Opinions are like assholes...

Everyone's got one.

Every now and then I'll ask a boat-related question on a public forum or email list.  It sure isn't a problem getting people to weigh in with their opinion, that's for sure.  The challenge, actually, is picking through the dross of misunderstanding, inaccurate information, speculation, and completely made-up answers to find the grains of expertise and knowledge.

This is precisely why I picked the boat designer I did, because they has already provided me with a wealth of trustworthy and well-respected information about boatbuilding before I ever bought my plans (read Boat Plans: Choices Made and Not Made).

For the most part, during my build, I've hewed pretty close to the plans and the recommendations of the boat's designer.  I'm all for experimentation, but I'm also deeply respectful of the experience and expertise of those who came before me.

In the planning stages, there were boats I liked that came close to what I wanted, but differed in some way from my vision of our little shantyboat.  I definitely flirted with the idea of taking those plans and making significant modifications.

I resisted that urge, for the most part, and picked a boat design that met my needs, at least in terms of hull design.  

For the changes I did plan to make, I had the good fortune to be able to talk to my boat's naval architect and get his advice on these modifications (read Questions for the Old Man).

The opinion in boatbuilding forums is often to take this design and lengthen it, or add one of those or one of these.  And I'm sure for those experienced boatbuilders, such modifications would be a breeze.  But what about the first-time boatbuilder, the person just starting out?

I think people get excited sometimes about sharing what they know, but forget that there is a bigger picture.  Too often, I think that picture holds the very real possibility of a half-built boat collecting rainwater in the backyard of a frustrated amateur boatbuilder.

Side Stringers

The side stringers are the sides of the boat.  So far everything we've been doing was stuff inside; here we finally tackle something that will ultimately keep water out.  Yikes!  And because of the complexity of the build and our boat-tardedness,  it took us about seven hours per side to assemble.

In our last build day, we finished assembling the keel stringer and the two skeg stringers.  We used the plywood  cut for the side stringers as a pattern to ensure that all of the stringers would be identical(ish). 

I'll spell a few things out here so you can appreciate the challenge of assembling the side stringers:

• The plywood for the sides was in 3 big pieces; 
• There were two long (and slightly warped) pieces for the top and bottom, and two end pieces cut at a slightly incorrect angle (remember that pesky 3 degrees?); 
• Once the pieces are coated in thickened epoxy, everything is slipperier than a greased pig; 
• And to top it all off, all screws holding it all together needed to go in from the outside (plywood side) with all the loosey goosey bits skittering around underneath as we try to put in screws from above.

Pretty much a recipe for disaster.

We hit on a helpful idea:  Temporary screws from the inside.  We could butter it up, put the pieces in place, and use temporary screws all the way through the two-by pieces and the plywood to hold everything together.  Then we can flip the whole thing over and put all the permanent screws in the plywood from the outside.  Later we remove the temporary screws.

Okay!  Sounds like a plan.  Or a sketch of a plan.  A lot of critical things needed to go right, so we made a step-by-step plan.  Later referred to in arguments during the day as "The Plan."  As in "Stick to The Plan!" or "Oh God, are we changing The Plan?"

The Plan was the thin dividing line between slightly stressful work and sheer madness.  The illustration on the corner of The Plan was what we didn't want to happen.

So we did the usual and put wax paper under everything, and coated everything with the first thin coat of epoxy.  This is more like painting, familiar, and not too hectic.

Then we tackled the butt blocks.  This is where the sheets of plywood that form the sides meet.  We put these in first, because we wanted to make sure that when we started attaching the two-by pieces the plywood wouldn't move or shift.  The butt blocks are six inches wide, buttered liberally with thickened epoxy (including between the two ends of the plywood) and secured with an assload of screws.

Then we got serious and epoxied all the two-by bit, including all of the ends where they would meet each other.  We secured them down temporarily with long deck screws to the plywood (and accidentally to the floor in a few places).

In a harrowing effort (would it stay together?!) we flipped the stringer over so the plywood side was facing up.  Now we could put in all of the stainless steel screws required by the plan.  A screw every two or three inches.  That's a lot.

At this point, we are tired, probably dehydrated, covered in sticky epoxy, tangled in extension cords, our hair is falling in our eyes as we bend down, and little flies have decided that now would be a good time to investigate our nose and ears.  Our latex gloves are torn and getting tangled in the drill bit as it turns, the screws are not very sharp and so are not going in very readily, and there is still a lot of work to be done before the epoxy completely sets.  Just wanted to set the scene here.

