructor at the Wooden Boat School.  Of course that is similar to picking out your favorite out a box of chocolate candy.  I have had two previous courses with him where we built plywood glue lap strake boats.  So I have now taken four courses in lap strake construction, helping Geoff makes it five.  It has been very interesting to see how the instructors taught the same construction method.  After all of the courses I have found Geoff and I share the philosophy; you get it close, fill it full of glue and go sailing. 

I have found in my professional life, in boat building and furniture making; the true challenge comes in from figuring how to correct a mistake.  Nothing is ever done perfect.  I have always said if I could ever do a perfect job with absolutely no mistakes on my part, the contractor’s part or the subcontractors’ part I would claim victory and quit.  One of the more interesting things about attending classes at the Wooden Boat School is seeing how the instructors correct mistakes in the boats.  You can believe me that there people who take these courses that don’t know which end of a hammer to hold.  So this week Geoff taught 8 people how to build a boat and built a boat for one poor soul who didn’t have a clue.  This class was in interesting mix of people from all different walks of life.  We had a doctor, lawyer, hospital chief, Air Force General, along with the usual assortment of engineers, accounts and retired people.  One of my favorite people was an older (hell anyone older than me has to be damn old) retired mechanical engineer from Canada.  Mechanical engineers can be challenges at the Wooden Boat School because they like to work to the nearest thousandth of an inch.  Boat building is more about getting it close, saying it looks pretty and going on to the next phase.  So when you start trying to measure to .001” on material that changes dimension from the start of the day to end of the day it just drives them crazy.    This guy did not suffer from this addiction.  He had extremely good hand skills.  He had trouble with clamps because of arthritis in his hands, so I made it a point to be around to help him thru those stages.  His wife died a few years back and he spends most of his time working with a group in his church helping rework furniture for charity groups.  There are a lot of good underappreciated people in the world. 

The Annapolis Wherry is a boat “kit” that comes for Chesapeake Light Craft.  www.clcboats.com  There were nine of them on the floor in boxes last Sunday night.  At noon on Saturday boats were loaded on the tops of cars, trailers and in shipping crates to go home with nine people.  Geoff told everyone the first day that they would finish their boat by the end of the week but they had to be finished with certain steps each day to be finished and we would stay until those steps were finished.  There was one night we went to 7:00 to stay on schedule.  Which Geoff had predicted for that day.  At the end of the week I felt like I had been doing two-a-days before football season.  I was basically helping anyone who was a little slower than the rest or helping speed things up by mixing epoxy so they didn’t have to stop to do that.  The boats everyone took home were not finished by any stretch of the imagination.  Yes you could take them out and they would float and you could paddle them around but they were pretty ugly boats.  They have to be finished at home.  So they need a lot of sanding and painting to become pretty boats. 

Four of the Five days of the class was a lot of fun.  On Thursday I spent about 2 hours mixing epoxy which you have to stir each batch for about five minutes.  On Friday morning I woke up with a sore finger and realized I had probably over done it in the mixing department.  Well about 10:00 I had developed a small blister, about 12:00 a large blister.  After draining the blister and a Band-Aid I kept going.  About 5:00 it is blue up to the first joint and hurting.  On Sunday morning it is bloody puss (gross) draining.  The three day rule kicks in and I headed to Blue Hill ER.  A quick look, twenty minutes of questions, fill out paper work, get insurance and identification information, I get a prescription for antibiotics and out the door.  I have designed a lot of ER departments as an engineer but this is the first one I have ever seen that had windows in the exam room. 

We are looking forward to our week of sailing next week.  The forecast is for upper 60’s and 10 to 15 knot winds.  Should be a good week.

PS.  The “Three Day Rule” is if you have something wrong with you and it isn’t better by the third day you need to go to a doctor.  About 90% if it isn’t better after three days it isn’t going to get any better without professional help.  If you haven’t adopted that rule you need to.  You never want to be too sick to go to the doctor.