Hold my beverage whilst you observe this

This is just too good not to post.  There is a couple in our sailing class, he is from London.  We were talking about something a couple of days ago and I said that is one of those “hold my beer and watch this” moments.  He cracked up and thought it was the funniest thing he had heard in a while.  So every sailing move that got messed up he has call it a “hold my beer and watch this” move.  The funny part is his heavy English accent saying “hold my beer and watch this”.  It is quite the show!  I am thinking tomorrow I will have to try “hold my beverage whilst you observe this”.  

I had to come back and edit this.  The correct way to say it, according to Rob and Anne, is "I say old man, hold my pint whilst I butcher this".  Yea they had to explain it me.  You will just have to figure it out.

Worth the price of admission

What a day.  We were out sailing around with “ALL” the windjammers in Maine.  When I say all I literally mean every one of them.  The captain of our boat had been captain on several of them over the years.  So he filled us in on who built each one, who had owned it, how well it sailed and countless other details.  The wind was steady, skies were blue, and temperature was cool enough for Carole.  Life was good.

OK I will save you from having to look at all 86 photos but only because of the connection speed.  This is just a sample of what we saw.

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.  

Catching up

Wow did I get behind.

You can really waste away the time in Maine.  Actually I was in class the week after Paul and Kittie were here.  The course was in Strip Plank Composite Construction.  I wonder if I took the cost of the course and the expense of being here off on my income tax would the IRS ever realize it had nothing to do with work.  The title certainly sounds like work, doesn’t it.  The course was a lot of fun, the people in the course were fun and the group really clicked together.  There was a guy named Robert from New York, after the first few minutes I told myself this guy is going to be a real pain in the lower anatomy.  First impressions can be so wrong.  He was a lot fun to be around.  On the other side there was Buddy from Arkansas who appeared to be more fun than a barrel of monkey and he was.  We had one girl in the class, a twenty something girl who works in a custom furniture shop in Canada.  That girl could really use hand tools.  She put most of us to shame.  I wanted to adopt her but she liked her dad and would only allow me to be her Uncle.  There is nothing wrong with a smart good looking girl.  I know because I married one 44 years ago last week.

Ok the course was about using 1/4”x3/4” wood strips bending them around forms, gluing the edges together and stapling them to the forms.  After you generate the shape then you sand the outside smooth (I was hearing Clint saying it needs a little more sanding in my sleep) and cover it with fiberglass.  I have never done any fiberglass work so I was very interested in how it would go.  Clint was a great instructor and showed us how to do it so it was easy.  www.clintchaseboatbuilder.com  Clint is about the same age as our boys.  He is officially the youngest instructor at the school.  After you do the outside then you flip it over take out the forms and SAND AGAIN.  I think I have been traumatized by sand paper.  Then you glass the inside.  Robert will be taking the boat home with him to finish out the inside.  He has promised us photos as he proceeds with the project.  Robert will be back with his trailer in a couple of weeks to pick up the boat and take Harry Bryan’s class on building your own hand tools.  Harry only does one class a year now and is somewhat of a legend in the wooden boat community. He was the instructor for my first class I had at the school eight years ago. 

Larry, Julie, Andy and Joann arrived last Friday.  We had a lot of fun days hanging out together.  We are in the F150 so Carole will have plenty of space to bring things home.  (We also have Kittie, Julie and Joann containers to bring home now.)  Anyway all of us wouldn’t fit in the F150.  Andy rented a Hyundai cross over that seated five, so one of us would crawl in the back for trips.  We looked like a bunch of high school kids crawling out of the vehicle, with us all laughing and having a good time.  These were not short trips.  One was to Liberty to look at used tools (guy side of the street) and tee shirts (girl side of the street).  The tee shirts are second and real bargains.  Everyone has a Maine tee shirt now.  Andy has one with half a sleeve.  Well they are seconds!  Andy and I made the trip to Bath to the museum.  It has been several years since I was there so I enjoyed seeing what I had forgotten about.  We also did a trip thru the Bath Iron Works where they are building destroyers for the Navy.  No cameras or cell phones allowed so you aren’t going to get any photo.  Andy and I tried to go sailing at the school but the winds were too strong.  We would have needed to reef down and the school won’t let you go out when reefs are required.  They are concerned that if you don’t do it correctly you can rip a hole in the sail.  They all left yesterday and Carole spent most of the day doing laundry.  Clean towels and sheets all around.  I got a chance to operate the vacuum.  We are geared up for the next group to arrive now.

I meet this really interesting and cute couple who live in Florida via Seattle and Maine.  Their goal is to build a boat and go sailing.  Here is a link to her blog.  http://www.isoldmypearlstodoit.com/  I plan on following her blog to see how it goes.  She is a good writer and writes interesting blogs with far better use of English than my blog.

PS  I was several days late posting this because of connection speeds.  This was written last week and it took about an hour to load the photos.  You just have to love 60k internet connections.  

Fame and Fortune

My picture is on the wall!  We went to Brooklin Inn for dinner last night with Paul and Kittie.  Paul was reading things that were framed on the walls and saw my photo.  It is from a New York Times article that was done in 2009 about Brooklin and the boat school.  I told the hostess she needed to take good care of me because I was famous and she had my photo on the wall.  In a few minutes all of the staff had come by to comment on my photo.  They told me to be sure and come back to see the inn keeper.  That is no problem.  There are only two restaurants in town. Ms. Carole isn't going to cook that much.  

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/travel/escapes/21Amer.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.levart#

Don't get in the big boat contest

This boat came into the harbor yesterday.  It has 5 spreaders on the mast, our 47 has 2.  The boats in the foreground and background are 40 footers.  Anytime you get to feeling very good about having a nice boat, someone come rolling in put you down bad.  

The photo says it all

Once the fog cleared this is the view we have off the back porch.  I don’t think is necessary to add a lot of description, the photo says it all.

Paul and Kittie Messer arrived on Monday.  A little later than planned.  Seems like someone (it is still being debated who) didn’t remember that Chattanooga was on Eastern Time.  We have spent the last couple of days catching up, eating lobsters, and discussing solutions to all the worlds problems.  Today we are off to explore the coast today and find the “best” fried clams on the coast.