But naturally, we handled it with superhuman grace, no one got frustrated whatsoever, and we maintained our amazing good humor throughout.  Any stories you hear to the contrary are lies made up by our enemies to slander us.

Kai hit on the brilliant idea to start the screws in the proper location with a few knocks of the hammer.  So she went around, ahead of the drill, putting in screws at the requisite distance, staggering them as necessary.  Again, we'd discovered the razor edge of sanity and found the narrow path just this side of it.

So in the end, we had a side stringer.  And after another long day, we had two side stringers.  Woot. 

Here, all five stringers are in place.  The cross beams connecting them are a sneak preview of the next build day.  

Again, looking at our work at the end of the day, the boat is much more boaty.

Making Sawdust

The whole process of building a boat involves cutting a lot of lumber, but at the beginning there were whole days of doing nothing but.

The plans called for kiln-dried or air-dried lumber of no more than 12% moisture.  I live in the hills of Northern California which at times is like living in a rain forest, so that seemed unlikely.  In terms of what species of lumber, what tree: there was a long list of species that would work and a long list of ones that would not.  Doug fir is the most commonly available light, strong construction lumber on the west coast and was on the okay list.  So this began with a treasure hunt to find just the right lumber to build the frame of the boat that would not be ridiculously expensive.

The reason for the specificity of tree and moisture content of the lumber had to do with the epoxy that would be used to bind it all together.  Every joint and every plywood seam and every place where plywood contacts a member gets epoxied. Epoxy won't bind well if the lumber is green, wet, or is of a species of wood that is high in natural oils.

After a little research, I found that our local lumber company, what used to be San Lorenzo Lumber (now ProBuilt), had in one of their yards kiln-dried Doug Fir that was not much more expensive than the green wood they normally sell for construction.  Sweet.  Three hundred dollars of wood later, my old work truck was loaded with boat lumber and headed up to E. Zayante where the boat was being built.

Generally, I had big long 16 and 20 foot 2x4 lengths.  The boat has a 20 foot long top deck, and because of the rake at the ends, is 16 foot along the bottom.  There are also 8 foot long beams across the boat ("athwartship" in boatbuilding-speak) and a bunch of little stuff that would be ends, posts, etcetera. 

But the plans called for ripping every piece to some new width, some 3 inches wide some 2-1/2.  A finish 2x4 from the lumberyard is actually 3-1/2 x 1-1/2 with smooth rounded corners.  Instead of taking a half inch off of a side to make a 3 inch thick piece, the plans called for taking off a 1/4 inch on either side.  The reason for this is sensible:  Cutting off the rounded edges of the lumber makes a better joint when it is epoxied.

So we spent a whole day feeding 16 and 20 foot long lengths of lumber into the tablesaw... twice. We made lots and lots of sawdust.

Then we cut a bunch of stuff to length, labeled it, and voila.  At the end of the day, we had a pile of lumber that we intended to turn into a boat.

Questions for the Old Man

I didn't expect myself to be talking to the old man, the designer himself, bouncing my dumb ideas off him and hearing the edge of concern in his voice.

I bought our Shantyboat plans from Glen-L Marine.  The company was started by and named after Glen L. Witt, a boat designer who's been designing boats for over 50 years.  When other boat designers needed to give people in-depth information about plywood boats or about fiberglass, they referred me to Glen Witt's books on the subjects.  This is one of the reasons I went with the Glen-L plans.

From the 50s-era Glen-L Marine calendar.

Glen Witt is now retired in his 80s, and the company is run by his daughter Gayle.  When I emailed questions, Gayle herself personally and graciously answered them.  When I ordered stuff, it arrived quickly on my doorstep in good condition, exactly as described.  Okay, what more could I want, right?

This week, I had a question about materials needed to complete the Waterlodge plans.  I was on my way to the lumberyard, so I didn't have time to wait around for an email.  I called up Glen-L expecting to talk to some random employee.  Gayle answered the phone, and fielded my questions deftly, clearly familiar with this design, one of hundreds they offer.

