Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

This is supposed to be a Winter Project. And, since it's only the tag-end of August; I'm sort of rushing the gate. Just a bit. But some things happen on their own schedule. Apparently, this will be one of those.

Speaking of winter. Whenever it gets here, this will be our seventh one, living on the hard, here in Almostcanada. If I measure that in boats; I get a bit misty eyed. I've turned something like two or three out for each of those 6 prior winters. And, other than just a couple, none of those girls are still with us. They've all gone off to other homes. Well, not quite all of 'em. But, enough have left the fleet that I think this is the floating equivalent of the Empty Nest Syndrome. I started getting serious about reducing the fleet last spring. Kate sort of took me to task, and pointed out that one guy really can't "use" more than a dozen boats. And, she was probably right. In a fit of rational thinking, I started giving boats away. And, trailers. And, motors. Then, an ancient scientific principle took charge of things. Osmosis.

You'll remember osmosis from your high school physics class. Where stuff, like water molecules for instance, goes from a greater to a lesser concentration. So, it was just a natural, scientific fact. If there were more boats out in the world, and I had fewer of 'em. They'd just naturally show up around here. It's science. And, inevitable.

Speaking of science. My personal academic background is in what the engineer types call the "soft sciences." Psychology. And, I'm pretty sure they're right. It's not the same as building a highway bridge or a moon rocket. But, we "behavioral" guys do have our place in the world. And, this particular boat project is sort of a case in point. If you want somebody to accept an outrageous idea; you have to get 'em to identify with it. So, I dug down into my vast store of scientific fact, and figured that if I named this next boat after Kate, I'd get that necessary buy-in. OK. Not totally brilliant, or particularly original. But.

But, I really do think this one is gonna' be worthy of being a namesake of the Lovely and Talented Kate. Except for the fact that I can't seem to decide what it's gonna' look like. I've got the name already stenciled on my forehead. I even have the girly-flowery typeface picked out. Even the hull and trim colors. All I gotta' do is settle a small issue of what kind of boat this is supposed to be. In the vast pantheon of Frankenbot possibilities; this current project hull is a real gem. It started out as a pretty respectable 21-foot keel boat from the early-Golden Age of fiberglass sailboats. An interesting sheer. Svelte prismatic. Nice deck contour details. And, almost best of all: a designed-in motor well in the lazarette. Sometime in her past, somebody allowed a large quantity of water to collect in the bilge, and freeze. The keel was split wide open. And, she'd been apparently gouged by sharp stuff alongside a dock or rock pile. There are quite a few deep cuts and other bruises to be repaired. But, under all that, is a hull that simply shouts, "easily driven, seakindly, and above all, elegant." So, there you have it.

Miss Kathleen. She's either gonna' be reborn as a Victorian Launch, Edwardian Gentleman's Launch, or a pocket troller. Sort of a big range of possibilities.

The Victorian Launch would resemble this commercial version of what is called a "hunter cabin launch." Something like this.

Or, this.

The Gentleman's Launch has an aft cabin, with period-piece joinery and brightwork. Sort of like this.

Another pretty cool notion. But, just when I think I've got the matter settled. There's this little Paulsbo Boat, that was rehabbed and transmogrified by Marty Loken, in Port Townsend, WA 15 or more years ago. As it happens, I had Lady Bug on display right next to that very boat in July during the Pocket Yacht Palooza. Little Salty is a real looker. And, I can come up with a list of reasons why Miss Kathleen could look a lot like this.

But, that's still a way in the future. First off, there is the not-so-small matter of the keelectomy operation that I performed a while back. First order of business is to suture the wound. At first, I figured that I could sort of just put the hull on the shop floor. Tip it up, and glass over the stump. But, this hull still weighs a half-ton and is three and a half fathoms from stemhead to transom. Kind of a big package to be swinging around casually. So, sanity prevailed, and I decided to do the initial glass work while still on the trailer. Sheesh!

My Social Security card says that I shouldn't be clambering around in a rusty jungle gym with a grinder, and saw, and gooey glumpy slabs of "pox & cloth. And, my knees agree with this. But, sometimes there's just not a better idea. So, I went from this.

To this.

To the operating table.

Knees and birth date notwithstanding, I think I've got a plan together that's gonna' work. The board that's sitting on a pair of floor jacks (that are sitting on another board, that's sitting on the trailer frame) is actually a sort of pallet. More a serving platter. It has Saran Wrap on it as a release agent, and is holding the first layer-of many to come-of 'pox and glass, while it cures. Hopefully, the keel stump will become a bit of vestigial fin to keep the bow from sliding shamelessly off to leeward. And a place to put some of that 750 pounds of ballast back into. Anyhow, that's what I ginned up this morning, before breakfast. I imagine that there is a whole bunch of work yet to be done, before I get much buy-in from Kate. But, you never know.

I was just looking out the kitchen window, waiting for the coffee pot to “go into radiate”, and for the sun to come up.  A chapter from a Jack London tome read in boyhood keeps coming back.  London is describing the tenacity of an Alaskan sled dog.  Somehow, once broken to the traces, a dog will gamely crawl back into his place-in-line even with a broken leg.  The only way to reward such loyalty, was to shoot the dog.

I’m feeling very much like one of those dogs, at the moment.

The night shift ran until close to midnight.  And, if I could only bend my fingers enough to hold a cup, I’d take one with me out to the shop - as the pre-dawn darkness turns to lighter gray.  I’m buried in a project that makes perfect sense to me.  This current Frankenbot initiative is one that I have daydreamed about for half-dozen years.  And yet.

I came in the house late last night, covered in metal-grinding dust and had Corpsman Kate extract a small cinder that I had allowed to lodge in one eye during a moment of inattention.  I had continued to run the Sawzall without putting my goggles back on, after inspecting the cut line.  Instead of, “there, there, now, now.”  All she had to say, was, “Maybe you should give this one up…”

No.  At least, not yet.  Much like an accomplished sculptor would see his final opus in his mind’s eye by simply fondling the block of marble; I’m quite certain this will make a quite lovely boat.  But, what a stopper in the bottle things have become at this current stage of the game.

Like so many of these holdups, the whole problem was condensed to one or two lines on the shop whiteboard (where the Planning Department guys write up the marching orders.)  “1.  Remove ¼” steel plate reinforcement web and keel cradle from trailer.  2.  Lower hull supports, create new hull-support bunks, paint trailer, remount hull…”

Didn’t look all that hard.  But Jeez!

Hours and hours of crawling under that boat, and finding a perch inside the trailer frame while turning Sawzall blades into crumpled, burned up, smooth-toothed remnants; resulted in a small (but growing) pile of heavy steel chunks, slivers, slag, and a distorted pipe wrench.

My supply of cutting wheels and grinding discs had also migrated to the detritus on the floor.  The whole idea was to get Miss Kathleen lower to the ground, now that a once-deep keel has been reduced to a vestigial stub.  And, I hasten to add, that particular process of cauterizing that rather gaping wound was accomplished from the same ergonomically challenged perch(s) from under the hull and inside the trailer frame as the cutting and grinding of last night’s Masochism Tango.

Ah, well.  Almost ready to move on to Number Two on the white board.  Just the small matter of needing to hang the boat in the air for a couple days while I figure this one out.

A brand new chapter in the ongoing saga of building Frankenbot’s on-the-fly.  By the way, anybody seen a Husky, with a busted leg?

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