The list

Before Johnny Cash died, he gave his daughter Rosanne a list of, in his opinion, the most influential songs of  his life time. Cash made it a point to make sure Rosanne recorded  some of these songs, and having  heard many cuts from her album, "The List", I can say its a good one. My list has finally been written regarding the old boat build, and it consisted of : #1- Finish painting the super structure. I now wonder why its taken me so long to  finally put together a list now that I have finally checked the list clean.... Im finished painting the super structure. The paint pot is on the back shelf, the boat is unwrapped, the shop has had two months wort of sand blasting, grinding, and over spray blown out of it. You know its dirty in your shop when you have to use a leaf blower to clean it out.

I guess this is a milestone of sorts for me as I really now feel I"m on the down slope run of this whole deal. No more of the feeling of "this sucks" that I was beginning to feel as I kept attacking the paint job. No more blowing the dust off of me as I call it a night. The other night on  Wednesday, I painted until 1:00 am just so I could get this monkey off my back. Oh well, time to move forward.

The paint turned out pretty good, and Im for the most part happy with it. I have a bit of orange peel going on, but its not to deep, and can be wet sanded out. Although a bit late now, I  need to understand what causes orange peel. I think its from not applying a heavy enough coat. Ive had problems with this paint not atomizing the way I think it should, so maybe theres more  going on with the problem being a few small details.  The wheel house looks excellent, and the aft deck also looks good.

I took a picture of the wheel house where you can also see the fore deck hand rails. when I put the hand rails together, I matched  the angle of the hand rail stanchion to the reverse rake of the wheel house windows. Now that everything is painted it finally shows proud, and I like the detail. Maybe Ive been hanging around the paint fumes too much, but I think matching the angle is nice detail vs a plumb stanchion.

Just because I wanted to see how some more finish work would look, I put a few windows in their openings. The white Im using is actually an off white. The dark windows make it look more pure white, but theres no  denying the windows look sharp in their openings. Im so glad I went with radius corners.

Like I said before, all the remnants, tools and reminders of the paint job are put back where they belong. My weather window is fast closing on me, but Im determined to get her to the launch site before the calender says its too risky. The earliest Ill be ready is in about three weeks. The ideal schedule for me would be to have the hull to the boat  yard on a Wednesday, the super structure the next day on Thursday, and crane the super structure in place on a Friday. This would leave me the weekend to weld the two together, then back to work on Monday. If all goes relatively well, I should be ready to  go in about three weeks, but as I know too well things change. Before Thanksgiving would be the ticket, but early December also works. Like I said before, Im cutting it close. Hopefully, some global warming will come my way and give me decent weather to work with.

Anyway, the list has been checked off.

Cheers 

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The skiff list DETAILS

When staring to work on a flats boat skiff design you have to make up a weight list to know in advance what is going into and on your skiff. With this you get an idea what its going to cost after sourcing out your parts and materials. Also if you can weigh each piece in advance then you can work with this on your new design. The thing to realize is that 98% of what you see on the below list is what will go on most all skiffs in the 12 -25 range and upwards. The only differences will be rub rails and engines.

Every thing else will be small sutilties. But it maters when you want to have a skiff weigh out all up in the 600-700 lb. range. It also matters in all kinds of other boats like high performance sailboats , multihulls and anything that wants to be fast with low horse power. So get a good scale and start weighing every thing and make your list. I would print up mine here for you but I cant find it right now.

When I was in business for myself I used  to make up these parts lists and price all my whole sale vendors against each other to see who had the best deals. This really played out well when building  over $400,000.00 in boats a month. Doing a one off today in your garage its best to find a freind in the business and see if you can get stuff from them at a good break in cost. Today on the Internet you can find all kinds of good deals but you have to take the time to do this. I am always looking through old boatyards for deals to be found. It helps to be thinking years or projects in advance.

This list is blurry here. If you can see it the prices are old but gives you an idea of whats up.

I will post all these drawings on my facebook photo page as they are real clear there.

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My dinghy cruising packing list

Ive been doing quite a bit of dinghy cruising this year. So much so that I havent had much time to write about it, sorry.

Ive gotten my packing routine down to the point where I feel its getting quite efficient.  I always bring the same items and store them in the same place for every trip.  A little organization goes a long way when it comes time to find something.  I try to bring only what I need, and use items for multiple purposes whenever possible.  I only bring extras of items that are crucial.

It really bugs me to have things out where I have to walk on or around them, so I store everything in the lockers and under the thwarts and side decks. Once everything is packed away, it looks like Im not bringing anything at all.  Thats not easy to do in an open boat.

Here is the packing list that I use.  This first page shows where on the boat I store everything.   Many of the items are stored in bags.  I use soft-sided cooler bags for food and water, duffel bags and backpacks for clothing, and dry bags for electronics. Page 2 shows the contents of each bag.

Most of this stuff stays on the boat permanently.  Usually all I have to pack for a trip is food and clothes.

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