I thought this might be an opportunity to get something off my mind.  We'd made changes to the design, and I really wanted to get the assurance of someone who knew better before we moved forward.  We'd messed up Glen Witt's perfectly elegant design with the following changes:

• Reduced the size of the cabin by two feet to get a longer fore deck.
• Put a covered porch over the fore and aft decks
• Raised the cabin height by a foot to get more head room on the decks (and a sleeping loft in the cabin)
• Replaced the cabin roof with a gabled roof
• Added more and larger windows
• And proposed to build the cabin with board and batten for a traditional cabin-y look

Could Gayle answer these questions, or could she put some experienced boatbuilder on the phone to field my questions? Instead she said, "Well hold on, let me put Glen on the phone."

There was a little delay in which I had time to be a little star struck.   You mean the Glen L. whose plans I'd been studying for a year?  Who wrote what appears to be the bible on plywood boats?  Was I really going to have to tell him how I was planning on ruining his perfectly good plans with my modifications?

An older man came on the phone, "Hello?"

I asked my questions to which most he replied, "Well, if you want to do that."  Though I expected something more like, "Good God, are you trying to be killed?"

But no, we talked about the height of the roof, in which his suggestion was to keep the weight low, and suggested that the "fair lines" of the boat were less important than the appearance I was looking for.  He had a concern about the weight of board and battens,. a concern which I shared.  I asked a few more questions about weight distribution and stuff, all of which he answered politely and knowledgeably. 

Overall, I think I received his cautious stamp of approval.

Karaoke Doodles

So far, I've ignored the inside cabin layout, thinking that it would sort itself out eventually.  But I got thinking, and with a few beers started doodling.  I went to the normally quiet Trout Farm on Zayante Road (the same road on which we will build the shantyboat).  Unbeknownst to me, it was karaoke night at the Trout Farm and so I did my sketches and drank beer while people sang Bonnie Raitt and Sam Cooke. 

As you can see, the beer was liberally applied, and not just to me.

First thing I noticed was that in all my previous drawings I forget the head. Then I had to figure out a good place for it.  We will bump it out on to the deck a bit and bump it into the room a bit for a 3 x 3 foot head.  Probably better on the back deck, just because the bump out looks a little funny in front.

So there are three things that need to be located in a corner:  the head, the galley, and the woodstove.  Actually, the woodstove could go in the middle of a side wall, but it might be in the way.

I have the front door swing out because swinging in on a step down is weird and dangerous.  The back door swings in (despite the step) because otherwise it would interfere to much with whatever's happening on the back deck.

Beyond Napkin Plans

I’m trying to turn my shantyboat speculations into something that feels a little bit more tangible.

Ooo, graph paper!  Getting fancy now.  When I sketch it out proportionally, the shanty boat is less long and skinny than I had drawn it.  In fact, it looks like a tiny shanty.  On a boat.

I'd kind of like to make the cabin a little more squat, which I can afford to do since I've dropped the cabin floor a foot or more below the level of the decks.  However, I am limited by a funny thing:  The head height of the porches.  They need to be at least 6 foot at the lowest part (and even that's pushing it a bit and likely to bonk any of my NBA friends).

There was some concern about balance with the cabin shifted back from center a bit.  Mostly that is to give us a big fine front porch and it only shifts the cabin back about two feet.  Plus I heard a boatbuilder suggestion to shift weight toward the back.  It lifts the bow and allows you to take oncoming chop a bit better.

Oh shit, and why do I keep forgetting the head?  There is a little 1-1/2 deep x 3 foot wide bump out along the front (or maybe the back) where the head goes.  Looking at it here, probably the back would be a bit more aesthetically pleasing.  It bumps into the interior a foot and half also to make a tiny 3 x 3 foot bathroom.

The interior is 10' x 8'.

A little SketchUp magic and Voila!

 

Nice.  I’m liking the look of this.  Now, I just need to get myself a border collie.

Folding Gable Ends

We were aware that this beast with its generously gabled roof would be pretty tall.  Especially on a flatbed.  So I worked on some mechanism that would allow the gabled roof to fold down flat.  The question is:  How can you fold down the gables and then the two roof sections without anything binding?

I came up with a solution that I liked.  The gable end walls are a little shorter, so the gable ends can fold down without binding the roof sections.

If the roof sections themselves are in danger of binding (which I doubt since their overlap is minimal), the two side roof sections could be slightly different heights, though this might introduce other problems or look weird.